MUSIC
Academy Award winner Gustavo Santaolalla on composing the score for The Last Of Us
At 72, Argentinian musician A Gustavo Santaolalla can look across a remarkably varied career, from forming his first band at the age of 17 to producing alternative Latin music, then coming to prominence with his work in film, winning the Academy Award for Best Original Score with both 2005’s Brokeback Mountain and 2006’s Babel. To many, though, he is better known for his score for The Last Of Us, its sequel, and the HBO TV adaptation. Here, during a trip to the UK to perform the series’ music in concert, he tells us how he approaches his work.
What was your experience with videogames prior to The Last Of Us?
I’m a terrible gamer, but I’ve always enjoyed watching people play. I love watching the guys in my band, Bajofondo, playing FIFA like I’m watching a football match, and I have a son who was in his mid-teens when I started working on The Last Of Us, and he was a really good player. I always saw the killing, the fighting, and the surviving in games, but no really soulful connection. So I always thought, if somebody connects on an emotional level with a gamer, it’s going to be a revolution.
How did Naughty Dog approach you to work on The Last Of Us?
Neil [Druckmann] came on the scene and told me the story of The Last Of Us, and shared with me how he wanted to actually connect [with the player] in a soulful manner. I never felt that I was writing the music for a videogame. I always felt that I was writing music for a great story. That’s why I always knew that you could adapt The Last Of Us in many ways – as a [TV] series, as a puppet theatre piece, as an animation – because it’s a great story.
How does the process of scoring a game differ from your work in film? It was very similar to the way I work on films, because I don’t work in a traditional way. Usually, [film] composers come in at the very end, when they already have a rough cut with temp music, and they’re kind of chasing the temp, which is not very creative for me. I try to get involved in a film project as early as I can. Brokeback Mountain is the biggest example because I did the whole score before one frame was even shot. Ang [Lee] told me he would periodically play the music to the actors and he had used the music to create the narrative. So, when the possibility of working on a videogame came, it was very similar.
You’ve written soundtracks for films that deal with the harshness of life and being on the road, themes that are prominent in The Last Of Us. Was your past work ever discussed as touchstones?
No, but you make a great connection with them. I work by instinct – I’m not an academically trained musician. Thinking is like a second part of the process for
