Lorne Balfe has had an incredibly exciting 2023 working on some of the most successful blockbusters including Dungeons and Dragons, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning and now Gran Turismo. We sat down with Lorne to discuss the scores for the films, how he balances his workload and moving from films to video games…
Were you familiar with the Gran Tursimo games?
No, I’ve not played them, but I know them very well. I have a son, who is fanatical about any stage of Formula One and motor racing. And, you know, it’s like the Grand Prix seems to be on every hour of the day. I also know Neill Blomkamp’s work very well, I’ve worked with Neill, so it was a great pairing, he’s a great filmmaker. We had worked together, we did a thing called Oats, which was these short films that we did two or three years ago.
Is Neill involved much in the music of his films?
Very much so, very much. A lot of the ideas in GT actually came from Neill. He had a great idea about the melody being sung like, the sound that you get when you’re at these races of the crowds. When you go to any event with a crowd, especially football, you don’t necessarily hear words, but you hear kind of a melodic line somewhere, depending on which team it is. If it’s Chelsea, it’s blue is the colour. So that was that was kind of an important part of the DNA to get into the film score.
Did you listen to any of the music from the games as a base for this at all?
No, I didn’t. When things like that happen, it depends. I think if you’re working on Mission: Impossible, I went back to the TV show for that and that was kind of a big inspiration to kind of look at things and see how they used it. But no, with the game, the first thing is that it’s an amazing story. It’s a true story. I look at it like the concept of being a father and son and the story is a dream that comes true. I think that’s what’s important musically. If I kind of started going down the rabbit hole of what theme is there, I thought that it would kind of overcomplicate things.
I think the film alone has got nods to the game. The visuals of the film are bringing in the world of the game. The one thing I wanted to do from the start was involve the gaming community. I do a lot of kinds of game concerts now. I knew that I wanted to get people from the gaming community involved with the score. So that was one thing that we kind of went down was that route. But I just knew from the beginning, I didn’t want to kind of pollute my mind with other themes or kind of get confusing because I think it was a different kind of experience.
In terms of the racing sequences, how do you go about scoring those and was there anything in particular that you wanted to bring to those moments?
I think it’s always those moments that are really about trying to kind of bring the audience into that situation. I’ve kind of stopped thinking about things as action music and try to figure out more about what the emotional connection is. How do we help tell the story? So that the audience feels – especially in a race sequence – that the sense of pressure, the sense of anxiety. So I think that’s what you’ve always got to kind of keep at the back of your mind. It is what the emotional journey is for, for the drivers, but also for the audience. We want them to be in that seat, we want them to be feeling the pressure of every single bend. So it’s about trying to delve into what is going on with those individual drivers.
You’ve touched on the video game community, obviously, this is tied to the game. How have you found moving from video games to film scores? You’ve done a few games over the years.
There’s no difference for me. I think that there really isn’t much of a technical difference. Sometimes it’s based on probably way more music needed in games, but, the journey is the same, you’ve got the same task. I think it’s an interesting one, because I think that with game composers there still seems to be a lot of segregation in the role of composers. You’re pigeonholed, you do film or TV and that’s it, and games are the same.
That was why I wanted to get part of the game composer community involved in this, great game composers like Austin Wintory, Jason Graves, Helen The Flight and Tina Gaia who are very much part of the gaming world and, bring them into this film world. Because there shouldn’t be a difference. If you can write music that tells a story, it makes no difference whether it’s for a game or a film. I feel it’s the same. I’m sure somebody will disagree. I think when I look at some of the games, like Skylanders, you’re wanting to bring the audience into this world and that’s the same if you’re working on an airport scene and Mission: Impossible, you want the audience to feel what is around them.
How have you found sort of balancing your workload this year? Because you’ve obviously worked on a few major projects within a short space of time.
I think it’s funny when COVID happened, schedules changed. I think you sit there and you kind of go gosh, we got quite a lot coming out this year. But then you finished it. If some of it you finished a year ago, or two years ago. There’s a film I’ve got coming out next year that I started seven years ago and I’m finally finishing it.
I think there are a lot of times projects build up. But I think the main thing is to try I tried to kind of just make sure that it’s, it’s not all the same subjects try to make things a bit different so that you’re kind of never feeling that you’re just becoming repetitive and, and I think that I think like with Dungeons and Dragons, I think that I started writing maybe two years ago. So, projects take a long time, and then suddenly, it just comes at once. And I think it gives the impression that you’ve got a lot on at the same time, but it’s spread out. It’s very spread out.
I think it’s going to happen the same with the unfortunate strike that had to happen. It’s what’s going to kind of create a lot of delays. But also, a lot of films are getting pushed now to next year. So, there’s going to be another build it a mass release of projects. But I think the main thing is, is about making sure for composers, at least, it’s to make sure that you’re changing genres, you’re changing styles, so that you mentally you’re not just sitting doing a romantic comedy all the time, or, or, or a horror film all the time because I think then they need to stop, you stop pushing yourself.
For Gran Turismo were there any challenges while developing the score?
Yes, all of it. Everything’s a challenge. Andrew, who is the co-composer, I’ve known Andrew for 15 years. I think that the challenge really is about trying to make sure that you just pull that audience and doing it storytelling-wise. The challenge is two things: the feeling of that cinematic experience that you want to do, musically, so coming up with themes is always a challenge. You know, Yann’s journey is very personal, so you’ve got to kind of delve into that world and make it realistic and organic. And then the kind of the whole, the GT theme, the whole the big story about this racing world. So everything is difficult to do with the whole process.
In terms of Mission: Impossible, this new film is obviously a bit more expansive than Fallout and more frenetic. How did you find that this film was built on fallout?
It was built to just many more levels. I think that Ethan’s journey in Dead Reckoning is just a far deeper dive. I think you see a different side of Ethan – you see a different, more emotional side, why he does what he does. Visually, it’s very rich. The locations are amazing. I think it’s the world of Christopher McQuarrie and Tom, they just keep pushing and pushing the filmmaking process and storytelling process to so that it naturally does evolve.
The stunts get more outlandish. With each film, do you then have to think, “Oh, I’ve got to one up to that with the score as well, to match?”
No, because thankfully, he does all he does the hard work. It’s difficult when you work on these kinds of franchises. Because it’s not just about trying to beat it, it’s about how do you do it differently. And how do you justify it?
I think there can be that tendency to feel that okay, well, you had 10 bongo players, this time we’ll make it 30. If you’re not doing it just because of that, you’re doing it because what ironically, like with the bongo situation, when we were recording 10 at the time during Fallout, Jeff Foster the recording engineer mixer and I were talking about the time cut. It’s a great sound, but it would sound better if we had more. So that the beginning of that concept started then.
So I think it’s about really kind of delving into into Lalo’s themes from the original series. Every time you think I’ve done as much as I can with this theme and then you discover something else, where you can bring it to a different emotional story. So it’s not a competition.
Tetris is a standout score, incorporating elements of the game and electronic themes. Did that score take more time?
Well, more time because I think the concept wastrying to do things very authentically, and involve involving people like JJ from The Art of Noise, and Phil Harding, and Ian Kernel from the Stock, Aitken, Waterman days, and I think it was trying to be kind of honest and truthful with the music. So I think sometimes when you’re writing music, you kind of do a pastiche of a certain time or genre, especially with the 80s or the 90s.N owadays you can write synth lines very quickly. 30 years ago, loading the sound will take three hours. So there was a lot of going into that kind of world and kind of making sure that the since we were using were from that time. And also, it’s very, connected to Mission: Impossible because, again, you’ve got a very famous theme.
So it was just fun and that period of music is a favourite period of time for me personally. All I do is listen to the rhythm, rhythm 80s radio station or Scala So it was great. And also getting the work with Matthew Vaughn again who produced it was it’s just great fun.
Was Jon S. Baird involved with the score much?
Oh, yes, very much. Jon loves his music. And I think there was a lot of kind of just seeing how, you know, not to bore the audience with eight-bit sounds, trying to progress it a bit. Again, on that, I think that we were on for about a year and a half. So it may seem quick, but we’re on it for a long time.
Are you able to tell us about anything you’ve got coming up?
I’m recording Argylle at the moment. I’m working on songs with Matthew Vaughn for it. I’m not finished with that, but I never tempt fate and talk about future films in case in case I get kicked off them. And especially if things keep getting delayed because of the strikes and whatnot. Nothing, nothing worse than scheduling problems, and you know, you’re working on something and then you can’t finish it. But Argylle is a great film and great fun to work on.
Many thanks to Lorne Balfe for taking the time for this interview.
Chris Connor
