From Kentucky to Hollywood - An Interview with Alex Belcher

Alex Belcher & Henry Jackman (Captain America: Civil War, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) are shutting down Manhattan with their Original Motion Picture Soundtrack for 21 BRIDGES.

Photo By Tony Bartish

Director Brian Kirk (Game of Thrones, Penny Dreadful) didn’t want to rely on what he considered the more obvious musical palette of the typical modern day action movie. Free to experiment, Alex and Henry returned to a more nuanced, “golden age” of cinema, drawing inspiration from the more classically-influenced music of noir films from the 1950’s-1970’s. Together, they created a nostalgic score that found a perfect harmony of time-honored melody and contemporary vigor.

Produced by The Russo Brothers and starring Chadwick Boseman, 21 Bridges follows an embattled NYPD detective who, after uncovering a massive conspiracy, joins a citywide manhunt for two young cop killers. As the night unfolds, he soon becomes unsure of who to pursue - and who's in pursuit of him. When the search intensifies, authorities decide to take extreme measures by closing all of Manhattan's 21 bridges to prevent the suspects from escaping.

An interview with co-composer Alex Belcher is below!

Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into being a film composer.

I grew up in a small town in south central Kentucky and from an early age I studied music. I studied trumpet, violin, piano and guitar and growing up and knew from an early age that I wanted to pursue music as a career.  I went to college as a music major and kind of stumbled into film composing, I figured out quickly that was what I wanted to do. After college I moved to LA and got really lucky that within about a month I got a job at Hans Zimmer’s Remote Control, and I met my mentor, Henry Jackman. 

This was around 2009, or 2010, and he was looking for some help on a film, Winnie the Pooh. As his career took off we continued to work together, and then a couple years ago we did our first co-write on a Netflix film, IO. We have been collaborators since then. 

Did you always know you wanted to be a composer?

I think I knew that I would be a composer, but I didn’t know exactly how I would make a living doing it! I had a background in theater, I worked for many years as a child actor for the Kentucky Repertory Theater, which is one of only 7 repertory theaters still running in the country. I never wanted to be a film or TV actor, but I loved theater, and found that film music was the perfect blend of the storytelling in theater and music, all wrapped up in one profession. I found that it can be a very rewarding artistic expression, I was probably a teenager when I made that discovery and started pursuing music composition in that way.

What do you love most about composing music for movies and television? 

Every film is different. So if you are an artist, and I say this not being a massive pop star or anything, but if you are an artist then you have a brand that you have to uphold, but in film music you always have to answer to the film, so its always an opportunity to reinvent the kind of music you create. The great thing about writing film scores is that it never gets boring because every film demands a different type of score, so when you have something like 21 Bridges, which I just did, it can be a throwback to the 1960s, Bernard Herrmann film noir type music. Then you have another movie I am working on for (the same producers) the Russo Brothers, Dhaka, which is a completely different musical identity. One of the best things about this job is jumping from one project to another and kind of reinventing the wheel as you go. 

What was it like to work on 21 Bridges? How early in the production did you start thinking about the score and forming the ideas that would ultimately end up being part of the feature? 

Well, Joe Russo called me and Henry and gave us the script and wanted us to meet Brian (Kirk) who had just come on to direct.  Henry and I read the script and called each other almost immediately saying what a cool score this could be. With this film we had the opportunity to pay homage to some of our favorite composers like Jerry Goldsmith, Bernard Herrmann and Quincy Jones. It’s hard to find films these days that reference that sort of music, but we really thought this could be one of them. We spoke to Brian early on, actually while he was shooting, and one of the things he mentioned was how cool it would be to have a Herrmann Taxi Driver-type score, and at the first screening (producer) Joe Russo said, “wouldn’t it be cool to have a Herrmann, Cape Fear-type score.” It was amazing to realize that right from the beginning everyone was on the same page. It made the whole process really fun, since we all had the same creative vision. 

You work with Henry Jackman on this particular score, what is it like to collaborate with another composer? 

Henry and I have worked on and off together for almost 10 years and we know each other's strengths. He’s definitely my mentor, so on top of the fun and collaboration of working on something creative together, it’s an honor to work so closely with someone you have learned from and share the credit. Henry and I have very different backgrounds, he is from the UK, and we have very different musical education. However, we know each other’s sensibilities and storytelling really well, so working together on a film like this you have to approach it with a sense of one person being the right hand to the left hand. It was a really fun process, there were so many different elements we had to tie together, it was very collaborative and just very fun. 

Are there any challenges you find with composing? Either composing for 21 Bridges or maybe another project?

We were lucky on 21 Bridges because we did not experience writer’s block. We knew from early on what we wanted the score to be, the producers, director, and the studio (STX) were all on board. The one thing we did have to look out for is when you are tipping your hat to a genre of music you’ve got to walk that line between paying respect without ripping it off. We wanted it to be modern and we wanted to put our own take on it, while at the same time being really clear what we were tipping out hat to. So that was the line we had to walk on 21 Bridges. But there have definitely been those projects where it isn’t that easy of a process.  You read the script and you watch the first cut and you get back to the studio and you still don’t have any idea what you are going to do. At that point you start just writing blindly and hope that you find your way. 

Are there any misconceptions about writing film music or score that you would want to correct? 

One of the biggest misconceptions is that the entire process of writing a score is a composer standing in front of a symphony orchestra. In 2019 that is very much not the case. Most of our lives consist of sitting in a windowless studio surrounded by computer screens and speakers and instruments, and a very small portion of that time is actually spent in front of an orchestra. Although I like the romantic imagery of that so maybe I shouldn’t correct that notion. The time in front of the orchestra is the most rewarding part but also one of the things we spend the least amount of time doing.

Do you have a favorite film composer? 

For me, it’s Bernard Herrman, and that’s why 21 Bridges was such an exciting venture between Henry and I. 

Is there any movie that you would want to see on the big screen with a live orchestra? 

Vertigo, one of the best film scores ever written, in my humble opinion, and a great Hitchcock film, that would be great to see with a live orchestra.