The music man

David McHugh has composed the soundtracks for many films, including "Mystic Pizza" and "Moscow on the Hudson."

No one taught him how to write music for movies. And no one gave him practical advice on how to make it as a film composer as he was working on his master's degree in composition at Queens College of the City University of New York. He graduated in 1971.

"There was never a degree in film composition," McHugh said, explaining how things were when he broke into film composing about 30 years ago. "I more or less did it by the seat of my pants."

The students that McHugh teaches at UNC School of the Arts are enjoying the benefits of more formal training. They make up the master's program in film-music composition that McHugh leads in UNCSA's School of Filmmaking. They have composed music for the student-made films to be screened Thursday and Friday in the ACE Exhibition Complex on UNCSA's campus.

Leo Hurley, a student of composition in UNCSA's School of Music, was chosen by the producer of "ZOMROMCOM: The Musical" ("Zombie Romantic Comedy") to write music for the film, which will be screened Friday.

The film-composition program is one of just a few in the country that grants degrees. It started in 1995, when McHugh was hired. The School of Filmmaking was started in 1993.

McHugh has mentored the likes of Kim Planert ("The Last Passport") and Atli Orvarrson, who has composed music for the "Law and Order" series and for such films as "The Eagle" and "Thick as Thieves."

McHugh teaches in a room filled with film posters, keyboards, recordings and blank, blackboard-size sheet music that he uses to demonstrate composition concepts. He said his program rests on two pillars: analysis and application.

Analysis takes the form of students watching many films and studying whether the music works.

"You have to be totally in sync with what the director's dramatic intentions are for the film," McHugh said. Is the music "supporting what the film is projecting?"

As for application, this begins with a chord, two or more notes played together, and what it might imply in emotional terms.

"There's a lot of learning from doing," said James Niles Joyal, one of the students in the film-composition program.

Joyal, who is from Massachusetts, received a bachelor's degree from the Boston Conservatory of Music before attending UNCSA. He has written the music for "Irma and the Yeti," one of the student films. The film is a simple story about a lonely boy who has no friends. But he has a relationship with a belligerent old woman.

"Much of my music for 'Irma and the Yeti' is constructed from a lullaby theme I wrote specifically for the film," Joyal said in an email. "We first hear the theme at the opening of the film and it occurs in different arrangements (mostly simple and delicate), until its last utterance at the climax of the film's final scene."

Along the way, a boys-choir solo voice is heard and then a solo violin, which is meant to reinforce the peace that Irma eventually finds. Joyal's "The Song Sang 'Fore The Fall," an indie-rock tune featuring his girlfriend Sarah Brisebois, accompanies the credits.

Joyal hopes that the film-composition program's emphasis on practical skills will help him get a job when he moves to Los Angeles. He said he wants to write the soundtrack for a "period" feature film, which is similar to a historical novel.

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Some of those skills involve learning more about what different people in the recording/orchestrating process do and how best to work with them, particularly if an orchestra is involved in a big-budget film.

John Mauceri, the school's chancellor, specializes in conducting film music. The school's orchestra is trying to strengthen its ties with the film-composition program. This is part of a larger effort to break down the "silos" among UNCSA's divisions. "I am interested in exploring mutually beneficial collaborative projects with all the other schools, as they support our unique mission to train professional artists for 21st-century careers," emailed Wade Weast, UNCSA's music dean.

The orchestra has started recording some student-composed music for student-made films. There were three recording sessions this year, and the first took place this past fall.

The recording sessions happen in a film-scoring stage that can accommodate 65 instruments. The goal is to expand the space, which was built in 1998, to accommodate 105 instruments.

UNCSA officials say that the Fidelity Foundation will give the school an $80,000 grant if the school can raise $40,000 for additional instruments and equipment.

But as Joyal pointed out, many film projects can't afford orchestras. So the person who writes music for them must know enough about software and other technologies to write digital music or a combination of digital and acoustic music; record it; mix it; and deliver it. These are skills that he and other film-composition students are learning.

The students are also getting tips for breaking into the business.

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McHugh said he broke into film composing after being hired to write the music and lyrics for the sequel to "The Wiz," a hit musical. The job meant traveling from his home in New York to Los Angeles, where sessions were held in film studios to develop the show. McHugh met a number of potential employers in the film industry.

McHugh was soon hired to write the music for "Nobody's Perfekt" (1981). This was the first of 33 movies and television shows for which McHugh has written the music, according to the Internet Movie Database.

"My story is very unusual," he said. "I was already a seasoned veteran from New York. It was a pretty amazing experience."

McHugh said he thinks his students' stories should begin as staff members in bars frequented by film-industry people. That way, their days can be kept free for writing and their evenings can be for networking.

"Hollywood is an extremely social place," he said. "Everybody wants to meet everybody else because they don't know who that person is."

kkeuffel@wsjournal.com

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