Welcome to Younghollywood. com. Hey, guys. I'm Tatyana Diana, hanging out with Danny Elfman. How are you?

Hi.

Have you had a busy day today?

Mmm, a little bit.

So, what's a typical day for you?

Well, a typical day, you don't want to know about is just, uh, me showing up, sitting down at my keyboards, staring blankly at the screen for a couple of hours, having a cup of coffee, staring blankly again, noodling out some stuff and then finally getting to work and going till about 2:00 in the morning.

Oh, wow. That's a really long day. Is there anything that inspires you specifically when you're working on a movie or a TV show?

Well, I have to find those things to inspire me. I never know what it's gonna be.

Tim Burton is somebody that you work with very often. How did you guys connect?

Well, out of the blue, uh, he came to me. I was in a band called Oingo Boingo and, um, he approached my representative and said he was interested in a meeting. And I didn't know what it was for. And I met him. He says, "I'm doing this Pee-wee Herman movie." And, uh, called Pee-wee's Big Adventure. And I was like, "Oh, you want a song?" He goes, "No, I want a score." I was like, Huh? Exactly. This is kinda like, "All right, sure."

And so that was your first score that you've ever done. How did you feel taking on such a huge task?

I just enjoyed it. I didn't really care what anybody thought. You know, I had another job, so, you know, it's not like I was trying to get a job as a film composer, so, I just decided to, uh, you know, not care, not that I didn't care about the movie, but to not care about whether it got me more work or not or anything like that. I just had a great time with Tim.

So, did you find that after you did that and worked with such a big name like Tim, you were just automatically thrown into that category and people just started coming to you? Or how did that work out for you?

Well, at that point, nobody knew who Tim was.

Mhm.

And, uh, we both kinda grew together. Um, I started getting more work. He started development on another film. And then another. And so every time he did a film, he'd come back and say, "Hey, you wanna do another?" I go, "Yeah." So, Beetlejuice was our second. And then I did that was my fifth film. And then, um, Batman was his third film. And that was my tenth film. And Edward Scissorhands, I'd like to say it was my fifteenth, uh, cuz we didn't make quite make one, five, ten, fifteen. I think it was like fourteenth film at that time. Like, didn't quite keep the perfect record of fives. But, um, you know, every time he did another film, I was trying to grow with him.

You're coming out with a box set with Tim Burton. Can you tell us what that's all about?

Before I knew it, it was our twenty-fifth anniversary, which I still can't believe. And Warner Brothers Records had, uh, approached us about doing, uh, something in anniversary of it. So, it just kinda grew into this monster project. And it's this box that Tim has provided all the artwork and design for, this crazy thing. Uh, when you open the top, it has a zoetrope, which is a nineteenth century wheel that you put images in that Tim and I have both made. Uh, so you look through the slats and it looks like a, it's the first moving picture people ever saw, was through a zoetrope. Um, sixteen CDs that I spent a long time editing together with I think twenty hours of material and eight hours never released before. Old demos that I haven't heard since I did them. Uh, a USB drive with all the music, uh, on it. And, uh, a book that's like two hundred forty, fifty pages long of of our history together.

So, you kinda accidentally fell into this wonderful career. What advice would you give someone in your shoes who really wanted to do what you're doing and what would be the keys to success?

First off, they have to kinda find themselves, figure out what their their sound is, what their motivation is and what their thing is. And then they just have to work incredibly hard at it cuz I've done all kinds of difficult jobs. And, uh, being in a band is not easy either. But, uh, scoring films is ten times as hard. It's really, really, really long hours. Very difficult, difficult work. So,

Mhm.

that's what I would try to warn them. They have to be prepared for it. Hi. I'm Danny Elfman. And you're watching Young Hollywood.