Diamond in the Rough, Vol. II: Craig Safan

by Jason Foster

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Go here for info on yesterday's announcement of a new FSM CD release: a 2CD set of Gerald Fried horror music, featuring The Return of Dracula!

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You've probably heard his work. He's done action scores, adventure scores, comedy scores, dramatic scores, and just about any other type of genre score one could think of. His list of credits is long, and yet it seems as if it's a rarity to find his name attached to a feature film these days.

Craig Safan is a composer of great versatility. This is an easy observation to anyone who is familiar with his work. Much of his work of late has been in television. However, his accomplishments over the past two decades, on both the big and small screen, are certainly worthy of discussion.

Safan's first scoring assignment was the 1975 feature documentary "The California Reich." Following that, he scored several features, including "The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training (which featured the famous William Devane led "Let them play!" game)," and got his first experience working in television.

The last few years of the 1970s proved fruitful for Safan as well, writing scores for films like "Corvette Summer" (starring Mark Hamill) and "Roller Boogie," among others.

WOLFEN

In 1981, Safan was hired to score the werewolf horror film "Wolfen" for Orion Pictures. He and the director, Michael Wadleigh ("Woodstock"), had discussed going with a very non-traditional sound for the film.

"We had talked about a very off-the-wall score, done in the aleatoric method in which the orchestra plays events rather than specific notes," Safan recalls. "He loved the score from 'Altered States' by John Corigliano so I wrote music in that style."

However, soon after that Wadleigh was fired by Orion and a new director had to be found. Safan was sure he would also be let go because he was yet to record any of the score. But he was actually urged to stay on by the president of the studio. Unfortunately, the good news was only temporary.

"Eventually they hired a new director who basically let me go through the motions and record the entire score. He then threw the whole thing out the next day. I have no idea what he didn't like about the score, as all the executives had heard it over the several weeks it was being recorded and seemed really pleased. I can only assume that he wanted to bring on his own team to the picture, but, because of Orion's commitment to me, he couldn't get rid of me until he was firmly in power," says Safan. "But that's showbiz."

Despite the fact that his music was rejected, many soundtrack collectors had contacted Safan wanting a tape of his score. This was partially the reason why he and Douglass Fake at Intrada decided to press a promotional CD of the score in 1997.

"There were many bad, third-generation cassettes floating around," Safan says. "Also, I still really like the music and was happy to see it put on CD where people who wanted to hear it could get their hands on a decent copy."

His score to "Wolfen" is only one of several promotional CDs Safan has pressed over the past few years. Also pressed were CDs of his scores to "Major Payne," "Mr. Wrong (which was chosen by Venice magazine as one of the best scores of 1996)," Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins," and "Money for Nothing." In addition to these, a promotional compilation entitled "Craig Safan: Film Music" was also pressed--which included tracks from some of the above scores, as well as music from some of his other feature film and television projects.

The concept of the promotional CD is something Safan says has become a great asset for film composers.

"It's necessary in this very competitive business to display one's work in CD form. I think everyone does this now," he says. "With so many films filled with songs, commercial CDs now have very few actual background cues on them-like Mr. Wrong, which only has my main title. The composer has to put out his own CD to show the full score."

THE LAST STARFIGHTER

"The score has no empty, pompous big-orchestra blatherings, and its strength is its humanity." --Soundtrack! 1984

Although many of his recent scores have required a promotional release to be heard, arguably his most well known score is one where a significant portion of the music was released commercially.

Safan's sci-fi score to the 1984 film "The Last Starfighter" has long been a genre favorite among fans. It has received nothing except praises, as it is widely considered one of the few genuinely good post "Star Wars" sci-fi scores. Many see this as Safan's definitive score. However, he sees it a bit differently.

"It was definitely a wonderful experience," he recalls. "The director, Nick Castle, is one of my best friends and the music just sounded great to me when it was played. Also, the orchestra was extremely complimentary, which rarely happens. It was a very rewarding experience. But to me, my definitive scores are more along the order of "Son of the Morning Star" and "Mr. Wrong." Although, I also feel I have a totally different kind of "definitive" score in my smaller works such as "Stand and Deliver."

Safan credits the score's so-called "humanity" to what went into writing the score.

"The model for these 80s sci-fi scores was "Star Wars." That's really what each and every producer wanted, and still wants. And each and every one of them would hire John Williams if they could," says Safan.

"In 'The Last Starfighter,' I tried to not only to find a different model than 'The Planets' and Hanson's '2nd Symphony'-- I used Sibelius as my model--but I also tried to give the score what I believe is my strength, which is my sense of melody. I started out as a songwriter and I feel that strong melody is a very important aspect of my writing and is what probably brings 'humanity' to the music."

The original soundtrack album release to "The Last Starfighter" contained only around 25 minutes of Safan's score, plus pop songs. In 1995, Intrada released an expanded score-only version, with a good deal of previously unreleased music.

WORKING IN TELEVISION

Safan first began working in television some twenty years ago. Since then, he's covered nearly every aspect that the small screen has to offer. Many people may not know it, but Safan served as the weekly composer for the NBC mega-hit "Cheers" during its lengthy run. He also provided scores to episodes of the successful ABC series "Life Goes On," which led to an Emmy nomination for Music and Lyrics in 1991. Perhaps his most well known venture into television is his score to the mini-series "Son of the Morning Star," for which he composed a large elegaic score that has become a favorite among many soundtrack fans. Since 1990, Safan has scored over three times as many television projects than he has feature films.

Though the workflow of television assignments has been steady, Safan admits that he's curious as to why he isn't offered more features.

"I'm not sure why this is. My credits are substantial, but I still feel like I'm not considered for some of the best films," he says. "I've mainly scored TV in the most recent years because that's where the work was. I enjoy working and sometimes TV offers better opportunities for music-for example, some of the mini-series I've worked on such as 'Son of the Morning Star.'"

Safan adds that with TV he is usually offered more dramatic assignments, as opposed to features, where most of his work seems to be in comedies. He says that he has no big preference, though he would like to do more work in dramatic features.

THE VOICE OF A FILM

According to Craig Safan, one of his strengths as a composer is being able to give each film he scores a specific voice.

"I try to find a way to satisfy the needs of the film while satisfying my own personal need not to be boring to myself," says Safan. "That means I often try to find new ways of scoring-with style, sound, instruments, etc. I think you can hear in every one of my scores that I made specific choices as to color, point of view, or instruments-just as a painter would decide to paint only in blue and yellow."

Safan adds that the process of finding a specific sound for a film is a very important and often overlooked part of film composing.

"I hate film music that seems like I've heard it a million times before and has no uniqueness," he says. "It bores me."

When one listens to Safan's work, it becomes clear that the scores he writes are all different and able to stand out on their own.

Compare the large orchestra fantasy/adventure music of "The Last Starfighter" with the more electronic, Latin-oriented music in "Stand and Deliver." The military marches in "Major Payne" are a far cry from the wackiness of "Mr. Wrong." The light pop-stylings of "Money For Nothing" are the complete opposite of the somber and moving music in "Son of the Morning Star."

It's highly unlikely that anyone will ever be listening to one of his scores and say, "Man, this is soooo Craig Safan."

LOLA

Not all of Safan's musical output is in the film scoring arena. He recently completed a musical based on the life of the famous courtesan/political figure Lola Montez.

"She was the Madonna of the Victorian era," says Safan. "She rocked Europe with her suggestive dances and her many affairs. She claimed to be a famous Spanish dancer but was really an Irish girl who created her name, her persona, and her history."

The show was produced as part of this year's Eugene O'Neill Summer Music Conference.

THE FUTURE

Safan has recently completed work on two projects. One is a television assignment for Disney called "Suspect Behavior," in which two boys with heavy imaginations think they're James Bonds and cause all sorts of trouble. The film is based on and old series called "Spin and Marty."

"The music is very much in the Bond and Mancini vein-with a little bit of Esquival and Safan thrown in for good measure," Safan jokes. "It was a lot of fun to write and Peter Hume did a great job on a de-tuned electric guitar."

The other project is a feature called "Splitsville," which is a remake of the French classic of the same name about kids of divorced parents who form a club excluding kids of parents in happy marriages. In order for those kids to be admitted into the club, they must get their parents to split up.

"The movie is both funny and quite bittersweet in a typically French way," says Safan. It's a low budget feature and the score is mostly guitar and soprano sax, played by the wonderful jazz sax player Eric Marionthal. It also has some sort of weird rhythms using sampled Chinese instruments mixed with traditional guitar and drums."

Unlike many film scores today, the music of Craig Safan stands out. The freshness and uniqueness he brings to the films he scores is a nice departure from the often standard sound in film music of late.

Why is he overlooked when it comes to the big films nowadays? Perhaps filmmakers see him as a "TV composer," even though there's more than enough of his work in features out there to showcase his abilities. Maybe they just need to be reminded. There's probably no one reason. But one thing seems certain-if Craig Safan is a part of a project, his score will be solid. Maybe it's just a matter of time before people remember that.

In the spirit of Bill Devane--Let him play!

WRITER'S NOTE: With the exception of "Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins," all of the promotional discs mentioned in this article are, at last report, available from Intrada Records. The commercial releases of Safan's other work can be obtained from most retail stores, as well as from Intrada and other mail order outlets.

See Jason Foster's first "Diamond in the Rough" column here, on Hummie Mann.

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