When I was 10 years old I saw Tim Burton’s Batman, with a fantastic score by Danny Elfman. That was the first time my mind was opened to the idea that music could fundamentally change the audience’s experience of a creative endeavor on the screen. As a ten-year-old, that music creeped me the heck out, but it fascinated me too. As I grew up, other soundtracks caught my ears: The Rocketeer (James Horner), Starcraft (Glenn Stafford), The Natural (Randy Newman), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (John Williams), The Legend of Bagger Vance (Rachel Portman), North by Northwest (Bernard Herrmann), Gladiator (Hans Zimmer), Celeste (Lena Raine), Starbound (Curtis Schweitzer), and Outer Wilds (Andrew Prahlow).

Each of these, and many others, serves the story being told first and foremost. They paint pictures of the world the film or game invites us, the audience or player, into. And they expand that world beyond what just the visuals and sound effects can do. My goal as a composer is to live up to that same standard, to support and expand the world that a film, show, or game is creating.