On the Beach

Seven Weekly Interviews with CG by Karen Cambrell
February – March 2000



WEEK FIVE. Friday 17th March 2000
Yachts and Choirs.


CG: Eventually I took my vitamins and a strong cup of coffee and launched into the yachts scene. It’s quite a joyful little piece in ternary form.

Moira and Towers Meet (Yachts)
Composed 13 March 2000




The great news is that the Sydney Philharmonia Choir have agreed to sing on this and they have five minutes or thereabouts of music to perform. The difficult thing there was I had to write the music out of order so we can get the music to the choir in advance. There are two cues which appear in Episode One fairly early on [Melbourne and Family on the Cliff] and that was fine, but there are another two cues that come virtually at the end of the film and I'm nowhere near the end of the film (I’m heading up to Alaska!) so I had to put myself into a totally different space. Normally I like to work through the film in order from beginning to end as much as possible so that I know where I've been and I can develop on what's happening. When you're composing for a film the structure is already there, they're not going to change the end because you've come up with a nice musical idea. You have to adapt your musical ideas to the film, which is the reason I like to compose in order so that there's a sense of journey within the score. So doing these couple of choral cues from virtually the end - it's the second last scene and there's about two scenes before that, major choral cues that I've had to compose now - but I managed to write them in a couple of days and I think it's going to be terrific. I'm really looking forward to recording these pieces.

Lacrimosa
Composed 15 March 2000






WEEK ONE
Getting Set Up.


WEEK TWO
Preparation and Themes.


WEEK THREE
Waiting for the Pictures and More Themes


WEEK FOUR
Composing Begins.


WEEK FIVE
Yachts and Choirs.


WEEK SIX
Nearing the End and Orchestration.


WEEK SEVEN
The End and Preparing for the Sessions.

POSTSCRIPT. August 2008