Australian Christopher Gordon has built a solid reputation as a film composer whose works stand on their own as powerful soundtrack albums - vivid reminders of epic tales like Moby Dick, Master and Commander: Far Side of the World (2003), or his recent horror film, Daybreakers, which features a massive orchestral score and choir.

Prior to the film's theatrical release, Gordon discussed his work in the horror realm, and creating music that defines a post-apocalyptic, vampire-infested world where fresh human blood has become an increasingly rare natural resource.

Mark R. Hasan: Before we discuss  your music for Daybreakers, I wonder if you could talk briefly about your entry into film scoring.

Christopher Gordon: As a child I really loved movies, and watched movies as much as I could. I think somewhere later in life it just grabbed me, and I was always very attracted to making drama and be able to tell a story with the music… [Early in my career] I did a number of very small things and was supported by my wife [laughing] until I eventually got a sizeable mini-series called Moby Dick (1998).

MRH: Is your background mainly classical?

CG: Primarily. That’s very much my area, although during my early twenties I played in a number of rock bands and so on, which is of course a very useful skill to have developed – the combination of the popular music and classical combined.

MRH: You’ve scored a number of contemporary and period films, and I wonder if you could share your thoughts on scoring such a full-out horror film like Daybreakers?

CG: Well, it’s always great fun. One of the good things about horror movies is that it gives me a lot of room to move and really make a statement.

My very first horror movie was a small a kids Halloween movie for Fox called When Good Ghouls Go Bad (2001), and so the scares were much more appropriate for a ten year-old then for an adult, and there’s a lot of humour in it.

My next one, though, has become a little bit of a cult movie. It’s a short film called Ward 13 (2003), an animation film made by an Australian named Peter Cornwell, who’s since gone on to direct The Haunting in Connecticut (2009). Ward 13 was just fabulous. It was roughly fifteen minutes of full orchestra blaring away, and we had a fantastic time doing that film.

Then the next horror movie I did was a mini-series called Salem’s Lot (2004), the TV remake, and that was a huge amount of fun creating a very tense and very eerie sort of sound world, and it’s quite different from the other two that I already mentioned.

MRH: Did projects such as Moby Dick (1998) and particularly On the Beach (2000) provide some insight into capturing a sense of isolation, madness, and a need for salvation in Daybreakers?

CG: Absolutely, and for me that’s really the crux of what I like doing: getting into the character and finding the psychology, the emotional state and the emotional journey that the characters have to deal with.

Certainly with Daybreakers, there’s an undercurrent of deep emotion in there, which I think is very important for the music to bring out since there’s so much hopelessness; we’re talking about the end of humanity, and so there is one side to the Daybreakers score which is certainly very tragic, and certainly that does hark back to On the Beach and somewhat to Moby Dick.

But the other side of it is there’s a great deal of power in there as well, and this is sort of the other side of Daybreakers score. The power is mostly handled by a very large set of drums that we have, but also other techniques, and perhaps that sort of masculine, testosterone drive.