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Kevin Manthei
Composer of Justice League: The New Frontier
 No
stranger to animation, Kevin Manthei has been composing music for
cartoon and video games for most of his career. Now he faces his
toughest challenge, composing music for some of the world's greatest
super heroes in Justice League: The New Frontier. The World's
Finest had a chance to talk to him about the task.
Please note this interview was performed before the release of Justice
League: The New Frontier.
So, introduce yourself! Who are you? What do you do?
I am a film, television and game composer working out of Santa Monica,
CA. I have been working in the industry for over 15 years and have
worked in nearly every genre and area of composition. I have worked on
major motion pictures writing additional music, I have scored 4 animated
television series and scored over 50 games. My goal is to create a
unique score for every project I work on. I am not satisfied with just
banging out something standard or typical. I want to push the boundaries
and try to say something new with each score.
Were you approached to score New Frontier or did you actively seek out
the project? Either way, please elaborate.
Both in a sense. I have been working for Warner Brothers animation since
2003. I scored the series Xiaolin Showdown which went for three
seasons. During the 3rd Season of Xiaolin Showdown I was asked to
write the Main Title and score Season 1 of Johnny Test. Because I
already had a relationship with Warner Brothers Animation, I was asked
to try out for New Frontier. It was through that process that I
was chosen to score the film. I knew through my contacts at Warner
Brothers that they were working on the film and was excited about the
prospect of scoring it. During the try out phase I got to see the
animatic (pre final animation) of the project, hear the voices and get a
sense of the project. It was very exciting and I felt inspired during
that process.
Are you a comic fan, and did you know of the project before taking
the musical helm? Please elaborate.
I really am not much of a comic fan in the traditional sense. Between my
work and family I don’t get a lot of free time. But, one of the coolest
benefits of working on this project was that they gave me Darwyn Cooke’s
The New Frontier graphic novels to read. Well, when its your job
to read comics that’s a cool thing and I really enjoyed the series. It
got me in the right frame of mind to score the project. I have also
enjoyed comics from Jhonen Vasquez who created Invader Zim. His
comics are much darker and have a dark sense of humor. Jhonen writes the
funniest stuff and it was cool to be introduced to his work through our
work together on Invader Zim.
 Now,
this is a story that's firmly rooted in America's past. What was your
thought process when starting to write and perform the score for this
feature?
Bruce Timm and Michael Goguen the executive and supervising producers on
the film sat down with me a few months before I began work and we just
talked through the story and commented on areas that we thought could
use music and the type of music it would be. Originally there was to be
more of a Dave Brubeck jazz style. But as Bruce and Michael talked it
over it seemed that a more traditional score done with a retro late
1950’s style would be more appropriate. They gave me Bernard Herrmann’s
score for The Day the Earth Stood Still as a jumping off point.
Ironically I had just purchased that score and was familiar with it and
had already fallen in love with the score. I have always been a huge fan
of Herrmann’s and how he was a true original in the field. You listen to
his music and it stands on its own even today. When you can write music
that doesn’t sound dated 50 plus years later you have a gift! The other
thing we all agreed on is that because the score will have a more of a
retro sound it can’t have electronics and more modern elements many
scores today have. I think those elements are the ones that tend to date
scores.
Not only are you dealing with historical events, but you're dealing
with big-time superheroes, too. Was that intimidating? How did you
approach each character, musically?
True. It was intimidating – I just took one scene at a time but before I
began work I along with Bruce and Michael talked about some of the
characters that would require themes. They were cool with me deciding
how to deal with this issues.
I ended up deciding to only have character themes for the main players
and then have the score & individual situations play the rest. For
example Superman doesn’t have a specific theme but there are some strong
thematic elements that take place during his speech, his apparent death
and his action sequences. Rather than try to tie that all together I
approached each scene separately. The Centre has its own theme signified
by low bass clarinet fx. Each time a character is being possessed by the
Centre his theme plays. During the big action sequences at the end the
Centre’s theme is there but much bigger and more grand. Flash has his
own motif and theme as he shows up more than once: saving Las Vegas,
fighting a robot gorilla and destroying the centre at the end. Hal
Jordon also has strong thematic elements that tie his character
throughout the film. He is represented by trumpets and a more heroic
melody. The main title of the film shows up a few times as J’onn J’onzz
contemplates going back to his native planet Mars. J’onn J’onzz is a
central character as well and his music goes between his alien Mars
related themes to his film noir inspired themes as he morphs into
detective John Jones.
For the last 2 acts of the film I created various action motives that I
used more than once to help tie in everything. I think that helped
bridge all the cuts between all the various heroes and crazy action.
 Was
this movie a challenge for you? How did it differ than working on other
films, such as Scream 2 or Resident Evil? Overall, are you
pleased with how the score turned out?
Every score is a challenge because I am trying to do something new. I am
trying to push myself past the standard “good enough” to “what new and
exciting thing can I do today?”. This challenge to myself everyday on
top of the tough schedule was very challenging. But there is nothing
more motivating than a big deadline. Add in the extra time to record
live musicians and the timing was tight. But we had decent time for the
first three acts and I was able to really get a good sense of the score
and what I wanted to accomplish through out. Once we got the final two
reels in and we spotted them I had much less time to write what would be
the most complex and big sections of the film. The film really doesn’t
let down for the last 20 or more minutes and the score had to be there
and working just as hard the whole time. I am very pleased with how the
score turned out – I feel like I was able to write in a style that I had
never done before. Its not that common to be asked to write a score that
references older styles of music while still retaining your own
compositional viewpoint. That was refreshing for me. It was also nice to
work on a 70 plus minute project that has an overall arc to it. Much of
my past projects were for 22 minute episodes or games that had lots of
music in it but didn’t need to follow a narrative like a film does.
Being able to score the whole film and have my themes, motives and score
elements evolve as I wrote was very satisfying. Other people must agree
on the score – La-La Land Records is releasing the score in early to mid
March via Amazon and other outlets. I hope you can find the score and
listen for yourself!
To wrap thing sup, what can we expect from you in the future? Word
has it you'll be scoring two segments from the upcoming Batman:
Gotham Knight DTV. Do you have any information you can provide on
that and any further projects?
I finished my two segments of Gotham Knight in early January 2008
and am excited to see that project move forward and get released. The
two segments I scored are very different from one another – the first
one is very experimental music wise. I created original rhythmic
textures, ambient sounds, violin clusters and various other organically
inspired sounds. I then used these elements to score the segment. The
other segment takes place in India so I used authentic Indian elements
and instruments as well as adding an ethereal, other worldly element to
tie the Indian to the emotional. I am happy with how both scores turned
out.
I am currently scoring the game version of Dreamworks Kung Fu Panda.
I am also beginning work on two yet to be announced games. As far as
film and tv projects I am up for a bunch of stuff so we will see! Feel
free to visit my website, drop me a note and even buy a soundtrack or
two. Thanks for reading!
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