Guy: Varies a lot. Ultimate Avengers was scored and recorded in a month. Planet Hulk was nearer to ten weeks so its in between those two. But lots of films, you talk to the film makers for years before it comes to fruition. I’ve just finished a very funny film called Jackboots on Whitehall which is a Team America approach to Nazis starring Ewan McGregor. The directors and I first spoke probably three years ago so you do have quite a lot of thinking time followed by a lot of frenetic scoring at the last minute.

ScoreNotes: In your recent score for Planet Hulk, you were able to introduce science fiction inspired music into the work.  Please fill us in on your overall approach to scoring this hybrid comic book/sci-fi feature?

Guy: Planet Hulk was almost wall-to-wall action, big, brutal gargantuan battles so the majority of the music is full on contemporary orchestral action music. There is a dark romantic plot running through the film and I could use some more interesting textures in there like the Erhu and duduk together  with a lot of sound design.

ScoreNotes: Your scores stand out in the animated genre because the music goes beyond simply functioning as background fare and offers a terrific thematic balance.  In fact, I feel right at home when I'm listening to your work.  Can you talk about the support and input you receive from the producers and directors as you set out to score these features?

Guy: Well, it’s vital. The producers are, in one sense, half of the composing team. If they ask for the wrong thing or give me a note that isn’t on the money then it can wreck the whole thing. So they need in a non-technical way to have a deep understanding of music and how it functions in the film. I am very fortunate in that all the people I’ve worked with at Marvel and on Jackboots have been right on the money.  Really good film music should be really good music outside the film as well. Getting it to function just in the film is the least you should expect. If as director you can’t put the score on in the car or on your iPod and think WOW then something somewhere has gone horribly wrong.

ScoreNotes: Out of all the Marvel heroes you've written music for, which characters stand out as your personal favorites?  As a follow-up, which characters do you hope will receive the animated treatment one day in the future?

Guy: Dr. Strange was my favorite as I got a clean run at him. It was the first film that featured him so I had virgin snow, a blank canvas and out of all the high profile Marvel characters that’s pretty rare. I like the lesser known characters, though obviously the fans really like the big names like Hulk and Iron Man.

ScoreNotes: As a way of preparing for each new assignment, do you find yourself reading any of the comic books associated with the movies you are working on?  Also, are you fan of comic books in general?

Guy: I read the comic books as a kid but I’m not a big comic book person really. A lot of people at Marvel have an encyclopedic knowledge of the Marvel Universe. I find this whole alternative mythology thing really interesting. It is just like Greek myths for a modern age with Gods and men, monsters and epic battles and challenges.

ScoreNotes: As the composer of choice for Marvel Animation, have you had interest in perhaps taking a look at scoring one of their theatrical films?  It seems like it would make for a nice transition.

Guy: Of course it would be great. They are big movies  - $150 million – and they tend to go to tried and tested A-list composers for a good reason as there is a lot of money at stake. I’ve got quite a lot of other movies now outside the animation genre so we’ll wait and see what happens.

ScoreNotes: Marvel seems to embrace orchestral scores for these animated features.  In your opinion, what are the differences in the quality filmmakers can received when going orchestral vs. electronic?

Guy: The sampled demos sound really great until you hear a live orchestra playing the same cues. It’s an organic thing, a human thing. Particularly in the uplifting emotive moments the samples still can’t quite get that, thank goodness. In big action sequences there are a lot of samples in there as well though. It’s the contemporary action style and without them it sounds less adrenaline pumping so it will always be, in this style of movie, a combination of the two.

ScoreNotes: In another recent outing, you wrote the music for Hulk vs. Thor.  Will any of the thematic elements from that score transition to the Thor animated feature that is slated for 2011?

Guy:  Well, Thor is already finished. If I remember correctly, I think the general approach was similar just bigger and more of it. Thor is a really great animated movie and it’ll be a very good conclusion to this first set of Marvel animated features.

ScoreNotes: When writing heroic music, how challenging is it to write something that is familiar yet original?  It can be a fine line, I'm sure.

Guy: Very true. If you go too far from what people associate with heroic it stops pushing those buttons. It doesn’t mean that heroic is the only way to score Super Heroes. Look at Iron Man with its rock score. But the approach I am taking at the moment is to take a good uplifting heroic theme and then give it a strong contemporary twist in the arrangement. That seems to work. Like a lot of film composers, minimalism is quite influential as well, particularly in scoring action.

ScoreNotes: Looking back at your portfolio of work thus far, what do you think are some of the most important lessons you have learned from your time spent on scoring animation?

Guy:  To work fast. When it comes down to the wire I can now score 10 minutes a day which I could never do before. Its obviously better to have time to spend but sometimes it just needs to be done very quickly and that I can now do and I couldn’t before. I’ve also ironically got less picky about hit points. While animation music is traditionally very close synched, actually it often works much better if you relax a bit and choose fewer but more significant dead hits.

ScoreNotes: In closing, what are some of the directions you would like to go in with your future assignments and what type of planning might be associated with such a course?

Guy: Well as a composer, to some degree, you have to blow with the wind. I love scoring animation but also would like to do more live action. I’ve got a couple of projects in the pipeline. After all the Super Heroes, I am well up for a nice restrained thoughtful art house movie like Frozen I did a few years ago. I that side of my musical personality hasn’t had much of an outing recently! Overall though I’m just really happy to be busy and writing music every day.  Busy is good.