"STORM CREATION presents" "A portrait by CLIVE COLLIER" "directed and produced by CLIVE COLLIER" ""Music is a place to go to take refurge." "It's a sanctuary from mediocrity and boredom." "It's innocent and it's a place you can lose your self in thoughts and memories and intricacies."" "SANCTUARY Lisa Gerrard" ""And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower wich the children of men builded."" "We promise that they will..." "that if they're good and if they love.." "..if they're generous and if they have faith and if they're fair.." "..that their lives will bring light and positivity to others, how can we promise that?" "There's imperfection in everthing.." "..but you still have to protect the work." "It's like your children.." "..there are many bad things in the world but you don't expose them to them." "You protect them from them." "In a Nietzschian sense, there's a lot of pain out there and the only way you're going to deal with it.." "..is to embrace it and to understand it and to try and work at it from within." "So when I see my children legitimately suffering from the culture that's around them here in America.." "..I think it's not a lot different anywhere and that's the world they have to negotiate." "I was really surprised in the "Dead Can Dance" tour at how many people were crying in the audience.." "..and I became aware of the fact that we've just come through two wars.." "..and we haven't healed." "And what is the tip of the iceberg that we are left with to only imaging the atrocities that have taken place.." "...the media" "Inaccurate." "Numbness inducing." "Completely in a state of discord from all things.." "..potentially life giving." "If we have filters that we use to keep out parts of objective reality so that we can process them better.." "..so we can keep them at a distance from us, or we have armour, defences, cynicism or an attitudinal set of barriers that we impose.." "so that we can defensively be behind them and operate how we want to operate consciously or unconsciously" "Lisa is one of those people that's way fewer that Part of her art comes from being highly sensitised.." "..and so she has a lot of raw nerve-endings that she has the courage to allow to stay raw." "We don't allow ourselves to flow in that child-like state." "For most of us that got knocked out at a sort of very young age and Lisa has somehow.." "..been given the gift to keep channelling that." "There are key tracks of Lisa's that I use.." "..whenever I have young people that are really hurting or down and out or aggressive or whatever.." "Paul Currie (director)" "..music is one of the most powerful levellers and to open them open and normally I would use a track of Lisa's." "And she just loved hearing that her music was getting out there in those kinds of ways." "We came up with an idea where we took forty young offenders.." "..and we locked them away for the weekend with forty heads of companies." "Huge profile people." "And we gave them an experience of empathy.." "..where the corporate people.." "..found out what it was like to be scared and locked away and to have walls all around you.." "..both metaphorically and literally." "I'll never forget this moment where I played one of Lisa's tracks.." "..inside Pentridge Prison which is a haunting, horrible place.." "..and it reduced everyone to tears." "Young and old." "Her voice was just echoing in this three tiered jail block.." "..it was just incredible and you could just feel the humanity she sung that track with.." "..just went through everyone in that room." "I see that it's important that we surrender ourselves.." "..and expose ourselves to things that we don't necessarily understand.." "..that through innocent, impassioned excitement, we can't help share." "If there's anything about us that's childlike, I believe it's that." "That we maintain that lovely ability to communicate before we can speak." "I had an e-mail once from a guy that was a soldier in Iraq." "He sent me an e-mail saying "I hate my life and I hate myself and I don't want to be here.." "...and thank you for your music because it's keeping me sane right now"." "I mean, how more important.." "..that we have to be there." "That is where you know that the work is actually making sense and that you are.." "..fulfilling the responsibility that you have as an artist;" "to be a nurse of the Universe.." "..and be available to those that are confused and can't connect with their present circumstances." "That's what it's all about." ""And this they begin to do and now nothing will be restrined from them." "Wich the have imagined to do."" "Sometimes when I sing or sometimes during the concerts.." "I contemplate the wing of a bird." "Or I see images floating underwater." "It helps me to find my centre." "That was my bedroom in that window there.." "..and I used to climb out of the window and stand on this fence.." "..and put loads of sticks together to reach right up because I thought that I was reaching up to God." "I used to hear her singing you know, at home, she'd be just singing maybe some piece of music.." "..that she might have even made herself." "And singing at the top of my voice and feeling like I was a member of the Universe." "That I was a member of everything." "See you can't.. once you've had that experience you never lose it." "John Gerrard (Lisa's father)" "She used to play with different instruments." "But it was the voice that I recognised was something different." "She said to me she wanted to be an opera singer and we went to Melbourne.." "Nannette Gerrard (Lisa's mother) ..and she had an appointment with a teacher.." "..and he was a gentleman and he listened to her sing." "And then he said to me "I can't teach Lisa.." "..Lisa has a voice that I don't know where it comes from"." "I have never asked her if she's got a trained voice-I would imagine it's not.." "..because like a lot of natural things it's kind of unairing." "It's a little like, where the hell did that come from?" "The voice that comes out of that!" "From that person, where does this amazing and sometimes really deep and high and range of voice.." "Where does that come from?" "Well I didn't know where it was coming from or what it was!" "I mean, I'd never really heard anything like it." "Certain voices sounded like Bulgarian throat singing or other aspects of it, she almost sounded Latin." "I'd never heard such a range or anybody actually sing like that." "I mean the first time I heard her sing, I think it must have been on one of her early records.." "..I thought "Oh that man's got a good voice!"" "And then she can sing unbelievably high as well." "You know, she has such control over her singing.." "..but all you have to do is watch her at it in the studio." "She seems to form a bubble around her.." "..it doesn't matter about microphones, tape-ops screwing around trying to put leads in here.." "..she's just quite focused and right within herself." "Lisa Gerrard There's definitely an element of anxiety.." "..and I always feel that as soon as sound begins or as soon as the combination of two notes.." "..or of a series of notes is before me or within me I need to respond very very quickly." "The desire to sing is much greater than the desire not to." "So in a place like this where the sounds are so inspiring, it's impossible not to sing" "I love the kind of counterpoint or the polarity between very subtle and very raw." "But if you close your eyes and listen." "It's like.." "See that there?" "It's almost like a wind." "And there are three layers of drones that get collected under the roof." "True musical." "I also like the fact that." "..in a way it's communicating with the cars.." "with the sound of the cars." "That they're providing the score tissue for the improvisations." "Why is a drone less important than any other sound?" "Why is the sound of traffic as unmusical as an orchestra?" "Why is it more unmusical?" "Why is it annoying?" "Why is music annoying and the sound of traffic isn't?" "Where do we discern from those things, that if we find our automatic.." "..resonance which are those properties which connect us with everything.." "..and we open the eye that we don't see physically with." "Then we're able to dance in harmony with all sounds." "Michael Edwards (pianist and composer) Yeah, I guess it's a mystery in that way.." "..and I think that mistery is actually there within the performance and I think it's that kind of.." "..abstract essence that is actually laced in all of her performances." "And that's particularly evident in live performances as well because it's very much... it is holistic in it's approach." ""Go to let us go down." "And there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech."" "I remember somebody saying.." ""Oh.." "Lisa Gerrard." "She's pretentious... ..this business of singing without words and how pretentious."" "It really got me thinking because.." "..how can you make anything without pretending?" "By pretending, you bring it into being." "I turned to the engineer and said "Well, what's she singing about?"" "And he said "I don't know..she's singing about what she feels"." "But it hadn't really occurred to me that she would have her own language." "She was singing this stuff and I wasn't that familiar with her work and I asked her.." ""Are you singing in a native language of New Zealand...some sort of Maori thing?"" "She said "No,no, I make up languages"." "There's a simple...just a technicality which is when you get a singer to go "Ah,Ah,Ah,Ah" it will sound incredibly banal and each note needs it's own shape in a way." "But I do think she picks words that have meaning to her." "I think that probably the oddest juxtaposition with the music and the scene was that it sounded like.." "..in those Arabic tones, i sounded like she was actually singing a song about California." "But it ended up she wasn't singing a song about California!" "But I was very intrigued." "She did this long take.." "and it was beautiful.." "...it wasn't quite perlect, it wasn't exactly how she wanted it.." "..and when she stopped she immediately said "Ok, I'd like to double-track that."" "The terminology of double-tracking doesn't mean she wants to replace it.." "..she wants to do an identical take of it.." "..so you could have maybe one on the left-hand and one on the right-hand side of the speaker." "Just fattens it up." "But to do that, you've got to sing exactly what you've just sung so I said "Well, here we go"." "She's not possibly going to be able to remember how she did that!" "I mean if you or I did it, and we'd sung words from the Mass or something like that.." "..well, yeah, we could memorise it or even have it written down." "And she did as well, she double-tracked it!" "And it was at that point that I realised, yes, this was really happening.." "..she had a language that she really did understand what she was doing." "I love abstract work because I feel that the less we try to explain.." "..through words or through images in the traditional sense.." "..the more we encourage to unlock the imagination and the minds of those that are observers." "Mark Magidson ("Baraka" producer) The use of the words or the non-words that she uses.." "..is actually a way of making the music more profound and more internal.." "..because language can often bring with it." "..the meanings of the words and the meanings of the words can be intellectual in nature.." "..and create a thought process that's intellectual." "And I understand this basically from making a non-verbal film like "Baraka" where we were trying to.." "...consciously stay away from creating an intellectual type experience.." "..and reach inside to an inner experience that maybe can't be expressed as well through words." "The first thing that struck me about seeing "The Host of Seraphim".." "which I'd always believed was the voice of a music hoping to create a dialogue with angels." "And there in Baraka, it was married with these images of a tragic content." "And I remember thinking at the time, well if there are angels in the world.." "..then they'd be in these places." ""Because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth." "And from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth"" "I think wth Lisa it's a combination of getting in touch with.." "..the whole history of humanity in a way, it seems like that." "Because you could say it's just her culture but in fact it's much broader than that." "It seems to be the whole of European and Middle Eastern culture and the way those two cultures have touched each other through history and cross fertilised." "It's a recognition that so much of what we do in the West comes from that part of the world." "And if we close ourselves off from the more sensitive societies or civilisations on the planet.." "..and just listen purely to our modern contemporary Western schools of thought.." "..then we cut ourselves off from the soft centre of old understanding." "When you're dealing with something like music you stay in the middle of the soft centre of old understanding." "The other thing is that.." "..we're involved in re-inventing our own vernacular." "Graeme Revell (composer)" "I don't see any reason when you started to play with or to investigate or.." "..try and understand some of the mysteries of another culture's music, why you aren't free to invent that as well." "I mean, it's somewhat blasphemous to some but that's the task." "There's no point when you're coming as an outsider to try and duplicate something that's already perfect." "I've never had a singular nationality to identify with." "I come from a kind of soup..of Greek, Turkish, Italian, Irish, English immigrant families." "In the street we moved to when we first came to Australia.." "..I think there was only two English-speaking families in the street." "It had an inspirational effect because the Italians and the Greeks they are all great family people.." "..and from their homes soared the bantering on a Saturday night, when they had a gathering and that would be singing and all that sort of stuff." "Lisa sort of had a good ear and still has." "And I'm sure that had an effect on her." "Why wouldn't I develop a language that's influenced by the exotic perfumes of the East or of Northern Europe?" "It just wouldn't any sense, plus the fact that I believe that... ..I have never not believed that I am" "Just because I speak English and.." "...English education structures and legal systems have been the architecture of where.." "...my people have allowed themselves to be influenced by.." "..doesn't leave me in a situation where I live in denial of those things that come up through the ground." "I think that's one of the main reasons why I love living in the forest." "..is the fact that I feel that I can connect sometimes with the silence that's been here for millions of years." "And I've often felt in music and singing that it isn't even the music or the singing that provokes the greater poetry.." "..it's the silence that is pointed to." "Because of being made quiet.." "..and forced to listen." "Meeting Brendan, I met someone that was as..although his.." "..design or scheme of things were different to my own.." "..he was as passionate as I was and believed absolutely in what he was doing." "But it was a much deeper more complex more complicated relationship that I had with Brendan." "It was never identifiable in the mainstream." "He was sort of like quitly strong and had a very strong... very strong willed..." "There was a kind of introvert extrovert symbiosis." "He started Dead Can Dance... ..and because I was in the same house.." "..he asked me if I could play some percussion or a little bit of singing.." ".. or syncussion.." "I was mostly in charge of the syncussion." "And would really just play as a fill in for him." ""Without the music", he said, "I'd be going up the walls"" "He said "I've got to have this music"" "He wanted to be get more internationally involved." "Enormous culture shock." "Golly!" "I mean we went from living in aflluent Melbourne.." "..to "The Isle of Dogs" which is probably one of the poorest parts of the east end of London at that time." "It was a ghetto." "Obviously, they did come from a completely different cultural background.." "Nigel Grierson (director's video "Sanvean" " I am your shadow") ..but, because of our focus being music and art.." "..you weren't as aware of it as you might have been." "I heard the track "Frontier" and just thought it was really powerful piece of music." "We shot it(video) in a little.." "It was a place called Tea Rooms Des Artistes which was a little cafe place in Clapham." "It had a really low ceiling which wasn't very conducive for a film shoot." "I wanted something to sort of match the drum beat I wanted to give it something kind of.." "..very hard lighting and a sort of strobe effect." "I think with Dead Can Dance, the one thing that was really amazing about the work we were doing.." "..was in fact that because we were living in a council flat in london on the Isle of Dogs.." "..and had very little money to socialise or anything.." "..the work was allowed to become incredibly insular." "And the main source of our development poetically." "Because there was nothing else." "There's an energy that you don't often find.." "..and there's a generous unselfish quality within the music itself." "It's often hard to tell who wrote what." "I went to see them at the Town and County Club, so, nice, small but big staged gig." "Paul Hartnoll (the band "Orbital") There was this...almost like a pulpit.." "..in the middle of the stage and Lisa came on dressed like and angel.." "..in complete flowing white robes." "She started playing the dulcimer or hammered zither as well.." "..which was what was on this pulpit type thing.." "..and it was just this incredible Siren that could stand there and sing like that and then play this instrument." "It was amazing." "I remember also watching Lisa.." "..and wondering how many people would have any concept of what she was like as a person." "Lisa's sense of humour and little quirks about her personality." "They were really intriguing and I wouldn't imagine anybody would get on stage." "Definitely the vocabulary that we grew together was one that wasn't only influenced by music.." "..it was influenced by literature and poety.." "..and we did a lot of reading in the early days when we were living in London.." "..and discovered symbolist poets and painters.." "..and there was a lot of research in spiritual schools of thought and theologies." "Well the name Dead Can Dance was derived from the will of actually wanting to have a name which describes the actual process of creating music." "Of drawing animacy out of inanimacy." "With the interaction of a human and a musical instrument was essentially.." "..making something which was inanimate for instance like a drum or a guitar, and then.." "Brendan Perry (former Dead Can Dance)" "..making that resonate in such a way that it divulges it's own natural latent dormant kind of properties.." "..in sympathy with the musician." "We've always respected our kind of individual creative freedom as a necessary thing between us.." "..because if we were working together in a traditional songwriting relationship.." "..I think we would make too many compromises to each other's.." "..way of perceiving what each other partner wants to see." "Brendan and I have had conflict from the beginning because we've both had an equal.." "..passionate.. an equilibrium.." "..passionate synchronicity whether it be in unison or in diversity or division of thought." "Brendan was more analytical in his approach to things and Lisa was more intuitive." "When I took the pictures.." "..they didn't appear to be as close." "From the pictures there's not quite the sort of..." "Sara Leigh Lewis (photographer)" "I think whenever they were together even if they were not together in their personal life.." "they were probably..still presenting a united front as it were." "And that's the thing when you're doing it for the photographs you can't allow the cracks to show particularly." "The first parting." "I don't believe that we were convinced by the music we were making." "And even though we can use lots of other excuses.." "..weren't sure." "See, that's always been the problem.As soon as we've arrived at something that we didn't feel was absolute,.." "..we'd have problems." "I think she was very,very sad that that relationship ended." "It could have gone on forever, I think, but it was time." "I don't believe either of us were completely convinced by the source of what it was that we were trying to communicate in the abstract." "It just wasn't there was something that wasn't connecting." "I believe that when Lisa came back from the supposedly last album they did I don't think she.." "I don't remember her saying Dead Can Dance is over or anything like that, I don't think she saw that as that." "..she just thought well we need to do some other things for now for a little bit." "You know if you walk through a garden and you smell a rose.." "..it doesn't matter how sad you are." "the fragrance of the rose is there, it doesn't get covered up." "When my brother died I realise that through grief.." "..when you lose someone that you as love as we loved him, we couldn't have loved him more." "We adored him." "He was everthing to us." "She was doing a tour of "Mirror Pool" when Mark died." "He died in this house actually, it was his house." "And that was, I think that really devastated her." "I think she did change." "Well, we all changed." "But she really changed after Mark's death." "The sadness will never go away." "Jacek Tuschewski (painter,Lisa's husband) I think the gref was right away there.." "..but I think the musical thing happened much later and I think is still happening." "It's the same as you just get a new perception of something.." "..and you cannot remove that perception.." "..even as much you would want to remove someones death or someones birth.." "..from your thoughts I don't think it's possible.." "It worked it's way in, into Lisa's work." "Having experienced the two.." "..and feeling that those being the unique experiences in my life that." "You realise when you lose someone that you have so much love hanging in the air for that person.." "..that you have enough love for more than the universe." "And when your child is born you have so much love hanging in the air for them.." "..that you have enough love for the universe." "It changed everything." "It changed everything." "Because suddenly you have an individual in your life that's more important than you are." "Changes everything." "To have children in your life it's a blessing.." "it's a miracle." "And they bring you back to" "..to the newness of life." "You know, I wondered about baptism and I thought what could that possibly be about?" "And then I thought babies being born in the womb and then I thought about death and birth.." "..being the two things combined in a dualistic marriage.." "..being the key that unlocks the newness of enlightenment and newness of untherstanding." "I was in a concert at one of "Mirror Pool Tour" concerts." "This is when I then knew that there was a lot more to Lisa.." "..than just the actual music." "There was something in the spirit.." "..that she was able to project to the people who were listening to her." "The feeling was there because I saw some of the girls crying you know some of the music." "There'd be tears running down their face." "Particularly "Mirror Pool" dropped me into a very internalised zone." "Of a state of consciousness." "Now when I say that." "Michael Mann ("The Insider" 's director)" "..what I mean really is that I am listening to music, I am moved by it.." "..and I am immediately thinking.." "..if I take this music which makes me feel that way and put it in this movie.." "..in relationship to this story and what's happening in this story right now.." "..how is that going to impact on an audience?" "And I'd had lots of people ring and say.." ""Oh,we've temped your solo album and some of the stuff that you've done with Dead Can Dance.." "..in with our film and we feel it's working very well.." "..and would you be interested to helping us to realise our vision?"" "The soundtrack for "Heat" is actually quite specific but the story form.." "..the form of how the story tells itself.." "..the film attempts to locate audience inside the experience of a character." "Complete with his world view while you're with him." "So consequently each world was its own world of my imagination.." "..and I wanted diflerent music to do that." "He said.." ""I need you to come over and I like the stuff from your solo record.." "..and I like some of the stuff you've done for "Duality".." "..and there's one piece in particular "Sacrifice" that you and Pieter Bourke have written that.." "..I see a working as a pivotal key piece in the film.." "..I'm gonna need you to come over and write some more music.." "..because this seems to be the way that we're going to go with this film." "And I said no well that won't be possible because.." "..I don't do film score and Pieter Bourke has never done film score and.." "..no, we definitely won't be available to help you." "And he said.." ""well all I know he said I've got this movie That I need to make and I need you here in three days!"" "And I suddenly realised that I'd better do as I was told!" "I wanted to create for her the perlect environment for her to make her music in." "So we cloned her studio that she had in Australia here in Santa Monica" "I mean we got the same keyboards, the same amps, the same speakers the same everthing.." "..so that the way she sounds to herself in Australia is the way she would sound to herself in Santa Monica." "Russell Crowe (actor)" "I remember thinking when I first saw the opening scene of "The Insider" when I first saw the movie.." "..I remember wondering to myself what sort of incredible sound that was." "Where did they get that music?" "Was it some strange ethereal band from Morrocco?" "And I then I found out it was actually Lisa Gerrard." "As a director, if I have a projection that an actor is going to deliver an emotional yield in a scene.." "..and it's going to be like this when the scene is shot.." "..or you're working with a lighting cameraman who comes up.." "..and then so to with Lisa Gerrard." "My hopes..." "I hoped that it was going to take us to these places, and then.." "..of course she does so you're gratified and it's surprising and it's reaffirming.." "..the first thing that happens is that you get this big emotional reaction because.." "..the scene is evoking what I want it to evoke." "And yes there is obedience and yes there is direction.." "..but ultimately what you make is a response to a reality... ..that is created by someone else as opposed to the interior journey." "I remember that I needed something specifically in "Gladiator" for.." "..when Maximus basically discovers that his family was killed." "Pietro Scalia ("Gladiator" 's editor)" "And I was looking for something that evoked loss or sacrifice or something like that and I said.." "..Oh I remember something from the "Duality" album." "It was amazing because I had the scene all cut the whole sequence.." "..let me just try that I remembered a few pieces from the album." "I had listened to before but I said.." "..I think there's one called "Sacrifice".." "..I played it and it was perfect I mean it was a perfect marriage and that was like "wow"!" "Hans Zimmer (composer) We just went "ok, hang on!" "This will work".." "This can deliver this idea that gives Ridley in a way license to have poetry in this movie." "They mentioned that Russell Crowe was in it and I didn't feel that it was fair to Russell.." "..because I had just done "The Insider" and my voice had been used as a way of.." "..I suppose as one of the garments that he wore in order for him to unlock the story in a humble way." "She said "No"!" "Ridley was actually cutting the movie right here in my studio.." "...so I went over to Ridley and I said "I don't think she wants to come and do this".He goes.." ""Well, let's send her the movie!"" "I felt a female role was vital in this movie.." "..otherwise it would just be your typical boy's blood bath type of thing." "Ridley Scott (director) I think the characterisations and the story line of the characters.." "..is in some ways even more interesting than the battles.." "..which I think is really the bedrock of the film." "I think that's why a lot of women will like it because they'll find a story in there other than just rock'n roll." "There's something androgenous about the work that I do.." "..and I felt that with the character of Maximus that it was such a masculine energy.." "..that the two.. if I lent towards the feminine of my work for this character.." "which I didn't do for "The Insider".." "it wasn't even a consideration.." "that I would be able to do this work because I would be able to reinvent myself as a singer.." "..so that it wouldn't be recognisable between the two projects." "And I came to the understanding that if I created a new character for this new film.." "..that it wouldn't cross invest between the two projects." "I found the more feminine and fragile the singing and the work that I did for "Gladiator",.." "..the greater the paradox." "While on a film, especially a big budgeted film.." "..where there's an enormous amount of doubt, pressure, worry and politicing.." "..she would very very carefully and very easily stand to the side.." "..and allow to happen even if it was about her." "When we first did it there were a lot of people who were dead set against this idea of the girl singer.." "..in this very male dominated movie." "Because nobody could see." "You're doing bits because you haven't written the other bits.." "..so people only get to see like a microcosm of what the global idea is." "At one point Lisa thought she was actually fired." "Inside she was deeply moved by it." "She could be deeply upset." "She has a thin enough skin I think, that when these things happen, it affects her." "There was a period of time where a number of projects she started working on failed." "And failed for, I think mostly political reasons." "Jeff Rona (composer) I think that she has a different way, a different process of working that not everyone in traditional.." "..so called "Hollywood" filmmaking understands, appreciates and maybe sometimes is a little fearful of." ""Gladiator" being a case in point." "There were enough people running around going.." ""What are you guys doing?" "What arevyou gum doing?" "This is crazy!" "Why the woman's voice in this movie?"" "Wait!" "Wait!" "Wait!" "If you can deliver, if you can move them." "In other words, the only times you're wrong is if you're not communicating." "First of all most people don't really know how people who work in this business work." "Most people who write about it or do shows on television about it, they don't know!" "And the people who do this work, the last people they're going to talk to about any of it is those folks anyway so.." "And there really isn't a Hollywood." "I don't know what Hollywood is." "Here's this crummy building that we're in right now and there's probably 6 or 7 films going on here." "So you have this cave-like culture that people disappear into darkness to work within.." "..and are able to realise their creative vision comfortably because there's very little culturally to draw you outside." "And those are its virtues." "It's in the wrong part of town, those are its virtues." "There's no scene here.None. Zero." "So there is no Hollywood scene." "Of course anybody fits into the Hollywood mechanism.." "..because the Hollywood mechanism if the truth be told is this." "People want something different." "That's why they hire you." "They're cheering you on to succeed because if you don't succeed, they're not going to succeed." "If you don't come up with the ideas, the movie isn't going to get finished and it's bad for everybody." "Harry Gregson-Williams (The Kingdom of heaven" 's composer)" "Without saying, the abuse that we get as film composers!" "Our music is made to order." "It's got to be done by Friday." "Sorry!" "If it takes you twenty four more hours to have inspiration that won't do!" "I want it then and I want it on that bit of picture." "It's too slow speed it up!" "It's too sad make it more happy." "It's a lot of work." "It's a lot of pressure." "You're the last guy in line and everybody is waiting for you to come up with brilliant ideas.." "..most of the time you're just running around panicked because you're not having a single idea." "If you mention the words Lisa Gerrard, no one would say.." ""Oh!" "you mean the film composer." They might say.." ""Oh!" "you mean the girl who sang on or did a couple of films"." "As a film composer, one's pretty constrained by the film you know.." "..and I don't think the beast that is Gerrard wants to be tethered down that much." "She might enjoy the odd foray into it but I think the freedom to express herself.." "And as a film composer you've really got to scratch around for your freedom moments." "I met lots of people like myself, that were dedicated to their work" "I felt very comfortable around them." "Maybe a little too comfortable." "Maybe I don't want to be completely comfortable with this work." "I always want to be able to see it because it exist in an environment." "..of an absolutely paradoxical nature." "That it will never become illusive to me or dilluted because it is so visible where I am." "Kathy Nelson (music supervisor)" "Well I think that Lisa,because she did quite a bit of very very profound work on some big movies.." "I think that it has made a lot of directors aware of the fact that vocalisation.." "..you know like a human voice can be a powerlul instrument." "..as much so as a violin or a cello or whatever but I think that would probably be it.." "..because there is nobody that sounds and does what she does." "It's funny her name pops up all the time." "I did "Kingdom of Heaven" last year." "Hello!" "Ridley Scott!" "It's his big epic movie, his first big epic movie since "Gladiator"." "And I know the word Lisa Gerrard was going to pop up and I couldn't go there!" "Hans had done that with Ridley on "Gladiator"." "I just couldn't, I couldn't conceivably go there." "But it made me feel very exposed." "What is it I am going to find?" "Hm am I going to find something like this?" "Man, I scratched around as if I was looking for a truffles!" "I've been contacted by singers who didn't know that I work with Lisa.." "..who have contacted me hoping that I would use them on my own film music.." "..and I've said what's your voice like?" "And they'll say.." ""Oh!" "I can do a good Lisa,I can do a very convincing Lisa Gerrard."" "There's always a danger that you know you become a cliche." "I mean in a sense that." ""Oh yeah!" "Ancient things I'm going to use Lisa's voice"" "You could see that after the success of "'Gladiator", other movies have tried to duplicate that." "Using a Lisa alike or anything like that to create something other wordly or different." "She's not a fad." "She's an influence." "She's been a significant enough influence in enough film scores.." "..that she is a part of the landscape of many composers scores." "Again whether she's actually sung for them or not." "But I think she's seen as the real deal and she's appreciated as a creative artist.." "..and not as a re-hasher of previous success." "But I think people know that she's ready to continue to come up with.." "..fresh new ways to engage who she is." ""And they heard me"" "We were looking for a composer but before then when you make a movie, you put a temp track under the film as you're cutting it." "And we were using some of Lisa's music from "The Insider" against some of our images.." "..and it was amazing how well they worked." "We were cutting the film in Germany." "I remember ringing her up.." "Niki Caro ("While Rider" 's writer and director) ..and asking if I could send her a script.." "..and there wasn't really time to print it out and send it by courier.." "..and I asked if I could send it by email." "And I said yeah,sure!" "It was the next day, it was almost twelve hours later when she was back on the phone saying.." ""My eyes hurt!" "My eyes hurt!"" "I started to read it and I couldn't stop.." "..and there's nothing worse than reading a script on a computer screen." "She couldn't print it out and she thought oh l'll just read the beginning of the screen.." "..and she stayed up into the night reading it off the screen.." "..which is the worse way to read a script!" "I felt this was so important." "She loved it." "She was inspired by it." "excited by it.." "..and she said...this is just twelve hours after I'd sent her the screenplay.." ""I've written some music!" "You have to come!"" "The thing I loved about her was that she just came and lived on my couch.." "..and was completely and atterly disconnected from any of the bullshit.." "..that would get in the way of her unlocking her story." "We went into the studio, I think I arrived at midday, we went straight into the studio.." "...and by midnight, that was it, I was a zombie." "And I remember asking very respecflully if she thought I could please go to bed." "And she just,she looked at me it was like I suggested we fly to the moon.And she said.." ""Oh!" "Well!" "If you must!" And so I did!" "And I got up very early in the morning and.." "..she was still in the studio or back in the studio having hardly slept and we continued." "I remember saying to her at the time.." "You realise that I'm never going to get another gig after this one because some of this music is like Lisa holding one finger on the keyboard!" "She didn't care about that Bless her cotton socks!" "Out there, there's in people that film compose a lot they can bring a cynism to the work." "They can write music to fill in the blanks." "They can write music to provide emotion where there is none." "Whereas Lisa truly feels." "The reason why it was so important was because suddenly.." "..someone had pointed out that indigenous peoples are alive and well.." "..and still within the contemporary fabric.." "..or within a contemporary scheme of things whether it be Western or whatever.." "..that were still upon their own strength able to function and maintain their spirituality." "She's eerily connected to the spirit of things.." "..that I don't believe there's any culture that she can't deeply and critically understand." ""I'm praying for rain to see desert flowers again,"" "It was after the war in Iraq that Brendan and I had started talking again on the telephone." "We started to speak about the poetry.." "..of the Middle East and how prevalent and what an integral part of our work it had been." "That is the thing that provoked us to get back together and start doing the concerts." "Brendan had written a piece "Saffron", which was a message.." "..very personal to him that needed to be said.." "..a reminder of us not being influenced by the powers of the world.." "..but by being influenced by our familiarity." "When I got back to Ireland and I spoke to Brendan for the first time after six years.." "I felt really alive." "You have to understand the last six years that I've been through so much." "I felt like I'd come home after a long journey." "I wanted to share all of the things that I discovered.." "..which is why I brought my favourite people to the Dead Can Dance situation." "People that I felt had surfaced to the top of at times a dark pool and had shown their integrity." "I was excited and utterly thrilled because Lisa said she wanted me to mix it." "David Badrick (mixing assistance Lisa's album "Immortal memory") And I was like.." "It was one of the best things I'd ever heard!" "I've never toured with a band." "I actually very rarely even gig at all." "Patrick Cassidy (composer)" "But I'd been working a lot in the year and a half prior to that so... ..it seemed kind of natural that I should come along and do it." "Being invited into the Dead Can Dance umbrella you know for me was.." "I knew it was going to be a very different experience to working with Lisa on her own." "Particularly because it's a body of work that represents a lot of time and a lot of development." "..and a lot of obviously very intense close working between Lisa and Brendan." "It's too loud." " Ok." "I was working pretty close with Brendan because... ..he produced most of the Dead Can Dance music so he had a very strong idea of what he wanted to hear." "In the first week, it was a two week rehearsal period and th e first week... ..we pretty much covered all the songs that we were going to be doing on tour." "It was hard work as always." "But reassuring from the point of view that I knew that.." "..that magic that we had togther hadn't been diluted." "So what is your response to that change of on stage vocal sound?" "What is your response to that David?" "I don't have a response." "You will clean up...all my nice reverb and I'll have nothing." "Is that it?" "Is that how you'll respond?" "No, I need to know." "Is it ugly?" "Can you hear it?" "Is it something you'll need to clean?" "No, no it's good!" "It's really good." " Ok, I just need to know that." "During the performance with a hall full of people.." "It'll just be.." "It'll be really good." "All right then." "The only problems that we had were purely interpretational." "Nothing to do with the integrity of the work." "The integrity of the work was stronger than ever, so there is the reason to go on." "Like I remember the first gig at the Olympia in Dublin." "It was my first gig." "I was just terrified." "I was shaking like a leaf." "I was petrified because I realise that... ..to walk back onto a stage after so long of working in the studio and doing films..." "I realised that I needed to find.." "..my magnetic thing of just being able to center myself and to balance.." "..which is a lot to do with my work it's finding that physical point that I can balance.." "..that's why it's always good for me to have something to hold onto.." "..because I find that I lose my center of balance when I sing." "The band starts." "The groove starts." "I fade the sample down.." "..and then suddenly Lisa started singing." "And then there was this, honestly a collective gasp.." "..that went through the audience and that was consistent particularly every night." "Whenever she started the first part of "Nierika" live." "I'd never been in an audience and.." "...seen somebody have that kind of power over a group of people collectively it was incredible." "But the fans!" "They're quite fanatical in terms of their appreciation." "People just weeping in the rows in the front that I could see from stage and afterwards people so obviously deeply moved by the music." "Especially during the delicate pieces where everything is completely exposed," "..you can feel the room." "The pieces were becoming sadder and sadder and sadder.." "..and you'd open your eyes at the end of the song and there were people weeping eveywhere." "I saw her perform the Hollywood Bowl recetly." "That voice!" "I swear." "There were 12 000 people there?" "I can't remember." "Full!" "And when she sang, not a single one of those people moved." "I believe that the power of.." "or the source of the river that.." "..tha work comes from will be there with or without us.." "..and I think that's where you know you've evolved as a human being." "If you can continue in humility to serve.." "..those voices of creation that nourish and give inspiration to others." "I think that fence thing was really a happy moment for me." "It must have been or I wouldn't have had the courage to keep going." "And it's been the source of... ..because each time I enter into this work I re-visit that place." "You see when you experience something as a child, it's without complication." "The work has become much more complicated now." "So to say that you can be happy..now.." "..it's a bit of a stretch." "With any great gift there's a great curse." "She can't control when music happens in her.." "..It just goes and it can take hours...days." "People say to me..." ""Oh!" "Isn't it fabulous!" "Look how Lisa's going.." "She's just so talented and what a wonderful job!" "How romantic it must be!"" "I admit I think to myself I would prefer her... mentally ..to work on a check-out in a supermarket." "She wouldn't have the stress." "It's very stressful." "I mean I see her very stressed and that huts me." "I've never met anybody as driven as Lisa." "And I know that she personally..." "she struggles with it herself.." "...in terms of trying to find that happy balance between family and work." "It hasn't always worked for the work but bad luck." "My children are more important" "I worked for six years straight without break not one day off." "I managed because I insisted on working here for some of the time." "I managed to maintain the relationship that is important to me, the most important relationship.." "..which is with my children." "That's why we live here because there are no distractions." "And that they are 70% at the foreground of everything that we do." "Yes there are the times as I explained to them that I have to earn money.." "..otherwise they don't eat." "This is a mother.This is a home." "She's a builder." "She's not this ethereal being that.." "..creates these feelings where people's emotions just overwhelm them." "When she walks in," "..walks over to one of the bay windows and drops her two bags.." "..and she turned around and said.." ""Dad, it's good to be home."" "And that's her refuge." "Whatever happens to her, wherever it is and if she's not near her home," "..that's the first place she'll head for." "A sorrow or losing a good friend that's where her refuge will be." "I make an enormous effort to maintain those principles in my life." "My whole life has been art." "Even as far as my children are concerned, it has become an artform in how I... .. perceive them and communicate with them having the ability to hear their inner feelings." "I knew when they were an hour old." "When they came into the world, they came into the world with things." "With things that were not contemporary thought processes.." "..but with instincts and perceptions or.." "..perceivability and they were absorbing things a million miles an hour." "And in their song forms and before they started to speak a rational language they communicated." "So that's the main thing behind my work is that I want to provoke, I want to encourage people.." "..to communicate in a way that is a soul gate that helps them to feel.." "..not only other people but where they are and their planet and their god." "This film was only made possible by the trust, generocity and support of Lisa Gerrard with all my heart." "Thank you!"