 This is the first sound you hear on Deadpool's original score. And this is the actual synthesizer that played that sound. And that is Tom Holkenberg, the composer of the Deadpool soundtrack. This is the ARP2600. Used a lot on Deadpool for these kind of riffs to filter it up and to filter it down. It's always been about the combination of electronic elements with organic elements. I remember saying to Tim Miller when I finally had in my head what Deadpool was going to be, I said, picture Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Miami Vice, but then on acid. That's going to be your score. Tom Holkenberg does it all. Originally known for his dance music productions under stage name Junkie XL, he's a DJ who is a producer turned film composer. He's as versed in traditional orchestral composition as he is in these racks of analog gear surrounding him. And that's what makes him so appealing to Hollywood. He has written the scores of major Hollywood hits like Deadpool, Tomb Raider, and Mad Max Fury Road, mostly from this California studio. I love to collect instruments and I've been doing it since the early 80s and I never sold anything that I bought. It looks more like a lab. It looks more like a spaceship, if you will. When someone thinks about film scoring, this is not the type of environment that they would imagine a score being made in. No, that's true, but it has a lot to do with the fact that scoring is not my background. My background is actually being an engineer and a producer in the studio and then later on a musician. Back in the late 90s, a curly haired Tom wasn't thinking about film at all. Until he heard one of his Junkie XL songs used in a certain vampire movie. Blade 1997. No, wait, your song is during the blood rage? Yeah, in the fight after that. Are you kidding? It starts with a remix of New Order and then it goes into my track. When you hear your piece of music for the first time in an environment where it was not meant to be, and yes, every music can play in a film, but I didn't make it for the film. I made it for something else. I was so surprised by how it worked that I really got interested in pursuing that myself. And then in 2002, I decided to move to LA and to really pursue this full time. Tom explained that in the old days of film, the score was more of an afterthought. So the old school way of writing a film score was that technically the film was already done. The work methods with computers has changed film scoring drastically. Before that, directors would never hear the score until they got on to the scoring stage and they would hear the orchestra actually play it live for the first time. So now since 1984, 85, directors are able to listen to the score, what it's going to sound like. So that was the big major, major change for that. Now a composer would actually get notes on the score. Sometimes you work on a movie where towards the process, you have three completely different endings of the same movie. And at a certain point, they decide which ending they want. But you have to write for all of them. Exactly. So it's, this wouldn't happen in 1960. It's usually not a two way street, unless you work with visionary directors. For instance, that's the case with George Miller that I did Mad Max with. There was one scene in Mad Max, it's a very emotional scene. And I think I've attacked that scene, I think 20, 24 times and George kept saying, no, it's not quite right. It's not quite right. And so we were really getting up to the deadline to get this music approved for the first recording session. So we recorded a couple of these pieces. So one piece really resonated with the conductor and they did two versions of it and they did it really beautifully. And the next day, I just slotted one of those recordings in underneath that scene. And George walked in and he said, what is this? He said, it's one of these older things that you didn't like. And we just, and he's like, oh, it's beautiful. And then the music continued, but then ran out of sync with the picture. And then George said, oh, but we should continue this vibe longer. And I said, well, I can record another one. He said, no, no, no, that's not what I mean. I mean the picture. And so he immediately ran back to his wife and they started making changes in the picture, lined it back up with the music. I then did changes in the music. Then they changed the cut and eventually he was super happy with the scene. I play four or five different instruments. I play multiple bands and I've always been a synthesizer freak, hence the amount. But there's also 20 drum kits and huge amount of guitars, self-made instruments. It still has a little bit of the sound. Tom doesn't just play instruments, he makes them, including this one he built for 300 Rise of an Empire. He calls it the piano from hell. I took a piano. I hacked all the wood away. So now you're left with what they call the harp with just the strings on it. I turned the harp upside down. I put a new enclosure around it. And now I put bass and guitar pickups in front of the strings and I play it with sticks and with mallets. The reason why the screen is here, for instance, that low piano note carries like I think three to 500 pounds of weight on one string. So if it snaps, it can take your head like clean off. So when I, when I. When I play this thing, I actually wear like a riot protection helmet with like thick plastic that takes me to the chest. So if it's snap, that's why I have this here. The pickups will, will take the signal and, and turn it into like a whole different quality of sound. So it starts to sound way more like a bass guitar and a guitar. Tom records the piano and then samples it. Like this. So I use this actually for Black Mass, that gangster movie with Johnny Depp. It's so interesting. I can hear that metallic rumble on top of it too. Are these altered at all or are these straight samples? This is straight, straight recorded. Yeah. Not even treated. Were there films that were more difficult for you than others to find? Every film is difficult for me. Sometimes in a day the atmosphere might turn into such a vinegar that the fact that you play one note, you know, like one note is already wrong. Even though you know that on any piece of music you need hundreds of single notes to pick, make a music piece. But yeah, it's hard every time. How do you think film scores will continue to evolve? What do you think they'll, they're going to look like in the future? I think film scores will become more and more interesting as more and more interesting people will enter the field. For the longest time periods, especially from the sixties, seventies and eighties, it always felt like there's only room for film composers in this world that have a thorough understanding how the orchestra works, like John Williams or Jerry Goldsmith or any Morricone. And now we're having a very interesting mixed bag of people with such incredible backgrounds. Even though it's going slow, but we're seeing more and more cultural diversity. We're seeing more gender diversity. So it's, it's, it's getting there. Hey all, this video was brought to you by Aloft Hotels, different by design. Hope you enjoyed and please like and subscribe. Thanks for watching.