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JEFF BEAL's complex and haunting score feels like a natural part of Carnivàle's world. But does it offer clues to the storylines?
HBO:
Carnivàle's score isn't your typical supernatural thriller music. What did you set out to do with the score?
JEFF BEAL:
I think one thing that I've tried very hard to do is to create almost a three dimensionality to the music. I think it helps tell the story, because obviously the characters are that way, and the acting and so many other elements are on that level. It's not a one-dimensional show.
It's funny, if you look at Amy Madigan's character--I love her performance as Iris--it was really interesting; she didn't have a lot to do in the first few episodes. There were just these few shots of her kind of reacting to Justin. But as I was writing, I finally started finding the center of Justin's world, and all of the sudden, I understood all of her performances. [LAUGHS]
It's the kind of synergy you always hope for between a music and pictures. This show was really fun because it's just visually stunning, you know, on a whole lot of levels-- production design and directing and performance.
HBO:
Can you tell us a little about the process of scoring Carnivàle?
JEFF BEAL:
Usually, we'll sit down after an episode is fully edited, or close to fully edited, with Howard and the rest of our crew, my music editor, Jenny, and the music supervisors and we'll go through what's called a 'spotting session.' We'll watch the whole episode through and take notes; a lot of times we'll stop and talk about a scene. Quite often the editors will put in temp music, just to kind of give an example of where maybe music should go, and maybe even what emotional tone the music should have.
HBO:
Right.
JEFF BEAL
So then I'll go back to my studio and start writing, send out tapes to both HBO and Howard and then get notes back.
HBO:
And you find watching the actors influences your work?
JEFF BEAL:
Oh definitely. That's one of the things that I get excited about. I used to play a lot of jazz improvisation with groups. And I realized at some point, when I had gotten more into scoring, that it was very much a similar creative experience for me, in the sense that I'm trying to kind of play along with the actors.
I very much believe in the power of performance and trying to enhance and expand on that, but not get in its way.
So yeah I very much get involved with actors and what they're doing, and I try to get a sense of their rhythm.
HBO:
Do you think your jazz background influences your work?
JEFF BEAL:
Oh, absolutely. The jazz part of my background has served me very well as a film composer.
Just the ability to improvise, and it's also very collaborative art form, you have to be a good listener and you have to be attentive to what other people are doing.
I also love classical music, and obviously 'Carnivàle' is a great show for anybody that loves literate music, because there are so many great opportunities where the grand gesture is what's called for.
HBO:
Do the characters on Carnivàle each have their own musical themes?
JEFF BEAL:
Yeah, early on I realized that this would be really effective for the show, because it has so many characters. It kind of keeps it straight, in a way.
One thing that's enjoyable about the show is that because there're no commercials, it's paced much more like a movie. And a lot of the characters have long scenes where I was able to develop themes. Obviously in the pilot I was able to get things going for Ben and Justin. But later on, in episode four, "Black Blizzard", Lodz becomes a very important character, and I was able to do something for him. We even created something for Apollonia because I really wanted Clea to have a little something for her to play against while she's in the room with her mom. It just became this kind of fun little leitmotif that represents the conversations that they have.
HBO:
What do you try to accomplish with a theme for, say, Justin?
JEFF BEAL:
One of the things that's interesting about that character is that he's written in such a way that you kind of get caught up in him. You almost empathize with his own personal seduction and discovery of his powers, and I was really intrigued by that.
Just from a musical point of view--specifically because it deals with this kind of religious zeal-- I wanted the audience to not just be pushed away by him but actually get caught up in what he was doing. So I was very conscious from the first episode on, to make the music about his delusion of grandeur and sense of self-importance.
I was actually really pleased because I read some of the message boards to see where people were registering emotionally with Justin, and I was really happy to see that they hadn't really decided, morally, where he stood.
HBO:
What about Ben?
JEFF BEAL:
One of the first things I spoke with Howard Klein about was the idea that we really wanted to have different music to represent the two different worlds of the two story lines.
So it became clear that Brother Justin's world was kind of this really big construct of almost operatic scales. And religious music--trumpet, organ, voices. An orchestral sound. Very full and realized, whereas when you get over to the carnival side, things are much more deconstructed and kind of mystical.
HBO:
These people have different influences in their lives--Brother Justin is from Russia and Lodz is from Eastern Europe. Do you try to get those influences into the score?
JEFF BEAL:
Yeah, very much so. I mean part of the fun of writing a score like this is that it's enough to evoke something, without hitting the nail on the head. And we have great music supervisors who are able to really establish the sound of the time. So I'm alluding to that, but the score also has to exist on the very mythic level.
In our modern, kind of clinical, very rational world, we a lot of times don't acknowledge the more mystical side of our experience. And one of the things that's really fun about the show is trying to kind of make that palpable, and have an audience kind of feel that. It also brings up another interesting question: why do we put music in movies? [LAUGHS]
HBO:
[LAUGHS]
JEFF BEAL:
I always feel like there is some emotional reason for having music in there. I think if it doesn't work on that level, it's better off not there. But the emotional content of a show like Carnivàle is very murky a lot of the time. And we're not trying to spell out too much for the audience. Not telling them how to feel, as much as we're just trying to help them, experience the kind of mood that's happening.
HBO::
We're going to get the message boards buzzing with this, but you've said that if you listen to the characters' themes, there are even hints about their relationships.
JEFF BEAL:
Yeah, and now that I've finished writing up through episode twelve, there are even more. Some of them work as kind of happy coincidences, but some of them were intentional. Some of them won't even be revealed in the first season.
HBO:
Can you give us a hint?
JEFF BEAL:
Well, the character Management, for example-there are some elements that play in his scenes which also play in the dream sequences, which in a very obtuse way, connect two characters.
And, especially in episode twelve, there are some scenes with Lodz and Apollonia that help connect Apollonia to another character in the piece. I don't want to say too much other than that...
HBO:
Now that you've got all twelve in the can, can you pick out a couple of moments or scenes that you feel particularly happy with?
JEFF BEAL:
I'd say there're definitely a few that stand in my mind. One of my favorites was the beginning of episode three, when there's this long funeral procession that goes into town. It's this two minute montage of just music, basically... and I wrote a little tune for that which eventually became a theme that I used to kind of represent the carnie's world.
And that came back in a pretty prominent way for the scene of Dora Mae's funeral--which was a lot of fun because it was unlike the more spooky parts of the show. It was just a place that needed something really beautiful.
HBO:
Hmm.
JEFF BEAL:
And, of course, we also have these dream sequences, which are a whole other world. A lot of the sounds that I originally wrote for those scenes I was able to use for other elements.
It was also really fun to develop the whole sound for Management. Management's a very important character, and yet there's a question as to whether or not there's even something there. So there's this combination of these detuned trumpet phrases, and some low, ambient things, and stuff like that.
And then, one of my favorites still probably would go back to Ben in the pilot, when he helps the woman with the dead baby. You know, that was just a really wonderful, beautiful scene.
HBO:
It's interesting how you often refer to other kinds of "sounds" besides music in your score...
JEFF BEAL:
Right, well Carnivàle is very much a mood piece. And you know, it's almost like method acting. I try to scare myself and creep myself out while I'm working on this show.
HBO:
[LAUGHS]
JEFF BEAL:
You know what I mean? And sometimes literal musical elements don't work as well as more obtuse musical elements. So that kind of puts you into the whole realm of sound design musical color, musical atmospheres, which I had a lot of fun with developing on the show.
You know, I did the movie Pollack several years ago and before I did that I never really had an analogy for the way I like to work, but it's very much like painting in the sense that you're kind of trying to layer things, and deal with color and composition.
HBO:
Have you thought about where you would go in the future of the show?
JEFF BEAL:
I hope that we get to do another season because I feel like musically we've kind of set the stage and you know it'd be really fun to see where all this goes, especially the interaction, you know? One of the things I tried to build into this score was this sense that once the worlds of Ben and Justin start to clash, that we can have a musical kind of conversation between those two musics, which I think would be really fun to do.
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Carnival Fact
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