Meeting Harry

Today was epic enough that I decided I can spare a moment and the brainpower necessary to post something for all 3 of you to read.

I met Harry Gregson-Williams today. As part of the graduate film scoring class at USC, we went to his studio in Venice and had a little chat with him and his crew.

He showed us all his cool gadgets and even let us see a clip of what he's working on right now. He played us some of his best music and even broke it down for us to hear some of the unique parts that make it up. He treated us all to pizza and let us spend an hour or so walking around the studio, chatting with him and his crew, and perusing his vast collection of scores... and trophies...

You might ask why this is such a big deal for me, even to the point that I would make a blog post about it.

Let me tell you.

The score to the film ANTZ, which came out 12 years ago, is what inspired me to become a film composer. Harry wrote that score. I told him that and he replied with several cool stories about the recording process to that film.

And many other films that are on my list of all time favorites. His work is hugely responsible for my realization that I wanted to do the exact same thing for the rest of my life. The man is basically my childhood hero, and today I got to talk to him. In friggen' person!

Today I held in my hands an enormous book that contains the entire original score to The Chronicles of Narnia. I spent a half hour reading through my favorite scenes. It was awesome to see how all the music from such a huge film as that was written.

For those of you unfamiliar with film music, it's a pretty big deal to be able to see an original score of any film, especially one so awesome as Narnia. I love that movie.

It was just an incredible experience for me. Everything that was previously just vague ideas in the back of my mind about what big film music must be like has suddenly become very clear. Awesome.

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