In the Edges: The 'Grizzly Man' Session

This documented the production of the soundtrack for Werner Herzog's film GRIZZLY MAN and was included as an extra on that DVD. I found this short documentary as intriguing and interesting as the longer main attraction. Herzog and company assembled a small group of musicians who had not, featuring Richard Thompson as the main guitar soloist. Not only had they not worked together before, but their genre and disciplines were dissimilar. A typical soundtrack would be produced in the studio only after a composer has first drafted a score, but Herzog wanted this group to arrive unprepared and develop the music together from the ground up. It was a very interesting process to watch as they experimented and made decisions about instrumentation. Although Herzog is no musician he was integral to the process and sat with them to described the various moods and styles he wanted. He also spoke briefly about his goals as a film-maker, the relationship between film and music as art forms, and of the creative process in general. Particularly impressive was a segment where Thompson was given various tasks to improvise very precisely-timed interludes. "This time we want exactly 22 seconds... " "Alright, now do a variation of that theme for 36 seconds, but re-tune one of your strings to a different key..." "This next one has to run 64 seconds." (Thompson quipped, "you're sure it's not 64.2 seconds?")