When the trailer for Rupert Sanders' Snow White & The Huntsman was released a week ago, I was struck first by the outstanding visuals (and relieved that, having read the screenplay, Sanders doesn't seem to have meddled with Evan Daugherty's script), and then by the music, a propulsive electronica-tinged orchestral piece that seemed to take in the entire mini-narrative of the trailer, seemingly without being edited down. 

I scrambled all over the web, trying to find out if it was an excerpt from the actual score, or a piece from an existing film.

As it turned out, it was neither, but instead a piece - World Collapsing - from an album of music composed specifically for trailers, films and video games by Sacramento composer and producer Danny Cocke called From The Blue; each of the 'songs' were 1:30, 2:00 - the perfect length to score a traditional Hollywood trailer.

Composing specifically for trailers is nothing new - the mind-bogglingly prolific John Beal has made a career out of doing just that - but there was something about Cocke's ascension that was striking. The album was recorded independently (indeed, as I found out through the course of our interview, much of it was written and recorded not at a sound stage but at his parents' house) and released without fanfare, and yet his work has made its way into dozens of blockbuster trailers over the past year or so.

So, continuing in my recent theme of obsessing over all things film score, I had a chat with the affable composer about his rise from jobbing muso and kids' music teacher to omnipresent trailer maestro, and what the future holds for him.

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You've worked in various different arms of the music business, from producing to performing to teaching, but when did you start composing?

"Well, I've been writing music since I first picked up a guitar as a kid. I got really into recording as part of the writing process early on, too. I would multitrack myself playing guitar, bass, and drums with my little 4-track. I was obsessed with it. I'd come home everyday from school and just geek out for hours! That turned into writing music for bands I played in, and now in the last few years, it's evolved into composing for films and trailers. I'm now composing full-time: trailers, films, and helping out with additional programming on a couple bigger films. It's absolutely a dream come true."

Was there a moment, some sort of cinematic epiphany, that led to pursuing scoring more seriously?

"I really started naturally gravitating towards that cinematic sound over the last few years, but I remember being enamored with Danny Elfman's score for Batman, and Edward Scissorhands as a kid. I was inspired playing video games like Halo, with such awesome epic music that just made the whole game a real experience. I do remember having that epiphany while listening to the opening cue on The Island by Steve Jablonsky. I think it all clicked at that moment, and I began visualizing doing this for real one day. I'm really drawn to all the timbres in cinematic music. The orchestra is so emotionally expressive, and when blended with those fresh and futuristic sounds, it can really be something new and powerful! Film covers such a wide breadth musically too. It's the ultimate musical challenge - exactly why I love it!"

Who are your heroes, when it comes to composing for film?

"I've always been really inspired by Danny Elfman, Hans Zimmer, Paul Haslinger, Steve Jablonsky, Clint Mansell. Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor are bringing a fresh approach with such a cool vibe. I've always been a huge NIN fan. I've learned a ton from working with Paul Haslinger on a couple of his projects. It was a huge experience to be able to get his feedback and thoughts on music. His advice has always resonated with me. There are so many other good composers out there too. I'm lucky to have some really talented composer and musician friends that are my heroes too."


Snow White & The Huntsman - World Collapsing

Hollywood has a history of 'borrowing' existing film scores for trailers - for example, Brian Tyler's Children Of Dune, David Arnold's Stargate, and Clint Mansell's Lux Aeterna - as well as writing specific "mini-scores" for individual trailers. Was the idea of composing an entire album of music expressly for trailers a logical evolution, then?

"It wasn't necessarily a planned evolution. I went to a beach house up in Northern California for a week during a really crazy time in my life. I just brought my rig, guitars, and my journal. I was totally secluded, no phone, no internet. Just me and the seagulls. I wrote a bunch of little pieces of music that all tied together. I just wrote whatever was coming out. It wasn't too thought out, but there was something very otherworldly about the whole experience. It was from that 15-minute 'score' that I met my manager and started getting the opportunities with the trailers, some films, and eventually moving down to L.A. I started out doing these one night turnaround for trailers when they needed some new ideas. I would just work all night no sleep all cracked out on coffee. It was a good experience, fulfilling requests from the music supervisors and writing quickly. I continue to write for trailers as well as scoring films too. They're both such a different approach for me, but fun for different reasons."

Take us through the process of composing and recording From The Blue.

"I actually started writing most of that album while I lived at my parents house in Sacramento. I was teaching a lot of guitar and piano at the time, and playing in a band too, but I made a good amount of time in my schedule to work on my own writing everyday. The rest of the record was finished after I moved down to LA. I started working with a great licensing company and they found a lot placements for my compositions."


Captain America - They Came From The Blue

Did you work with an actual orchestra for the more traditional cues, or was it all done via the magic of synthesizers (etc)?

"Everything started with programming, but I was lucky to have a friend who played cello really well. He played for one of my bands I was in [Broken Iris]. I had him track all the cello lines and some of the viola/violin range stuff, then I had him double, triple, and quad everything to give it a full and very human feel. Then I would just blend those with the sampled strings. It's so hard to re-create all those nuances in pitch and performance with sampled strings, though I still spend forever trying! I do dream of working with a full orchestra one day though."

In the past year there's been a real rise in the number of scores utilizing electronic elements (The Social Network, Tron Legacy, Hanna). Do you think that's "the way of the future" for film scoring, or something a little more trend-based?

"They are bringing fresh timbres and vibes to the music, new and interesting ways of manipulating sounds. This is in itself always evolving and usually becomes trend-based at some point, but that's the beauty of watching music evolve with technology! I think there will always be a place for totally organic or minimal scores, but as the visuals of these movies and games keep getting better, I think the music has to follow with new, crazier, cooler sounds."


Thor - They Came From The Blue

You've said that it's your belief that "music is meant to tell a story"; was the intention for the pieces on From The Blue to work almost as individual mini-scores? For example, World Collapsing covers quite a wide range of moods within a relatively short running time.

"Well each track is a mini-story or feeling I guess you could say. They Came From The Blue was inspired by the idea of aliens or some dimensional being coming here; stepping in from "the other side", which to me has always been a very blue light in my mind. One track, For The Fallen, was inspired by one of the Halo books and also my experience with cancer. It brought back a lot of really intense emotions of people that were brave and strong that lost their fight while I was writing it. There's always some sort of meaning in the music, and I was always trying to imagine everything visually when putting it together. I was always very inspired by superheroes as a kid. I would draw them, and even pretend to be them, so that would explain some of the heroic music."


Conan The Barbarian - They Came From The Blue, Cut The Line, No Restraint

It's quite entertaining reading YouTube comments on trailers that have used your music. Comments I saw on the Snow White & The Huntsman trailer included one that said "It's cool that they're using the music from the original TRON". Did you consciously write the pieces so that they felt familiar but difficult to place?

"What's funny is that I wrote They Came From The Blue and most of that record before TRON: Legacy even came out! But certainly there is an influence there - Tron, Inception, Dark Knight, and all that. A familiarity. I love those darker melodies and that vibe. I am trying to steer clear of any similarities on the next album though. I think it helped to be relevant when I was first coming out, but now I'm really focusing on continuing to develop my own sound. I wrote most of that album in my parents house having no idea it would see the light of day out in the world. Things can really change for you when you step into that arena as an artist!"

Given the success of this project, at least in terms of the ubiquity of tracks like World Collapsing and They Came From The Blue, do you have plans to record a follow-up, or would you prefer to move towards full-length scores?

"I'm somehow juggling both at the moment! I'm definitely coming out with a follow up album that I'm knee deep in at the moment. I've been also saying yes to film gigs as they come. I just finished up a short film from the Resident Evil world, as well as helping out on a bigger film that's coming out next year. I have a feature film called The Devil's in The Details coming up that I'll be scoring too. Definitely going to be doing another release next year. I really hope to do it all. I love trailer music, and I love film score! I would also love to work on a video game one day too. I'm a huge gamer, obviously!"