Alum Reveals Secrets of Soundtracks

The words “film production” primarily bring to mind three things: lights, camera, and action. But as Robert M. Kraft ’76 pointed out at Harvard last weekend, movies would be sorely lacking without a fourth addition to the list: Music.

Kraft, the current president of Fox Music, provided glimpses into his unique career as a film composer at a film music lecture and a workshop for composers. Because music scoring is the last production process, it presents particular challenges, he explained at Saturday’s lecture.

“Great [composers] are utterly stunned where to begin...a blank canvas with a deadline,” Kraft said. As the final artists to work on the film, composers are tasked with the job of completing the scenes and bringing everything together.

“People always assume they know what movie music is all about,” he said. “Music scores the moment. Music scores the action.”

According to Kraft, scoring films requires not just musical ability, but also humility, because of the collaborative nature of movies. “You’re painting someone else’s house,” he explained.

Kraft introduced the audience to some of his favorite moments in film music by sharing short clips from “Night at the Museum,” “28 Weeks Later,” and “Ice Age 2.” After previewing a romantic encounter from “Ice Age 2,” Kraft said, “I can describe that scene forever, but I couldn’t possibly tell you how it makes me feel, until [the composer] John Powell plays it for me.”

To illustrate the importance of music in film, Kraft played scenes from recent films without music. “Where should the music should go? What a stomachache!” he exclaimed.

Kraft also touched on his own circuitous path to matching movies with music.

“I followed my love of music,” he explained. “From a young age, I knew I wanted to be a songwriter.”

After graduation, Kraft moved to New York and earned a living as a jazz musician. There he wrote and performed a new song every day.

This persistence led him to a recording contract, and he relocated to Los Angeles, where he pragmatically capitalized on every opportunity he came across.

“A lot of people are very precious of what they work on—I fully respect that. I was working up to improving my skills and learning how to first write the song,” he said.

After working as a music producer and penning a few successful songs for TV (including the theme to “Who’s the Boss?”), Kraft was asked to score a movie. “I had no idea how to do it, and I accepted the gig. I did what I needed to do. I went to a bookstore, read about film scoring, bought some gear, and asked people who had scored films,” he said. “You make a lot of mistakes. But you always learn more from a lot of mistakes.”

At Friday’s workshop, sponsored by the Office for the Arts and the Department of Music, Kraft explained what it takes to be a film composer. He dissected the work of four Harvard-affiliated composers, asking each to justify the choices made in their scores.

Elizabeth C. Lim ’08, one of the students whose work was featured, said that the event was impressive, as was the speaker himself. “It was incredible to have the opportunity to hear about industry and have such a huge figure come in to talk.”