Home » News » Goya Awards: “There are directors who ask you to plagiarize soundtracks from other films” | Madrid

Goya Awards: “There are directors who ask you to plagiarize soundtracks from other films” | Madrid

For the composer of soundtracks for cinema Fernando Velázquez (Getxo, Bizkaia, 44 years old) his work is like a costume game. And although it may seem strange, those of two projects as disparate as the series Homeland and the hit movie comedy Eight Basque surnames they came out very similar. “There is a technical aspect, which is part of my professional secret, that makes both are related,” he says mysteriously, until he gives some more clue. “They both start from the Basque idiosyncrasy and from something that I know a lot and that I have lived through.” On his work as a creator of film melodies, he will talk in the afternoon of this Monday at the Círculo de Bellas Artes, coinciding with the recent Goya awards ceremony this weekend. His intervention, whose entrance is free until the capacity is full and which can also be followed through the YouTube channel of the Madrid cultural center, is part of the cycle Mondays at the Circle. The Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, the art historian Georges Didi-Huberman and the creator Joan Fontcuberta have already participated in this space for debate.

The Basque will meet for the first time with a colleague who, like him, has also won the statuette for best original composition. Olivier Arson (Paris, 41 years old) is a regular collaborator of Rodrigo Sorogoyen, with whom he has coincided in films such as The kingdom and in the series Riot gear. The two musicians will talk about the current moment of composition for film and television in our country from different styles and sound aesthetic positions. “Olivier’s compositions are unmistakable. Sorogoyen would be very different if he had other music, ”he says of his chat partner, although he could well talk about himself. From the extensive list of credits that Velázquez has accumulated in the last 21 years, there is a name that appears repeatedly and with which he has grown in parallel: Juan Antonio Bayona. The composer got into the cinema thanks to Koldo Serra, who asked him to put a melody to one of his shorts. And that he introduced Bayona, with whom he transitioned the short format, Sponge man, to the feature film The orphanage, The impossible, Y A monster comes to see me. “There is something about him that I like a lot and it is his lack of complexes when it comes to making movies. I do not have them, but I am somewhat more withdrawn when it comes to exposing emotions. It takes you to that place where you want to be, but you don’t dare to go, ”he says.

Velázquez, also multi-award winning and renowned conductor, is often associated with the school of the great Hollywood composers. “My favorite soundtrack is The mission by Ennio Morricone, although what I often think when I work is ‘What would John Williams do here?’ Uncle never fails, ”he confesses. In Spain, things have changed a lot from the scores of José Nieto and the beginnings of Alberto Iglesias to those of a new batch of composers that Velázquez himself forms together with creators such as Roque Baños. The enormous change that Spanish cinema has undergone in the last two decades has a lot to do with this generational leap, he says: “The heifer, being a great film, it had nothing to do with the cinema of Raiders of the lost ark. In addition to the technical leap that we have taken in this time, the cinematographic language has changed a lot. From a great like Vicente Aranda we have gone to another great like Bayona. And the melodies have to adapt to that evolution. ”He admits that there is no more complicated soundtrack of his life, because he has almost always abandoned projects in which he has not felt comfortable. “Sometimes it has happened that I have not found the right key. But it has usually been due to a matter that happens much more often than it should in this profession, when the director falls in love with a specific music and asks you directly to copy it. One thing is to be inspired and have a style in mind and another is directly plagiarism. It’s just that copying doesn’t work for me, ”he says.

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