Personal quote James Newton Howard has become one of the most upcoming composers of Hollywood. His own career consists of enough high points and fans basically adore this big giant adventure score, whether it is Wyatt Earp, Waterworld or The Postman. The Academy favored his intense thriller style nonetheless with a nomination for The Fugitive and his adoring romantic and emotional style, like The Price of Tides and My Best Friend's Wedding. And lately Disney enthusiasts have had the honor to discover the true gift of Howard with Dinosaur and Atlantis. Meaning that Howard stayed out of the spotlights for too long but not in my book because I loved his style from Waterworld straight on. His real fanbase momentum came with the partnering between him and M. Night Shyamalan, with The 6th Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, The Village and Lady in the Water all leading up to a wonderful score. He isn't the biggest star but he has becoming more and more the most prominent star along John Debney to step forward one more. And I can't wait for that to happen. Biography James Newton Howard was born on the ninth of June in the year 1951 and was rooted into music from an early age. Howard studied at the Santa Barbara's Music Academy of the West and at the USC School of Music. For the next fifteen years, Howard was successful as a keyboardist, synthesizer player, producer and arranger and is like several others a musician who went from pop to film music. Howard worked with the best including Yes, Leo Sayer, Carly Simon, Ringo Starr, Diana Ross, Elton John and Earth Wind and Fire. Howard’s first score was Head Office in 1985 and one year later he scored the amusing Wild Cats. Howard’s ticket to fame and glory was his score for the ultra successful movie Pretty Woman and along with Julia Roberts, it catapulted his career sky high. One year later he was nominated for The Prince of Tides and scored acclaimed movies such as Grand Canyon, Alive and Falling Down. The Fugitive is still his most respected movie to date and equally the score was accepted and nominated for Award consideration. His movie list expanded with prominent titles including the likes of Wyatt Earp, Outbreak, the epic Waterworld (which really put him in the lights of movie score fans), Space Jam, My Best Friend’s Wedding (equally nominated for Award consideration), The Postman, Runaway Bride, the highly respected scores for The Sixth Sense, Snow Falling on Cedars and Unbreakable and the Disney’s fully accepted scores for Dinosaur and Atlantis. James Newton Howard also scored themes for several movies (Liar Liar, Dante’s Peak) and for Television series (the most respected one is E.R.). Howard's Signs was at times a cracking listen and Treasure Planet at least gave us several highlights. Dreamcatcher was scored but forgotten while Peter Pan and Hidalgo are more the adventure fare for the fans, who applauded Newton Howard's growth as composer. The Village (Oscar nominated) for Shyamalan's picture showed why fans adore him so much. Further Collateral & The Interpreter are more of Howard's recordings, and he co wrote music alongside Hans Zimmer for Batman Begins. With some disbelief Howard replaced Shore on King Kong, but the results stilled turned out positively. With Freedomland, R.V., Lady in the Water and Blood Diamond all in 2006 there was no stopping Howard to become one of Hollywood's most beloved composers.
You react emotionally to the
film and what's appropriate, it's not so much an intellectual process. You have
to know that in a big action sequence a lot of the detail is going to be wiped out -
you're really going to be left with hearing the edges, meaning the highest and the lowest
frequencies. The
biggest secret to success for me with this work is finishing a musical idea, even if at
first an idea seems like a bad one. I've found that even a bad idea can lead to a good
idea.
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