Dark Notes

Dark Notes (2010)

*** (out of 4)

Composer Jay Chattaway sits down for this featurette, which is pretty much a 10-minute interview. Chattaway talks about how he started writing music and then goes into the making of MANIAC where he states that the producer came in asking if one of his students would be interested and he told the producer that he was pretty much the man for the job. Chattaway talks about how he visited the apartment of director William Lustig and this visit ended up giving him the ideas for not only this film but how film music should be done. Chattaway also discusses the tones that he wanted to get across with the music and he also goes into great detail about the free range Lustig gave him and how important it was that he was allowed to be creative. There's talk about the studio system and how "non-creative" people are making creative decisions but he says the work on MANIAC was some of the best of his career. He also talks about the popularity of the score but we don't get to hear about any of his future works (like MANIAC COP, SILVER BULLET). If you're a fan of MANIAC like I am then you're going to want to check this out. I'll admit that I'm a die-hard fan of the film and want to know everything about it so this piece will certainly sit better with those like me. If you're not a fan then I guess it goes without saying that you won't care how they came up with the score.