The more dollars the studio producers put in, the less freedom we have. If the budget hits $100m, they get scared - they'll take the existing score of a successful movie and expect composers to copy it, like wallpaper. The biggest challenge for any composer in Hollywood is to be as creative as possible within those boundaries.
Interpretation
In the film industry, higher budgets can limit creative freedom as producers tend to play it safe.
A. R. Rahman's quote highlights the tension between artistic creativity and commercial interests in Hollywood. As budgets increase, so does the pressure on composers to replicate successful formulas rather than innovate, which can stifle creativity. This reveals a broader issue in the art world where financial considerations often dictate the limits of artistic expression.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about the challenges faced by artists in the film industry during a panel on creative freedom.
I want young Indian composers to be able to do more than just film music. I want to give them the skills that will enable them to create their own palette of sounds instead of having to write formulaic music. It doesn't matter if they become sound engineers, producers, composers or performers - I want them to be as imaginative as they like.
Music knows no barrier of age or culture. It isn’t about being politically correct or even making a statement. Music is what appeals to the ears and touches your soul.
In my case, dust has become gold: Today, I work with people I grew up admiring.
A good film demands its own score, and if you are a musician, your conscience will never allow you to do something mediocre for a good film.
My music is mostly for the music. And it gives the liberty to do anything which I want. And nobody limits me to one genre of music. But I learn from life and I try to give back to life, in a way, whether it's the thought of the song or whether it's the approach to the arrangement or anything.
I am the kind of person who does not like to carry baggage. In fact, I don't go back and listen to my own music. I believe in closing chapters and moving forward. That's what gives me peace.
But however measurable, there is much more life in music than mathematics or logic ever dreamed of.
I can produce any instrument, any sound that I can imagine; it may be percussive to the audience, but in my mind it may be a piano, a melody, or a tuba, or a harp, or a harmonica. My mission is to allow people to hear the dance in its purity and up against any other type of sound or music.
That's the secret of how to enjoy writing and how to make yourself meet high standards," said Mrs. Berman. "You don't write for the whole world, and you don't write for ten people, or two. You write for just one person.
Asking an artist to talk about his work is like asking a plant to discuss horticulture.
It is my dream to create an art which is filled with balance, purity and calmness, freed from a subject matter that is disconcerting or too attention-seeking. In my paintings, I wish to create a spiritual remedy, similar to a comfortable armchair which provides rest from physical expectation for the spiritually working, the businessman as well as the artist.
I want my buildings to take root and look as if they've always been there. It isn't about pastiche or adapting what's already there. It's about trying to blend the future and the past.
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