MRH: I guess your experience with Frizzell is like the old apprenticeship system where you basically work with someone, you learn the ropes, and get an idea of what’s involved in the job, but I guess there’s also a sharing of ideas, because there must be something which you brought to him as well as something he brought to you, so that you both could grow as artists.

FW: That is absolutely true. When I came out of Berklee College of Music, they did teach me a lot of how to make film music and the basics of technology, but actually working on a real score that is going to be in theatres with one of those big composers is really the best experience anybody can have because there’s so much that you can’t cover in college just because there’s no time.

I absolutely learned a ton from John Frizzell, not only how to write music, but also how to produce it, how to be efficient, how to not lose your mind with multiple versions of cues that go to different places of picture. John is incredibly organized and really taught me how to basically go through a project without major headaches and still do the quality work that the project deserves.

And visa versa, I really quickly learned how John works and how he likes his music to sound, and somehow I turned into his co-producer/score mixer. In the last three years I’ve pretty much mixed most of the music that John has made, and we’ve developed a technique where, during the mix, we can take the music up a whole other level, which is basically the two of us just sitting in a room working on every piece of music again and again and again until it is to the point where we’re both happy with it. We’ve developed a process that really the two of us are very efficient in.

MRH: I think it’s also kind of rare where you have someone who is working with another composer in different areas, and at the same time is able to branch out and do his own scoring and still maintain that collaboration with his mentor, so to speak.

I guess the immediate example that comes to mind is Ken Wannberg, who for many years was John Williams’ main music editor, but during a short period during the late seventies and eighties scored a couple of films (The Mother Lode, The Philadelphia Experiment), although he seemed to step away from scoring afterwards, and returned to work with Williams exclusively.

I think now the climate is more different where you’re able to step away from the shadow of a mentor, do your own work, but at the same time you’re not obliged to sever ties and enjoy both collaborative and solo work.

FW: I think that’s very important. I mean, I love scoring movies, and primarily that is what I want to be doing most of my time during work, but I also really enjoy producing other people’s film music. I’m really only doing this for John and nobody else, and it’s a great gig that I enjoy quite a bit, and I think he gets a lot out of it too, just getting my input and my creative ideas on his music, so it’s kind of a win-win situation, but John has definitely helped me get my first couple of feature films, and kept me going on my own.