Composer Kurt Oldman on scoring music that scares: “I was always a horror super freak”

Kurt Oldman is an award winning composer and music producer known for his bold, innovative, commercial voice and approach to his film and television work. He has written the music for numerous horror films, the New York-based racial drama Harlem’s Beauty, reality show phenomenon Say Yes to the Dress, Marvel’s Guardians of The Galaxy films, and he’s had countless placements in TV shows including Game of Thrones, Dateline and The Daily Show. The self confessed “horror super freak” explains what attracts him to score music that scares, and how he switches up his approach for reality TV.

“It all started with the kind of stuff my parents were watching on TV,” says Oldman on how his upbringing in the picturesque town of Solothurn in Switzerland influenced his early interest in music. “They watched a lot of ‘60s and ‘70s European films, and they treated the music relatively boldly. That was my first introduction to see how music really works on an emotional level with film.”

Oldman had another lightbulb moment when he heard Bernard Herrmann’s score for Alfred Hitchcock's 1958 film Vertigo, and then again when he heard Jerry Goldsmith’s music for 1968’s Planet of the Apes.

“Those were big influences on my career in general,” he nods. “I was always interested in music. I didn't really know I was going to end up in film and TV scoring. That is something that came about in the mid ‘90s. Originally, I was very much drawn to rock – I studied a lot of melodic stuff. That's what fascinated me. It trickled over into my film scoring career as well, turning me into a very melodic guy. For me, it was always about the melody. That stuck with me for a really long time.”

Oldman studied at the Conservatory of Music Fribourg and later attended the Lucerne School of Music, during which he earned his first composing credit on the biography drama Endless Escape. In 1997 he moved to L.A. (he’s been there ever since) to study film scoring at UCLA.

It was there that he trained with legendary thriller composer Christopher Young (Sinister, The Gift, The Grudge, Drag Me To Hell, Netflix's Cabinet Of Curiosities), who influenced Oldman’s own thriller and horror work. Oldman went on to write the music for numerous successful horror films including American Crime, Out of Mind, the award winning Babysitter Wanted, Neighbor and Killer Holiday.

“Chris has been a super generous person and a great mentor, for sure,” he smiles. “He's the guy who taught me horror and thriller scoring. I studied the hell out of what he was doing, and he's not a very subtle guy, musically. He was very heavy handed, and that's something I took away from him – to not be afraid to make musical statements, especially in that genre. 

"He also taught me to write very beautiful stuff,” he points out, as a contrast. “He's such a master at doing that. He strikes this balance between beauty and absolute terror.

“I didn't grow up in a time where you could do an ambient score,” he elaborates on adapting to writing horror music that makes an impact. “I started when you were much more specific. Fear is something very interesting. It always has been for me. I was always a horror super freak because of fear – because it's such an interesting emotion. 

"You can really be bold with it. The music has to work much harder in horror than anywhere else. You have to know when to musically let go and have a break until there is this big jump scare. You have to be normal before you can be abnormal and scare the audience again.”

In 2009, reality TV came calling when Kurt collaborated with his former University classmate Dieter Hartmann, providing a wide array of music for the reality show phenomenon Say Yes to the Dress. Over the next couple of years, they continued to work on the shows Black Gold, Swords and Storage Wars, which requires a completely different approach:

“With reality shows, it's more about music production itself than scoring,” he discloses. “You might write some things to picture, but in general you're jamming along to fill a catalogue of music that the editors can draw from. You're doing very little scoring to picture and much more answering requests that the editors might have: ‘We're going to need more of this; we're going to need more of that; we're going to need these big, sweeping themes,’ so you create a few of those.”

Taking his career in a different direction again was a chance meeting with Zeb Wells, creator of American adult animated stop-motion sitcom SuperMansion. After discussing their mutual passion for Silly Symphonies and Looney Tunes soundtracks, Oldman was asked to join the show to score the remaining episodes of season one. He became the sole composer for seasons two and three, allowing him to put his signature action adventure stamp on the show. This included producing over 20 songs and collaborating and recording with Bryan Cranston, Keegan-Michael Key, Chris Pine, Jillian Bell, Jim Parsons and Heidi Gardner.

“We did a lot of songs with the actors, which was a real crash course for me in learning how to write for these guys,” Oldman admits. “How do you even approach it? How far can you go with these poor actors who didn't hear the song until a couple of minutes ago, and you have half an hour to get it done? 

"We did an episode with Bryan Cranston where we did a We Are the World homage, and he was on Broadway at the time, so we had to do it remotely. He was sitting in a studio in New York. I was sitting here in L.A. and he was very worried about his voice due to doing a Broadway show, and I kept pushing and pushing. I mean, he's a scary dude to begin with, but we got there eventually,” he laughs.

Having set up his own home studio in L.A., Oldman shares that none of these varied projects could have been possible without his go-to music production technology: Steinberg’s Cubase, WaveLab, and Dorico programs. He shares that he has been using Cubase for 20 years.

“Cubase has become my main sequencer,” he nods. “One of my UCLA friends demoed Cubase for me when we were just about to start on a TV show. I knew it existed, but I wasn't shopping around for a new sequencer at the time. Immediately it looked like this could really improve my workflow, and I didn't even realise at the time how deep this program was. Over the last 20 years, it evolved from a very basic setup to the most refined workflow that I could possibly have – and it keeps evolving. Now I can't imagine using anything else. The amount of music I'm able to accomplish in Cubase is pretty stunning. The workflow is so refined. A couple of years ago, there was a project where we had to do 13 minutes of music a day. I can't imagine doing that in anything else.”

Oldman explains how he relies on Cubase’s MIDI editing capabilities for orchestral mockups: “The MIDI editing is such a huge part, because everything stays in MIDI until the very last moment,” he clarifies. 

“I must have around 700 macros and logical functions in front of me. I have two iPad controllers with the most used functions and the most used macros that take care of assigning channel numbers to nodes, selecting a certain note in an ostinato, for example, and thanks to Cubase, that can be so quick. I would say I'm saving two hours a day just on logical functions – I don't think that's an overestimate,” he stresses, sincerely – “and that's to do with the media logical editors and project logic editors in Cubase.”

WaveLab comes into the picture when Oldman is mastering and performing audio restoration. He explains how he uses the software for mastering film scores and preparing stems for delivery:

“I got much more into WaveLab when I started my noise box production music catalogue – all my passion projects are on there,” he explains. “It’s all the stuff I want to try out that libraries go, ‘It's too risky for us,’ but I want to do it anyway. So I threw it into this catalogue, and that's how I first started mastering it. WaveLab was the way to go because I could colour the track in the same colours that they are in Cubase. The alternate mixes and creating these presets for the mastering chains is a huge time saver for me. Then you can output an entire album with one keystroke. You can walk away, have a cappuccino, come back and all your masters are sitting there. That's pretty incredible,” he grins.

When it comes to his music notation software of choice, it’s always been Dorico for Oldman, which he explains is important for him from two aspects: “One of them is I still like to take physical notes of themes and musical material that I actually have in front of me while I work on the sequencer, but I still go in and write it down,” he shares.

“The other one is that I have a pretty large orchestral template in Dorico and being able to do that quickly is the way to go. As soon as Dorico came out, I checked it out. The whole writing versus engraving thing was completely fresh. It was really interesting that it was broken apart.”

Dorico is known for its intuitive and flexible design. Oldman explains how it improves his ability to create detailed and professional sheet music for live musicians. “On Dorico, I spend a lot less time on the details because it's so much better to get a clean look from the very beginning – there's very little time I actually spent on the engraving aspects,” he points out.

“It's so good-looking, actually! You spend a lot more time on the writing and a lot less on the actual look of your music. There's something very specific about how we have to make things look in film scoring. Setting that up as a template is very quick, and you do not have to do a lot of cleanup.”

Oldman’s success can be attributed to delivering a wide range of music, from high-octane orchestral, razor sharp electronic, heart-pounding industrial, provocative dark and intimate emotional scores, combined with his lifelong passion for this genre. With such a broad range of projects under his belt already, he shares what kind of work in particular attracts him after all these years:

“I am drawn to good storytelling and interesting characters,” he answers. “I'm drawn to action, thrillers, sci fi – anything that has a complicated and dark aspect to it. That’s what I like exploring. It’s most rewarding when you're not pigeon-holed and you don’t just have to do cookie cutter kinds of music.”