Top directors rely on Debney for music

Filmmakers click into collaborative groove

By IAIN BLAIR

ACTION MAN: Debney adds a super hero pic to his eclectic resume with 'Iron Man 2.'
• Photos: John Debney's Box Office Hits

Like many below-the-liners who've benefited from repeated collaborations with certain filmmakers, John Debney enjoys a kind of shorthand with not only one but a handful of directors who've come to rely on the composer's ability to anticipate their needs -- whether meticulously articulated or merely suggested.

"I'm now scoring my fifth film for Garry (Marshall)," Debney says, "and the great thing about him is that what you see is what you get -- meaning he's extremely funny all the time. He's always aware of exactly where he wants the music and how much of it he needs. He never really wants a great deal of underscore, but where he puts it is right on and perfectly chosen. His focus in the main is on the written word, the actors' performance, the jokes."

While Marshall is fairly succinct about "what he likes and doesn't like" and "very clear about the path you should take," Debney says, it's the way he engages with musicians on the recording stage that wins them over. "He'll tell the musicians all these wonderful stories," Debney reports, "and he also likes to tell them a bit about the movie they're going to be playing for, which is a favorite tradition of his, and of course the orchestra just loves him."

By contrast, Jon Favreau, with whom Debney collaborated on "Elf" and "Zathura," displays a more thoughtful personality, despite his reputation for comedic irreverence. "He's a lot more serious than Garry," Debney says, "and when we were working on 'Elf,' he invited me to play down and not play many of the scenes for the obvious comedic response, which I thought was very smart."

Favreau's against-the-grain approach lent the comedy an edge that didn't exist in the script. "I learned a couple of lessons from him there -- the first being that you don't have to necessarily play comedy music all the time in a comedy. The result was a little more sardonic quality to the music that worked so well with the visuals."

Debney is currently scoring "Iron Man 2" for Favreau, and notes that a key benefit to frequent collaboration is "a synergy that sticks around. I hadn't worked with Jon for a couple of years, and we jumped right back in as if we'd never stopped working together."

The composer's work with Tom Shadyac on "Liar Liar," "Dragonfly" and "Bruce Almighty" also exhibits a comedic sensibility -- an obvious pattern in the composer's repeated collaborations (see sidebar on this page) -- but with a twist: "All his films have a strong emotional and spiritual tone," Debney says, "even in the broad comedies. And he's always concerned with the tone of the music.

"When we did 'Bruce Almighty,' there's a scene where Morgan Freeman, who plays God and who appears dressed as a janitor, is talking to Jim, and the music's light and fun, even though they're discussing very weighty issues. That's how Tom likes to work."

With Robert Rodriguez ("Sin City," "The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D"), another multihyphenate who acts as a veritable one-man crew, the challenge was collaborating with a talent accustomed to doing it all himself, including the music.

On the original "Spy Kids," Debney knew going in that "Robert would eventually go off and do a lot of his own music -- which is what happened. ... He's this complete Renaissance man, and I always joked with him, 'Ah, one day you won't need me at all,' and now it's come true. I couldn't be happier for him."