Bear
Last week, I had the pleasure of seeing a talk given by Hollywood composer Bear McCreary, who is best known for penning the critically acclaimed score for the 2004-2009 Battlestar Galactica television series. McCreary was accompanied by vocalist Raya Yarbrough, who is featured in the series’ main title (and who, it turns out, is also his fiancée). The event took the form of an interview during which the two also performed a selection of tracks from the Battlestar canon.
I enjoyed this event a lot. Some of my key takeaways:
1) Bear was only 24 when he became the show’s sole composer. Wow. I’d love to be doing something so visible and so creatively compelling at my age.
2) Bear had the benefit of mentorship in his formative years by Elmer Bernstein, an accomplished film composer best known for his work on The Ten Commandments, To Kill a Mockingbird, Ghostbusters, and others. There might be plenty of people who rise from complete obscurity to succeed in Hollywood, but this guy isn’t one of them; he somehow got lucky enough to start learning from a well-known Hollywood insider when he was in middle school. Maybe you don’t need this kind of relationship to “make it,” but it sure helps.
3) Roles like Bear’s can vary widely depending on the openness and leadership style of the producers. By McCreary’s account, at least, Ron Moore seems to have been willing to give him tremendous creative flexibility to experiment with all kinds of musical styles and to make the music not just a background but a central element of the show. By the end of the series, McCreary was actually providing story input and even auditioning for a guest role on the show (a musician, of course). Much like the technology companies I’m more familiar with, I imagine that television studios vary widely in culture, with some relying on heavily hierarchical processes and others being happy to allow creative people to contribute in ways that go beyond their traditional roles.
4) As a professional musician, Bear just doesn’t experience music as a casual listener anymore. This one is probably obvious to any serious creator in any discipline. I nevertheless found it interesting to hear McCreary describe how he doesn’t know how to answer the question, “what kind of music do you listen to?” because he listens to so much music as part of his work, rather than “for fun,” and how he can’t switch off the hyperanalytical lens through which he experiences all music now. I imagine that filmmakers, writers, visual artists, and so on all have the same issue.
5) Creative work is hard. McCreary casually mentioned toward the end of his talk that this was the first day since New Year’s that he hadn’t written any music. The more you think about it, the more incredible this is. It seems clear that if you are serious about pursuing a creative profession at a high level, it is not a 9-5 job. You have to be doing it all the time.
Overall, Bear seemed like a fun and humble guy. Glad I was able to make time to see him!