Clay Duncan

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0241937/

Clay Duncan has written and designed sounds for film composers such as Harry Gregson Williams, Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, James Newton Howard, Rupert Gregson Williams, Steve Jablonsky, Ramin Djawadi and Francios Aiche. Clay has also worked with companies such as Arturia in the making of the MinimoogV, Native Instruments’ Battery 2 and Kontakt 2.

In 2005, his work has been heard on such films as ‘The Ring Two’, ‘The Interpreter,’ ‘Hellraiser:Deader,’ ‘The Weather Man,’ ‘Amityville Horror,’ and ‘The Island.’

So far in 2006 Clay has worked on ‘Pirates of the Caribbean 2’, played guitar on an episode of ABC’s ‘Desperate Housewives,’ additional music on ‘Click’ (where Camel Space saw a lot of use), composed the music for Justin Liberman’s ‘Pretty Dead Flowers’ and is currently working on a ‘Blade’ a TV series for Spike TV in which Cameleon 5000 is featured.

I got into writing for film and television through working for Hans Zimmer. I worked as a tech assistant and driver for a couple of years. During the first year I went to pick Hans up from work in Malibu (he didn't have a driver's license at the time) and I had one of my CD's in the CD changer, just listening to my latest mix of what I was working on. Zimmer usually would listen to the classical radio station at the time but on that day he decided to turn on the CD player. He skipped around in the changer not happy with anything. Then he got to my CD and listened to it. Once it was over he said ‘that was cool, who is it?’ After that he asked me to write some on 'Hannibal'. Harry Gregson-Williams was next door and started working on 'Phone Booth'. He was pushed for time and said to me 'I've gotten through the heavy parts but haven't even looked at reel one, so just try whatever you like'. It was my work on 'Phone Booth' that led to working on the next couple of films. I started writing more and more until it became impossible to do any type of tech work for Hans and keep my writing career going.

While working for Zimmer, one of my jobs was to keep up with the latest and greatest of everything. That's where KVR came in very handy. Through that I basically got to try out everything, and the things that I liked I would get for myself (with the exception of the really expensive things - like a PPG modular). I think I started with Camel Phat when it first came out. I just kept up with Camel Audio and when something new came along I would get it. Quality stuff, as always, but when Camelon5000 came along - now that was cool. It was totally unexpected how useful and easy it is. I'm actually about to use it right now for a cue.

The modular behind me is my patchwork of Doepfer, Limewire, Plan B, and Analogue Systems. I got sick of all the silver and painted it and tried to label and color things so that it would be easier to find. My room is in a constant state of change. The only things that stay where they are my computers, monitors, keyboard, filter factory, MIDI fader controller, Xkeys, and MPC 4000. Those are my close range; I don’t have to get out of my chair to mess with items. What you don't see is the back of the room where I have a DW drum kit, random percussion, guitars, amps and the hardware synths that I still use. Last year I got rid of a lot of hardware synths. I just wasn't using them anymore. I started with the rationale of if I haven't touched it or used it in over a year, it's gets put on the list of possible items to let go of.

I use to have a laptop that I'd take with me when I was working for Zimmer. I'd take samples and mess them up as much as I could. So from early on I started building my own library of custom sounds. So it would be hard to recall every film I've used them on. I know I used Camel Space on 'Click' that comes out in theaters soon. I did some work for Rupert Gregson-Williams and remember him talking about your products when we were discussing sonic ideas for the film. I'm using Cameleon 5000 right now on a TV series that's not out yet. They’ve made a series out of the comic 'Blade'. I know I used the Cameleon-5000 on ‘Blade Trinity'.

Good question.

The simple answer to your question is it's easier for me to get work as additional music/synth programming than to be the sole composer. The big movies are usually going to go to those who have done big movies. Making the step from additional music to sole composer is not easy. It is the plan. With every collaboration, there is experience gained towards being the one in charge and hiring people like myself.

In most cases, it takes longer to design sounds than to write a piece. Once the tone of a film has been found it's much easier to write. I could spend a couple of days just working on a sound and feel of a cue where the producers would like to have 5 or more cues done in a couple of days. Ideally I'd like to be the sole composer. What I've been working towards is building my own library of sounds so that when I'm composing I have access to my own custom library.

The upside to working with other composers is you get to interact with artists that you wouldn't run into on a day to day basis. Working on 'The Hulk' would be a good example. Danny Elfman had little time to score. When we first discussed my role, Danny said that he usually will spend a month or so creating new sounds and ideas for a film. Since he was pressed for time, he did the writing where I did the designing. On that particular project there were three or four others that were doing programming. Just a matter of throwing it all out there and seeing what would stick.

The other advantage of working with others on the music is the whole teamwork mentality. If there's a piece I've written or someone else has written that gets torn apart by the producers, network or director, you have someone who's got your back. On my current project, there were a couple of cues that just didn't fly, the ones that I wrote, the other composer re-wrote or fixed and the ones of his that did make it, I re-wrote or fixed. There is safety in numbers.

In a perfect world there would be a film with plenty of time and money to create a sonically and compositionally original score. But the way it seems to work is the ones with no money have all the time and the ones with money have little time.

In regards to 'how do I feel about doing this kind of work as opposed to being the sole composer'... I feel that if I can make a living making music and not have to have a 9-5 job, I'm happy. Once Grad School was over for me, I traded in my Marshal stack for a 4 track and a cheap bass and drum machine. I worked my share of 9-5's coming home every night and wishing that I could do what I'm doing now.

The Absynth stuff is great. The main problem I have is time. I can tweak a sound all day, but sometimes you need something that is cool and ready to go. So the Biolabs Absynth Research sounds saved me some programming time. Good sounds, well organized.

The way I've been using it is I go through every preset, find something I like, tweak it a bit, record it to audio and blend it with sounds from my modular or other sources that I've recorded. That's what I did on the last episode of the show I'm on now. I really like being able to have tempo based ambient sounds. I use the program LIVE a lot. So I have my folder of Cameleon 5000 of 'live-ized' sounds for quick access.

It sounds great and is easy to tweak. I am looking forward to getting deeper into it and experimenting with morphing my own sounds. I think it's GUI is well thought out and intuitive with all the possibilities of designing amazing sounds right there at your fingertips.

I just go where the work is. I've been making my way doing additional music, MIDI programming and sound design. The plan is to get a film of my own. But for now, I'll be doing additional music for ‘Blade’ the TV series for the next couple of months. I am co- composing with François-Paul Aïche, a great short film by Justin Leiberman called 'Pretty Dead Flowers'.