James Newton Howard Quotes
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
“There are things about it that I think I have done better as a composer and as an orchestrator in Fantastic Beasts.”
Nov 17th 2016
“Newt has two primary themes in my mind. He has his very Newt, slightly Charlie Chaplin-esque, absent-minded professor kind of bumbling around, where he’s got this warm and sweet kind of personality, and then when he gets into a situation where he needs to perform heroically, he has what we call the ‘Newt as a Hero’ theme and that’s kind of the big, muscular hero theme.”
Nov 18th 2016
“From the very beginning, and probably in David Yates’ mind from the very beginning, (the idea) was to create new thematic material that would be identifiable with Fantastic Beasts.”
Nov 17th 2016
“The thing about Fantastic Beasts is that it’s in the Wizarding World, in J.K. Rowling’s world, but it’s not a Harry Potter movie. It takes place seventy years before Harry comes into being, so while we tip our hat and acknowledge in a respectful and witty wink and a nod kind of way to ‘Hedwig’s Theme,’ the score is composed of all new material.”
Nov 17th 2016
“For instance, I discovered a couple of the primary themes of the movie really in the last hours of my composing. That had to do with David [Yates] continually saying, ‘That’s fantastic, but is there any other way?’ Or ‘Is there anything else we could try?’ It can be frustrating and intimidating at times, but ultimately a very fruitful process.”
Nov 17th 2016
“He’s [Newt] able to handle and manipulate these animals and he knows his world so confidently and he relates to them so totally and completely that you’re left to admire him very much for that. He’s a great character and there’s many facets to him – I just had to represent that in music.”
Nov 18th 2016
“I was very excited by it. I felt fairly confident, without trying to sound self-congratulatory. I think I understood the world, I understood the script, I had great conversations with David Yates, and I felt prepared to dive in.”
Nov 17th 2016
“One thing you can expect in any J.K. Rowling story is that there’s going to be a lot of excitement and action so the basic idea is you’ve got to be able to write a good action sequence. I approached it very, very seriously. I just wrote it like I would write any human drama, but I tried to give it a distinct sound. Because it is magical, after all.”
Nov 18th 2016
“When I say the Wizarding World, if you translate that into musical terms, it means somewhat sophisticated and detailed orchestral writing in sort of a nineteenth century classical modality. It’s borrowing orchestrational ideas from everybody from Tchaikovsky to more contemporary composers and even further into the twentieth century, with strong thematic elements with certain orchestrational sounds that make it feel magical.”
Nov 17th 2016
“It took nearly seven months, which is really long. One of the things David [Yates] wanted when we first talked was a composer who would come onto the film early, and in his words, be ‘part of the architecture of the movie.’”
Nov 17th 2016
“I spent the first three months in Los Angeles creating mock-ups or demos and emailing them to David [Yates] in London. Our dialogue began then. I wrote a lot of music, and then I rewrote a lot of music. Then I went to London late in June and stayed through the middle of September working with David, back and forth, rewriting again, trying different ideas and ultimately recording about nine days’ worth of music at Abbey Road with an orchestra and choir.”
Nov 17th 2016
“Jacob has quite a lovely little tune. It’s more a lazy, bluesy, nineteen twenties quasi-jazzy kind of thing and that sounds pretty good. “
Nov 18th 2016
“In the case of a sequel like Fantastic Beasts, when I first started those movies, I hadn’t been in a position where I’d had to audition for a movie for many years. But when I heard they were going to do that, I submitted a ton of my work to David Yates, and I was lucky to get the job.”
Nov 11th 2021
“The Niffler was really difficult, quite honestly, I think I wrote forty three versions of the Niffler’s song over seven months. Sometimes it just takes that long to get it right. In the end the Niffler was quite a project but I really love him. I think he’s very cute. We finally got it right, but it really is a balance of keeping the magic, the slight tension and the comedy.”
Nov 18th 2016
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald
“To work on Fantastic Beasts is a wonderful musical opportunity, The movie is delightful, substantial, and complex; and the director, David Yates, focuses very seriously on the music and is a truly passionate and enthusiastic collaborator.”
Oct 11th 2018
“There are thrilling moments, dark moments, funny moments, enchanting moments, but we really wanted the audience to feel, because it’s an emotional piece.”
Nov 29th 2018
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
“In fact, the movie I’m working on now, Fantastic Beasts 3, I’ve been composing it for eight months and rewritten a good part of it many times.”
Nov 11th 2021
“Right now, I’m working with David Yates, and he always steers me one way and the most critical thing for him, is story. And he’s absolutely right.”
Nov 11th 2021
“Doing something like Fantastic Beasts here (at Abbey Road), for me, the opportunity doesn’t get better than that. You know, its two hours twenty something minutes of music. All hell breaking loose, romance, adventure, magic, it’s great.”
Nov 11th 2021
“I’ve been in London on this project since the end of September, and I think I’ve had two days off. Every other day, I start working at about nine in the morning and work ‘till seven in the evening every day.”
Nov 11th 2021
“When I do the third one, I’m bringing back themes. I’m stating the themes that are successful in the first two more often than I did before, because people, at least the filmmakers that I’m with and I’m presuming the community at large, will have some amount of recognition of the themes a third time around, and that becomes a valuable tool in storytelling. David Yates has been very happy to have some scenes be almost direct moments from the first movies, but I’d say, eighty percent of it is all new. But some things just work. The tone was really special, and it really worked, and we want to repeat that again.”
Nov 11th 2021
“I’m super excited about the Beasts movie, I think it’s by far the best one. It’s really good. Mads Mikkelsen is playing Grindelwald; he’s so great, and it’s just great – it’s full of magic and scary stuff, and romantic, it’s just really fun.”
Sep 8th 2021
“After eight months and thirty-eight three hour sessions (including some with the marvellous London Voices Choir), work on Fantastic Beasts 3 is finished!”
Nov 29th 2021
“The third one is just so great, I have to say, it’s just a wonderful film. … But this has been the most challenging one yet, as I’ve been trying to keep the essence of all the Beasts movies alive, but there’s just epically huge scenes, and a bunch of them in this movie, and it’s totally kicked my butt.”
Nov 30th 2021
“As a composer, you establish what you can only refer to as the tone. What is the unique quality of the music that makes it sound like music from Fantastic Beasts other than just the melodies? You know, there’s a whole vocabulary, there’s a whole palette. It has a shared DNA as they say. And you want to keep that DNA alive, but then you have to progress from that. So you’re using some of the thematic material, the themes. In the case of Fantastic Beasts, there’s a theme for Newt Scamander, there’s an overall theme for the Fantastic Beasts world.”
Nov 30th 2021
“I’ve been challenged to the max and David Yates, the director, is the T-Rex of note givers. I would get these notes from David and I tell him all the time, when I see a note in my email, I go ‘No!’ and there’s pages of it. But it’s great, his notes are always about one thing; story. Am I telling the same story the director’s telling? And if I’m not, then we have a dissonance, we have a problem, and I have to figure out how to tell the same story.”
Nov 30th 2021
The Music Of The Wizarding World 