Today, we have a wonderful guest in our blog, Sebastien Pan, a French film composer and musician.
We're excited to learn more about his music and the soundtracks he's creating for movies. 
Sebastien, welcome! Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background?
I am a film composer and
professional guitarist born and raised in the east of France. After musical
studies and following my graduation as professional musician in 2004, I taught
guitar and played in few rock and metal bands. In the meantime,
composing music took more and more space in my head, which brought me to think
about « how could I live in writing music? » I had already many
pieces of orchestral and non-orchestral compositions ready, thus I decided to
find a way to use them.
I built a large portfolio
in scoring student filmmakers works and other film and TV projects, which
enabled me the following year to be hired as composer in-house at Imaginex Studios, a
well-known post-production house in Asia. I moved there and gained experience
in working on TV commercials, trailers, animated TV series and feature films.Thenceforth, I started
working as freelancer and moved to New Zealand where I’m currently based.
What a wonderful career you're building! So, what drove you to
start composing orchestral scores for films instead of getting into a band to
play guitar after graduating as a professional guitarist?
Actually, I have always
been into composing orchestral pieces, it was just something I liked to do for
fun until I thought it could be nice to try to compose for pictures, so I
proposed to students filmmakers to score their shorts films and that’s how it began. But I
would never thought that one day I would score feature films for cinema or TV
shows.
I sometimes miss to play
in a band, but I will for sure do it again.
I hope you do. I'm sure you play exceptionally well. Who is your greatest
influence and how does this influence helped shape your work?
I would say that John
Williams and John Powell are my main influences, I learnt a lot in listening to
their scores, how they orchestrate and how they focus on the melodies.
Definitely wonderful influences. John Williams has some epic scores! And talking about these great movie score composers, what is your favorite
movie score ever and why?
(I could also mention
film scores by Christopher Young, Danny Elfman and John Williams)
Too many to mention, for sure! All great choices, though. And what is your source
of inspiration to compose?
When composing for
motion pictures, the movie and its story are what inspires me, I simply imagine
what I would like to hear if I was a member of the audience, what could enhance
the picture and bring the emotion. The hardest part is to fit what I have in
mind with the director and producers expectations, briefs and temp tracks (A
temp track is an existing piece of music which is used in film production during the editing phase, it serves as a guideline for the mood
or atmosphere the director is looking for in a
scene). So I’m not totally free, it’s a mix between my feelings and the
Production requirements. Once a cue is approved, I start to polish and improve
the piece.
It’s actually the same
thing in TV commercials and trailers.
I have more freedom in
animated TV series, once we have found the right mood and music direction for
the overall show, I’m free to create themes for characters, environments, situations
etc… The inspiration here is
guided by the personality of each characters and the plots of the episodes. The
themes then will be tweaked to fit with the different moods we will find in the
TV show.
From the work you've
done with Imaginex Studios, what's your favorite and how did you compose it?
 |
| Working at Imaginex Studios |
I like all the movies I
scored with Imaginex, the team of producers and engineers there is great, they
take on all the audio stuffs (sound design, foley, Voice over, mix..). It’s nice to have
everything done at the same place.
I compose remotely
because I’m traveling a lot. Imaginex set up a server where I can download
and upload all the files related to the projects I’m working on.
What are you working
on now and what are your plans for the future?
I just finished the
score of an animated feature film which was released in theaters the 6th of
August. I’m currently working on an animated TV series which will be
broadcasted next year. There’s two other movies that I will begin to score before the end of
the year, and some TV commercials.
I’m also moving regularly
to Los Angeles to grow and reinforce my network.
Sounds like fabulous plans! So, where can we sample
your work?
You can hear samples of
my work on my website: www.sebastienpan.com
I also wrote a 52
minutes score based on a French epic fantasy novel that you can listen to and
download for free here: (see above also for full link).
That's a great score! What a wonderful job you're doing! Thank you so much for granting us this interview. Before we let you go, is there anything
else you'd like to share with our readers?
It’s a famous quote but I
like it: Don’t dream your life, live your dreams.
You got it! Thank you once again, and live your dreams! We wish you success always!
To learn more about Sebastien Pan and his work, follow him on social media:
soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/sebastien-pan/sets
