MRH: Did you do any research for creating some of the imaginative sounds, because there’s some really chilling use of vocals, brass, and unique sounds that envelope the listener as if evoking a swarming entity, and the percussion isn’t a standard array that you would use with an orchestra?

CG: No, and indeed it’s not. What I did was I set up the entire studio as though we had thirty-six percussion players, and I actually only had two players, and they moved around the room, playing various parts, overdubbing the various parts so that the effect is that of thirty-six players playing percussion, but it was always the way I set up the room so that the actual sound spectrum sounds like all those players.

In terms of research, probably not really; just a great deal of internal thought. ‘What are the best sounds for this movie? What’s the best way to go?’

I probably have three distinctive areas in the film: there’s the drums; there’s a subtle use of electronics in there just to extend the palette of the orchestra; and there’s a choir, which is used in a specifically eerie sort of manner, which I did a little bit of in Salem’s Lot, but mostly that was slightly more religious with a Satanic sound to it, whereas in Daybreakers it’s much more eerie, spooky – you can’t put your finger on it.

MRH: Perhaps the biggest surprise for me was the full orchestral approach you used for the film, which is very rare for a contemporary horror project, since most producers want a hybrid of rock and electronica with slight orchestral elements. Was this deep, almost Wagnerian scope of the score your idea, or was it something the filmmakers wanted from the start?

CG: No, it’s what they came to me with, and probably why they chose me out of the group of composers they were considering. They wanted an orchestral score, they wanted a sense of melody (not an over-the-top melody, but a sense of theme and so on), and I was please to provide that for them.

MRH: You make use of these deep, resonant chords that kind of swirl around, and I like the way those sounds begin rather intimately, and then build and envelope the listener, which I imagine in a theatrical surrounding really enhances the mood of a scene, particularly when it involves something that’s very violent or very foreboding.

CG: There is a lot, and not to get technical, but normally you’d have a whole lot of violins in the orchestra, and I kept the violins out of the orchestra for a lot of the score.
I associate them with light, and being able to go into light and the sun is a crucial part of the story, so the violins are out of most of the movie. When they come in they’re only down in the low register, and then slowly they go up into their high register, which means that a lot of the film doesn’t have violins or high strings.

There’s a melancholy angst to the whole sound, and I had quite a lot of violas and cellos which gave a rich mid-range and low range, which was a sound that I felt suited the style of the movie emotionally, and also the look of the movie, which is quite dark.

MRH: I wonder if you could briefly explain some of the elements you used, and their function in the film, such as the huge array of percussion, and the horrific chorals that are paired with deep, resonating strings?

CG: I think they mostly work in terms of vampires rather than humans. Sometimes it’s not the choir but the music that the choir sings that’s played by the orchestra, [and it’s] like a drug haze; it’s like they’re all addicted to human blood, and they’ve all become sort of hazed, if you know what I mean.

I wanted to create that atmosphere a lot with the vampires, and the only clarity comes when you’re with the humans. That’s the nature of that sort of textural choral writing; where they’re all sort of sitting around one note or a few notes, being quite dissonant.

MRH: And the percussion is mostly for action sequences?

CG: Absolutely.

MRH: I also liked the way electronics and processed sounds were used with great discretion and subtlety, which is a change from the more formulaic horror scores.

CG: I guess my first love is the acoustic instrument. I find that having ‘human’ players gives the sound much more depth and meaning than the synth sounds, which are very much in the moment. It was also just important for the film to provide that underlining sense of emotion and humanity, and I think the directors made the right decision in going with an orchestral score rather than an electronic score. I think the electronic score would’ve maybe distanced it a little bit more from the characters.