- Gentlemen, welcome, and thank you again for doing this.

The first question I'd like to ask is,

was there a movie you've seen in the last year or so

where you were particularly impressed with the score?

Terence, why don't you go first?

- It's hard for me to answer that question.

I don't get a chance to see a lot of movies,

obviously, you know, between my touring schedule,

teaching, and a lot of things that I've been doing.

It's hard, but I love all of these guys' work though.

I mean when I listen to some of the stuff he's done

with so many brass players on a scene,

I would have never thought of that,

and the stuff that he did in the film,

some of the rhythmic stuff

that you did was really killing it.

I would have never thought of that.

That's the things that I love about being in this business.

The thing that I love about this kind of situation is

that we get a chance to share the ideas.

Because we all work in a vacuum,

we're all sitting in a room by ourselves for the most part.

- Every time we do the composer round table,

everyone says that.

That's great to just actually talk.

- Well, hang on a second.

Speak for yourself young man. (laughing)

There's nothing stopping you.

I mean, am I saying you can't come over,

or you can't come over and we can just go

and start playing some music and--

- No, no, no, no, yeah.

- But you're always on tour.

- Oh, shut up, that's--

- [Terence] We were just talking about that, right?

- So untrue, so untrue.

Well, that's because

nobody came over. (laughing)

I was sitting there all by myself.

- Didn't you just say you had 28 dates added to the--

- Yeah, yeah, okay.

- And I'm the touring musician, all right?

Yeah, right, okay, yeah. (laughing)

- But the bottom line is, okay, answering your question,

as soon as somebody asks me have you seen anything

that absolutely amazed you, my mind goes blank, right?

I think that's what usually happens.

But I remember seeing this guy's work and going,

oh yes, I know what that is about.

I understand what that is.

That is great, that is stretching it,

that is going to Africa.

That's doing the real work and, I just loved what you did.

And I seem to remember telling you at the time.

So you know this isn't just... - I really appreciate it.

- Ludwig, how about you, anything?

- I mean, I'm sitting here very humbled

to be here surrounded by two creative geniuses

that I've been studying my whole career.

And I think what especially is something

that I've been listening with your music for years

and years is like the way you guys bend genres

and take different music and combine them.

And that's always been extremely inspiring to me.

- All right, well--

- One of the things I love about film music is,

if I want to go and do my psychedelic country

and western heavy metal album, there is probably a movie

that is, there's a producer sitting somewhere going,

banjos and fast guitars, I need it.

You're required to experiment.

That's the call.

The call is to go and try something new, you know?

- Well being a performing musician,

being a jazz musician, for me, I've always wanted

to write bigger pieces.

I've always wanted to do something in other areas.

And trying to do that as a jazz musician,

that's damn near impossible.

But, having an opportunity to work in the film world,

I get a chance to experience a lot of different things,

writing for orchestra, writing for electronic instruments,

writing for a lot of different type of other types

of music that we'll bring into the fold,

so to speak.

And then the crazy part about it is that

then it starts to influence what I do in my live show.

So then I still have to figure out, okay that works there.

How can I take some of those elements and incorporate

that into what I do as a performing musician?

So the thing that I love about film is the possibility

of just experimenting in so many different genres

and having that just be a part

of your entire musical experience.

It's not, like he said, it's not just a film thing.

But, it's like you're bringing all of your experiences

to bed to create something unique.

- Okay, on the projects you worked on this year,

was there a moment where you had a breakthrough,

or an aha kind of moment?

- Well, for me, working on Black Clansman,

it's a tough subject to deal with.

I didn't think it was a real story at first.

But I kept trying to think about what would be the sound

that would exemplify what most African Americans were going

through at that time?

The thing that I kept thinking about was,

when Jimi Hendrix played the national anthem.

("Star Spangled Banner" by Jimi Hendrix)

To me, that was one of the most patriotic things

I've ever heard creatively done, because not only did

he play the anthem, but the way he played it,

it seemed like it was screaming,

we're Americans too, you know?

And dealing with this topic, with this policeman

who was a rookie, who decided to infiltrate the Klan,

I thought it was an incredibly heroic act,

but one that still was saying, hey man,

we don't need this division.

We're all Americans.

We all belong to this country.

And we all have something to contribute.

So the aha moment for me was to say okay,

well let me take that sound, or that sonic idea

of Jimi Hendrix, and use that as the focal point

behind what it is that we're going to do for the film

because I feel like oddly enough, we're still saying this.

We're still screaming to be considered equal.

("Photo Ops" by Terence Blanchard)

By doing that, the music didn't take

on a reflective kind of personality.

It took on something

that's currently relevant, unfortunately.

- Yeah, yeah, Hans, how about you?

Breakthrough moment on Widows?

- Listening to him, I'm going to tell you the same story.

1983, I was, Stanley Myers, the composer,

Stanley Myers' assistant on a television show called Widows.

And it was amazing because I thought,

here's somebody writing about the sort

of casual brutality that happens to women on a daily basis.

And this series, it's amazing.

It's going to revolutionize the way women are going

to be treated in the world.

And when Steve McQueen came to me,

we always were talking about the last five years,

what are we going to do next?

And he said, what about Widows?

And you know, at first, I was just really excited

because I had a connection to it.

And then, I suddenly realized that it was terrible

that it was so relevant to do this movie again.

Because if anything, things had gotten worse.

I look at the way Steve makes a movie,

and I go oh, that's the melody.

All I am going to do, is I'm just going to be an orchestra.

I'm just here, just a little bit here and there.

And the movie, the tune is already completely established

by the artistry that is Steve McQueen.

- We got to start thinking like professionals.

We're in business together.

There's not going to be some cozy reunion.

After this job, we're done.

We have three days to look and move like a team of men.

The best thing we have going for us is being what we are.

- Why?

- Because no one thinks we have the balls to pull this off.

- You've all worked with the same director multiple times.

So Ludwig, on Black Panther, how did that help you?

- Well, I worked with Ryan Coogler

for my whole professional career.

I moved out here from Sweden to study at USC,

and he was studying directing at USC,

and I was studying film scoring at USC.

And he was one of my first American friends.

He came up to me at a party and we started talking

about Swedish music artists.

And I was like, how do you know about Lykke Li,

or Little Dragon, and all this name dropping

of all these Swedish artists?

And then I started talking about film.

And so we just kind of hit it off right off the bat.

And then, his first student film was a five minute short.

And then, Fruitvale happened, Creed happened,

and then Black Panther.

So we have the same kind of relationship

that we had 10 years ago.

But it's just on a bigger scale.

And so what is so unique about our relationship is

that we get started so extremely early

when we start working.

He sends me the script as he's writing it.

So at that time, I'm reading the script for Black Panther.

And I'm like, the only way I could score this would

be for me to go to Africa and immerse myself

in the culture, research, learn and study

with some of the best musicians in the world.

And I could do that because I was,

normally you have three months to score a movie.

But, here, because I read the script,

and I had six months before they starting shooting.

So I went and did all my research and studied,

and I was able to have something really unique.

- Terrence, how about you with Spike?

How has that relationship evolved?

- A very similar fashion, actually.

You know, Spike, he gets excited and he'll call me up,

Terrence, I'm getting ready to do blah, blah, blah.

I'm sending you the script.

And he will send me the script well before he's

in pre production, you know?

So for Blackkklansman, I had the script.

And I'm sitting down, trying to figure

out what it is that I'm going to do,

and try to come up with ideas.

And since it was set in the '70s,

we had an initial conversation before we started the shoot,

where he said listen, I think I'm going to have an R&B band

be a part of the orchestra.

And I said dude, that's exactly what I was thinking.

You can't have a movie with those bell bottoms

and platform shoes and Afros without that.

And the cool thing about Spike is that while he's shooting,

he'll send me stills so I can get a sense

of what it looks like, and get the tone of it,

and what I'd normally do is I'll take those

and I'll make them my screen saver.

So I'll engross myself with the look of the film.

And in Blackkklansman, they were some stark images,

especially in the latter part of the film

where Harry Belafonte is giving a lecture

to some young college students.

Those are some tough photos to look at.

But I use those things to kind of put me

in the mindset of the piece in general,

and just so I can stay focused.

But we start well in advance before anything.

As a matter of fact, one of the things

that's really interesting about working with Spike is

that he'll already know what scenes he wants

to shoot based on music, before he starts.