Danny Elfman Quotes

• For me, writing something in the spirit of Halloween is like Mother Teresa writing on charity and sacrifice. It's just second nature to me.

  Danny Elfman

  Mother, Halloween, Writing

  54 Copy quote

• I'm trying to interpret the film through the director's head, but it all comes out through me. So, a composer is kind of like a psychic medium.

  Danny Elfman

  Psychics, Trying, Directors

  17 Copy quote

• You hear the beginning of a melody, you should kind of know it's going to lead down this path. It should start feeling like a friend, like familiar.

  Danny Elfman

  Feelings, Path, Kind

  15 Copy quote

• If there's one thing I really love... it's sad music.

  Danny Elfman

  Sad Music, One Thing, Ifs

  26 Copy quote

• It often feels like a tremendous amount of work is required to get an idea moving forward, like pushing a train uphill. But at a certain point, the thing takes on its own momentum, and takes unexpected turns. So it's that feeling of holding on, rather than pushing it, that is the most exciting thing. It's that need to occasionally bounce off the walls, letting anything happen for any reason, and having nothing to guide you that is the joy.

  Danny Elfman

  Wall, Moving, Ideas

  "Q&A: Danny Elfman". Interview with Kevin Cassidy, www.hollywoodreporter.com. August 14, 2008.

  20 Copy quote

• In Tim's films, more than most, if you miss the tone, you don't get the film.

  Danny Elfman

  Missing You, Tone, Film

  4 Copy quote

• You have to write a good score that you feel good about. At least, you're supposed to. But, if the director hates it, it ain't going to be in the movie!

  Danny Elfman

  Hate, Writing, Feel Good

  14 Copy quote

• I'm so happy dancing while the grim reaper
  cuts, cuts, cuts, but he can't get me.
  I'm as clever as can be, and I'm very quick but don't forget;
  we've only got so many tricks.
  no one lives forever.

  Danny Elfman

  Death, Clever, Cutting

  26 Copy quote

• It all depends on the directors. Working closely with a director is the main job of a film composer. Interpreting what he perceives as a color, an emotion or mood is very abstract. A director tells you something he wants and then you have to run back...

  Danny Elfman

  Running, Jobs, Color

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  11 Copy quote

• The idea of performing some of Jack Skellington's songs from The Nightmare Before Christmas live for the very first time is immensely exciting.

  Danny Elfman

  Song, Ideas, Firsts

  "Tim Burton and Danny Elfman to collaborate on live concert" by Alice Vincent, www.telegraph.co.uk. February 14, 2013.

  18 Copy quote

• It sounds really stupid, I hate making cosmic comments like this but, I just let it do what it wants to do.

  Danny Elfman

  Hate, Stupid, Sound

  7 Copy quote

• I don't see myself necessarily having a burning desire to write a symphony.

  Danny Elfman

  Writing, Symphony, Desire

  9 Copy quote

• I think that's one of the things that has always put me in kind of an odd niche. It's that all of my understanding of orchestral music is via film, not via classical music like it's supposed to be. To me it's the same, it doesn't make any difference.

  Danny Elfman

  Thinking, Differences, Understanding

  7 Copy quote

• You'll never get me into a tux. Not until I'm dead and I have no choice because that's what the undertaker put me in.

  Danny Elfman

  Choices, Undertaker

  Interview in "Entertainment Weekly" #422, March 13, 1998.

  4 Copy quote

• Nothing bad ever happens, why should I care?

  Danny Elfman

  Care, Should, Happens

  6 Copy quote

• So, it becomes an exercise in futility if you write something that does not express the film as the director wishes. It's still their ball game. It's their show. I think any successful composer learns how to dance around the director's impulses.

  Danny Elfman

  Writing, Exercise, Successful

  8 Copy quote

• Doing Tim's film is always going to be the most pleasure. Let me just put it that way. So, without drawing favorites one way or the other, getting back with him and doing Mars Attacks! was certainly a special treat.

  Danny Elfman

  Drawing, Special, Mars

  7 Copy quote

• I think that there's a lot more freedom in the low budget, the independent films where, unfortunately, you don't have the money, necessarily, to get the orchestras in there to play a lot of stuff. But, you have a lot more freedom, very often.

  Danny Elfman

  Independent, Thinking, Play

  16 Copy quote

• Sometimes on a film you just become taken with the fact that, all right this is as rough as it gets, but I'm going to support my general and I'm going to do the very best I can for him because he's a good general and I like him.

  Danny Elfman

  Taken, Support, Facts

  Source: collider.com

  9 Copy quote

• The first thing I do is lay out that melody and figure out how it has to hold here and then finish to land here, because you know in advance you're going to want the melody to catch four things in the action.

  Danny Elfman

  Land, Four, Want

  7 Copy quote

• I really look forward to revisiting this body of work which has been such a huge part of my life and bringing it to the concert stage. And the idea of performing some of Jack Skellington's songs from The Nightmare Before Christmas live for the very first time is immensely exciting.

  Danny Elfman

  Song, Ideas, Looks

  4 Copy quote

• Or certainly I would need time - which I would love to have but there almost never is on a film - to just spend a week with a roomful of guys laying down these patterns.

  Danny Elfman

  Guy, Needs, Patterns

  52 Copy quote

• I would have to say I might do some stuff, but it's the film that's appealing. I was raised on film. My musical experience is all via film, it's not from classical music.

  Danny Elfman

  Musical, Might, Stuff

  8 Copy quote

• This is Halloween, everybody make a scene Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright It's our town, everybody scream In this town of Halloween.

  Danny Elfman

  Halloween, Towns, Our Town

  Song: This Is Halloween, 1993

  9 Copy quote

• Most often the music does end up in the movie, and sometimes there's a point where I wish that it wasn't, just because I think the score would be more effective if there was less of it. But, again, that's not my call.

  Danny Elfman

  Thinking, Wish, Doe

  4 Copy quote

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