PLAYING IN TRAFFIK

I had the great fortune to have some of my music in the fabulous 2000 Steven Soderbergh film Traffic, scored by my friend Cliff Martinez. I also worked closely with Cliff on the extensive electronic elements and “orchestrations” of the film’s cool, minimalist, ambient score. The Soderbergh movie was actually adapted from a hit British television series by the name of Traffik. Instead of stories revolving around cocaine trafficking between the US and Mexico, the original series was about bringing heroin (and more) from Pakistan into the UK and beyond. The series had won wide acclaim, and deservedly so. Both point out how ineffectual government policies are in stemming the flow of drugs (and most anything else profitable) into the country.

The movie version was produced by USA Films, and as they owned the title and original story, they decided to take the original British series and do a unique adaptation for it’s American television outlet, the USA Network. They turned to British film director Stephen Hopkins (Blown Away, Under Suspicion, and television’s 24) and American director Eric Bross (Restaurant, Tenbenny) to helm the ambitious three part, six hour series. I sent over some of my more ambient, ‘Traffic-y” music and was called in for a meeting with director/producer Hopkins. I went to the meeting mindful of having just lost a project by probably speaking a bit too much when asked what I would do musically for the project. That’s really a no-no. First meetings between composers and directors should be simple and personal. Listen carefully, ask questions, get to know each other and don’t get too specific about your own ideas until you know full well what they are really looking for (assuming they know) from you.
So on my Traffic meeting I simply listened as Hopkins explained how he saw the similarities and differences between the movie and this TV adaptation. We discussed our working methods, some previous projects, what he liked in my music, and on a more personal note about some of the people we realized we knew in common. Happily, I was offered the job a few days later. At this point I had only seen a few rough scenes from the film. I noticed that it was a very different project than the movie in style, content and substance. And the fact was that it was quite good.

The reel I watched was temp’d with music from a variety of sources. Traffic (the movie) a bit, some of my music to The Mothman Prophesies, Some of Peter Gabriel’s score to Rabbit Proof Fence (an amazing film and score - very worth checking out), and some of my pieces from other films I had given them earlier. I asked Hopkins to tell me what attracted him to those pieces, and his answers were very interesting. He wanted ethnic elements in the score, but didn’t want them to be too literal and didn’t want them attached to the foreign locations in the film. Just because we were in Afghanistan didn’t mean he wanted those instruments or rhythms in those scenes. Same with scenes in America, which could in fact have those elements. In all he was happy to let the music speak its mind and not simply follow the picture all the time.

It’s worth mentioning that this job started back in February of this year. In discussing schedules, the producers were clear that while the mix dates weren’t decided yet, the latest the project would go was April or May at the outside. That gave me about 12 weeks to do roughly three hours of original score. That’s four weeks per hour of music - doable if one really hunkers down.

Actually, it is worth mentioning that budgeting time is an essential part of working as a composer. You are not in control of these things, and you need to pace yourself to get to the finish line on time. You want enough time to do your best work (you’ll never get it), and yet will always be faced with compromises due to deadline pressure. Hopefully you’re the type of person who, like me, thrives on deadlines as a true source of musical inspiration.
I worked slavishly hard to get things done with the best possible results. And yet the schedule kept changing, first shorter, then longer and longer. The film kept recutting, or simply not completing the cut on most of the six hour-long reels. It did afford me the opportunity to slow down a bit at first. I was able to rethink and polish a number of cues in the early part of the film that I could work on. But I could see what was coming up. They simply didn’t want to give me the final sections of the project, and there was going to be a squeeze.
During this time I was offered another film to work on and I had to turn it down because of what seemed like an imminent flood of music to write for Traffic. Yet a couple more weeks passed with still no new picture. The post production supervisor promised that the next spotting was only a day or two away, but that actually stretched into a couple more weeks.

We finally spotted the rest of the project. Not a final cut, but getting close. One thing was clear, Eric Bross, the director of the subsequent sections had different feelings about the music and used only a small amount of my music for his temp. While the first section, as directed by Hopkins, was cool and ambient, with flourishes of ethnicity and color - Bross wanted to go for strong emotion and poetic energy. I had hoped that my themes and ideas for the first section would not only carry across through the whole project, but that most every idea for the remainder of the project would stem from something heard early on. This was not to be, and it meant writing some more thematic ideas instead of just more cues.

Along with realizing how much work was as yet to be done, I also started to get firm mix dates, and it seemed that I would be given about 90% of the schedule to do the first third, and 10% to do the last two thirds. Oh, my. Well, like I said before...nothing more inspiring than a tight deadline. But could it be done?
I’ll leave that, and more, till next time. I’ll also explain how I came up with some of the unique sounds from Traffic, post some examples on www.reelworld-online.com, and tell how the whole thing finished up. Success or failure? I’ll let you decide.