Could you introduce yourself? What were your previous projects?
I’m Kevin Kiner and I’ve scored over 2,500 Television episodes and 12 feature films.
Film music aficionados will recognize me from feature films including
Madison,
Wing Commander,
The Other Side of Heaven,
Leprechaun,
Tremors III, and
The Pest, and I have composed music for network television series and shows such as
CSI: Miami,
The Star Trek: Enterprise series,
Stargate SG-1,
The Invisible Man,
Walker Texas Ranger,
The Visitor,
Dead at 21 and
The MTV Movie Awards. I was honored with Emmy nominations for outstanding achievement in music composition (
Johnny Quest and
Stuart Little) and I received an Annie nomination for outstanding music in an animated TV production for
Harold and the Purple Crayon.
Are you a Star Wars fan? Do you know the expanded universe or just the movies?
I’ve always been a huge fan of the live action features. I went to every midnight performance for every film. I’m not so familiar with the expanded universe – although now I’m becoming more so because I’m scoring the episodes.
How did Lucasfilm contact you to make the score for The Clone Wars?
It was an audition. I had to compose music to about 10 minutes of film footage, along with other composers. I’m very flattered that I won.
How did you do to compose the music for The Clone Wars? Did you inspire from John Williams' work? Were you in contact with him?
John has always been one of my heroes. I tried to write music in his style. I don’t think anyone can imitate
John Williams – he’s just to great, but I have always aspired to write in his style with his complexity. I hope I succeeded.
Can you tell us what is the general tonality of the music? Is it different from the movies? Did you make it with a symphonic orchestra? If not, what instruments did you use, we heard of bagpipes some months ago?
The general tonality is still heavily orchestral. But
George Lucas wanted to introduce an ethnic element into the score. So now every planet has a unique ethnic modality or sound. The reason we used bagpipes was because one of the planets had "Bulgarian" as it’s musical ethnicity. We chose a gaida pipe and a Bulgarian women’s choir to accomplish this sound.
Are you going to create the music for the series too? If so, did you make a lot of episodes now? Is the music for each episode different from another?
The answer is yes, I am writing all of the episodes. And again, yes, they are all very different musically. It depends on what planet we are on. I’m working on episode 26 right now.
Interview realized on August 19th 2008