Harry Manfredini
An In Depth Interview With Harry Manfredini
Composer for Friday the 13th
Jason Voorhees never spoke a word yet you were able to give him an unmistakable sound.Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us at Crystal Lake After Dark. Here are some questions for you.
You came from Chicago and have a Bachelors Degree in music, What brought about your interest in film music?
Well, let me get you up to speed. I was born in Chicago, and I do have a Bachelors Degree in music from De Paul Universiy, I also have a Masters Degree from Western Illinois University, and have completed all buy my
dissertation from Columbia Universiy.
Degrees aside, I pretty much wanted to write music for film from a very early age. I watched a lot of films as a child, and loved the music. I had the films as an influence. My father was a big Italian Opera fan, so I heard a lot of Puccini, and my brother was a big Stan Kenton Fan. So to this day, I hear a lot of both of those influences in my music.
When the first Friday the 13th was in production, Did you contact them for the job or did they call you based on something they heard?
I had already done two films for Sean Cunningham at the time of Friday the 13th. The first was “Here Come the Tigers” a childrens Baseball film, and “Manny’s Orphans” a film about a young orphan and his sister set in the world of soccer.
So one day in Sean’s kitchen he said to me, “I am going to make the scariest film ever, called Friday the 13th, and you are going to score it”. I said, okay, cool. And so we did. I guess he trusted me to come up with a good score.
We will get this one out of the way, The famous Ki Ki Ki - Ma Ma Ma. The idea comes from The scene where Mrs. Voorhees says "Kill her Mommy!" Tells us what Sean wanted originally and what inspired you to go with such a striking sound?
Sean really never wanted anything specifically, he once asked if we could have a chorus, but at our budget this was not going to happen. I realized that the character, the killer, needed to have a presence in the film, a sound that told the audience that the visual was not just a piece of film, but the point of view of the killer.
What we did discuss and both agreed on was that concept that we would only have score when the killer was present. Other scenes that would normally have a sting, or some music cue were left unscored.
The sound as you described it is correct. It comes from the close up of Mrs. Vorhees mouth where the voice changes from hers, to young Jason’s and back. I took the first syllables of Ki… kill and Ma… mommy… and ran it
thought an echoplex machine. That was The sound I needed to place throughout the film to give the audience the
clue that the killer was near. The sound itself, came out of necessity. The mother of invention.
The inspiration came from a piece by Krystof Penderecki, a polish composer whom I was studying at the time. His piece had a huge chorus who pronounced the words with great rhythmic strength.
I was very much impressed with the dramatic effect the hard consonants had with one hundred voices pronouncing them with great power. So that was the inspiration to look for something like that.
The Friday the 13th score is unmistakeable. With the music being the killers only idenity for most of the film, did you write the tempos and arrangements based on Mrs. Voorhees movements?
Short answer, I did not. The various pieces of music were written to a click track. An old device from back in the old days… ha ha.. which was basically a metronome for the players to match the tempo. The actions
are then written according to the time of the click. But I never timed her walking or moving to create the tempo.
They were just the tempo I felt inside as I watch the scene.
Tell us where and how the original score for Friday the 13th was recorded?
HA HA HA… Okay here it is. Needless to say, there was not a lot of budgeton the score. So it was recorded in a frugal manner.
It was recorded in a friend, Bob DiGangi’s basement in Emerson N.J. He had a small studio in his basement and so off we went. Here is a fun fact. There were exactly 13 players… 9 strings. (6 violins, 1 viola, 1 cello, 1 bass) we tripled every take. There were 3 brass players.. 1 trumpet, 1 horn, 1 bass trombone, and there was me. I played everything else. The prepared piano, the primitive synthesizer, the tin whistle, the percussion, and of course
the VOICE.. ki ki ki ma ma ma..
My favorite, The screeching Violins! Is that a "Psycho" influnece?
It is almost impossible to write a horror score, and not have an influence of Bernard Herrman. While of course, Psycho was very near and dear to me, the score to a film called COMA, by Jerry Goldsmith was more of an
influence. Although, one can trace some of that score to Bernard Herrman too. So, I know where the good stuff is to emulate.
Out of all the F13's you have scored, which was your favorite?
If I had to choose, and I guess you are asking me to. I would go in this order… The Original, Part 6, Jason X, Part 9. Part 4, Part 2, Etc… There are sections of all of them that I really like. So, it is hard for me to really pick favorites.
Part 3's main theme was different than 1 & 2. 4-Final Chapter, 5-New Beginning, and 6-Jason Lives goes back to the original style. For a couple other Jason films you were busy and could not participate first hand so they took pieces of your work and weaved them into those films. Why did you go with
that upbeat tempo for part 3 and how do you feel that they did not sample that for 7-New Blood or 8-Jason Takes Manhatten?
Well, Part 3 was totally fun and different. First of all it was in 3D!!
At the time of that film, I had a musical on Broadway, and it was pretty much taking up my life. My friend Ed Newmark had the idea to make a “disco” kind of opening. Something more fun and pop. He was good friends with Michael Zager, who was a huge disco producer at the time. So I met with Michael, and spent a night going over the
thematic, harmonic and rhythmic materials that I had used in the first two films. He was totally cool working together with me, two guys from different worlds. He used my ideas and molded them into his materials and bingo… we had it.
I had no idea they wanted to use it in other sequels, so you have me there. I had really very little to do with 7 and 8. I was on other films, and there was a Canadian content issue as well I think, and so I did not score those, although they used small pieces from earlier films.
What was it like doing the score for "House" compared to scoring a Friday film?
Very different. First of all I like to think of House and House 2 as similar films. Even though there were 3 and 4.
House/House 2 were completely wonderful to score. First of all, you have the element of comedy interwoven with the scare. Second of all you have characters, both real, imaginary, and animated. You had, witches, and old Viet Vets, you had a baby pteradactyl, And old cowboy, and a skeletal cowboy. This is a dream score. So much fun. In Friday films you are almost always limited to Scare, chase, kill. Repeat. But with these the music could be all over
the place. One of my favorite experiences scoring, and Some of my favorite music too.
After F13 became a hit, Were there alot of calls coming in for horror films wanting you to score them?
Not as many as you would think. There were some, but of course Everyone wanted the same score. Not that good of an idea. It was a bit of a major pigeon holing situation. I could write any score, as long as it was Friday the 13th.
How has scoring a Friday film now with todays technology changed from scoring a Friday film back in the early '80's?
This is a fun question. Let me answer that with another question. How has your email changed since the ‘80’s? If I gave you a complete answer to that we might clog the internet! Lets see, In the 80’s you actually got a work print of the film, and a moviola to run it on. It sounded awful, and made a lot of noise, you took your notes on the timings by hand, and you use a calculator to find the best clicktrack, which was unmoveable, that hit parts of the film you wanted.
Today, I get a quicktime of the film sent to me in the net, I synchronize it with my sequencer, and enter all the hits and the computer allows me to alter the tempo to on thousandth of a second as it is moving, and tells me how far off every hit is from a beat.
In the 80’s you pretty much had create any kind of special sound by hand, and your ability to process it and change it was quite primitive and very time consuming. Now, all bets are off. Pretty much anything is possible and is a few clicks away.
Now, here are some similarities. Its still the same goal, and It still takes about the same amount of time. What you gained in speed, you seem to take up in choices. But the actual art of scoring I think is still the same. The music styles have changed a bit, and what sounds the audience expects to hear have changed, but the actual scoring decisions and techniques are still the same.
Tell us about what projects you are currently working on?
I just finished the score to THE ANNA NICOLE SMITH STORY, a really nice little film about the pop icon: a very sad and tragic story.
I am waiting on a number of films to be completed. Each are on different schedules, so it is hard to say which will finish first, or be ready for music. Here are some titles. Open Grave, iMurders, Black Friday, There for Hope, Terror Train, March, to name a few.
Any final words for your fans?
Well I certainly want to thank everyone for listening and enjoying my music. I have been to a few conventions this year, and will be at more next year, and I have to say I have the best time meeting the fans, and hearing from them at the website. It means much more to me than you would think. I want to say that I am always honored when someone asks me for an interview, and so I thank you for the fun questions. I hope I did not disappoint you with the answers. Thanks again for thinking of me and for your patience in my answering.
Harry Manfredini
You are a true legend and we are honered by this interview. Thank you so much and we wish all the best!
This interview was conducted
by count6string on September 23rd 2007
Edited by Kyle
Questions by count6string, Demon and Kyle
Thank you Harry Manfredini for your time, it was greatly appreciated!
Discuss this interview here.
by count6string on September 23rd 2007
Edited by Kyle
Questions by count6string, Demon and Kyle
Thank you Harry Manfredini for your time, it was greatly appreciated!
Discuss this interview here.