As anyone who is a long-time regular reader of this website knows, the staff of AIG holds the music of 24 in absolutely the highest regard. The music of 24 has etched the characters, relationships, circumstances, themes and moods of the series so deeply into our hearts and has consistently evoked the most visceral, commited response in fans of any TV series I can recall.

Thanks to the fortuitous connections of one of our readers (thank you, Kristen!), we at AIG were able to get in touch with Sean Callery, musical genius and Emmy Award-winning composer for 24, to do an exclusive Q&A session with our site via e-mail about his experiences working on 24. Before we get started on the Q&A, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Sean Callery, not only for his dedication to excellence in creating music for 24, but also for his generosity with his time and his incredibly thoughtful, honest responses to our questions. And now, AlmeidaIsGod.com is proud to present ... an Exclusive Q&A with Sean Callery! The interview was conducted via e-mail by Kasia.

AIG: How would an aspiring composer go about getting a foot in the door of the industry you are in? How did you come to be in this line of work?

SC: There are no clean cut answers to those questions. Every composer I have met has a different path which led them to their careers. The one thing we all share in common is that we made connections to the right people and maintained relationships with them. How do you form good relationships? Well, for starters, take any gig you can get. Go to local colleges -- advertise yourself and score student films, write for industrials at your local cable station. Develop a small studio that you can work from. Technology today makes it possible to acquire state of the art equipment for a reasonable price. Also, the video game industry is now larger than the movie industry, so go to video game conferences, make contacts, have a demo reel. We all start off with a pretty light demo reel -- the point is that you have to keep practicing your craft. I can honestly say that after scoring nearly 200+ hours of network television, there is no end to the learning process.

AIG: What inspired you to become a composer in the first place?

SC: I knew pretty early on that I loved film music and wanted to be writing it. I was barely a teenager when the movie "Jaws" came out. That score absolutely floored me in the way it affected the movie viewer's experience. I began collecting soundtracks from about the age of 10 onward. I was a classical pianist, and despite the fact that I hated practicing piano in a room all by myself, I had an idea I wanted music to be a part of my life.

AIG: Did you know from the start that your style would be such a perfect fit for 24, or did it take you some time to "get in the groove"?

SC: I worked with the executive producer of "24", Joel Surnow, on La Femme Nikita. We had a very good relationship and a kind of synergy that cannot be created spontaneously--it formed over time during the Nikita years and served us greatly on "24". I have the original rough cut of the "24" pilot--it's pretty different than how it turned out. We really didn't know exactly what the sound of "24" would be; we just trusted each other that the sound and the picture would happen and come together. We are very pleased with the look and feel of the show, and thankfully, so are the many fans of the show.

AIG: Do you spend much time talking to the writers, directors and producers about the kind of mood they wish for the music to evoke in episodes before you begin writing, or do they just let you go off and do your thing?

SC: The best gift an executive producer can give to his/her composer is to let them take the time to absorb the show, and take a crack at it without hanging over them. I have worked with producers who prefer more control over the musical composition from the beginning and that can be a burden if there is too much oversight at every stage of the creative process. A composer can stop trusting his/her instincts if they are being monitored too closely. Part of the joy of working on "24" is that they let me try different things--they encourage it. If I wander a little too far outside the sandbox they let me know. I try to talk to the writers as little as possible during the season, because when I watch a new episode, I like to react exactly as would a fan of the show watching for the first time. That will often give me spontaneous ideas, which is always good for the music and the story telling. If I know a character is going to die, it might affect what I do musically, even if I don't intend for that to happen. Sometimes there's a big story arc coming that involves a character (George Mason in Season 2 comes to mind, his slow decay from his radiation exposure), that provides some great musical opportunities over time. In that case, it was good to know a little bit about his character's story arc.

AIG: How do you typically approach composing for 24? It would be great if you could describe the process you, as a composer, go through to create the finished product that we all see at home on TV. Do you read scripts or observe on-set during filming to get ideas in advance, or do you wait until you receive the final cut of the episode before you start working on it? Where do you fit in to the overall production process as a whole?

SC: This is a very big question so I hope you won't mind a big answer. Once production starts for any show, it's kind of like a train---once it leaves the station, so to speak, it doesn't stop until the last episode is done. The production process for a single episode, from the filming of the first scene to the broadcast of a completed episode is generally 5-6 weeks (This doesn't include the script writing process either). The composition of the music falls in the category of post-production, which is what happens to the episode after principal photography is completed. To follow the train analogy, the writers are at the front of the train, the actors and directors occupy the big middle part, and I'm at the caboose, along with sound effects and dialogue editing. I will often run into Kiefer or Carlos, and they may be 3-4 episodes ahead of me in the production process. The way I work is that I receive a "locked" picture--that is to say, I will receive the episode completely edited as it will be airing (with spaces for commercial breaks). The tape will have no music on it at all--it'll be completely "dry". The picture will, however, have a window with a numerical counter--this is a time code window, which counts every second of the picture throughout the episode. It is measured in hours:minutes:seconds:frames. I, along with my music editor, Jeff Charbonneau, look over the episode. This is a very important part of the process--here it is decided where music should go. "24" does have a lot of music in it, but there are areas where we need to be silent because music is not needed. Once it is decided where the music should be played, Jeff types up spotting notes. These notes contain the music cues which I need to write and their start and end times (taken from the time code window). Then I begin composing the music. I will sometimes start at the beginning of an episode or at the end. It simply depends what I felt when I first reviewed the episode. Once I have completed the music (which I will have 4 days to do), I bring in my music mixer, Larold Rebhun to do a mix on all the music. He is the best in the business, and I appreciate his talent. Many composers mix their own material--I can mix, but not as well as someone who does it full time. It's a great investment for me to have him come in and treat my material. From there it goes to the mix stage, where over the course of two days they combine the music, sound effects, and dialogue together into the final version of what you see air on television. This process will happen continuously over the course of 24 episodes. Sometimes it gets very busy, and often we will finish an episode less than 1 week before air date!

AIG: Do you have the episodes and material in front of you when you compose to inspire you, or do you prefer to come up with the music on your own and then adapt it to the on-screen action?

SC: Most often I do work with the picture in front of me. I get a lot of inspiration from seeing images. When a new season is beginning, I will get some inspiration from the early scripts, and compose some thematic ideas which I will try to work with once I get the picture delivered to me.

AIG: Do you find it more challenging to compose for fast-paced high-action scenes, or emotionally charged character scenes with lots of intense dialogue? Which do you find more rewarding?

SC: Action scenes on "24" tend to take longer to do because they are longer in general than more emotional scenes, but it terms of which is more challenging, they are equal in that regard. There have been scenes in Season 4 between Jack and Audrey that are so wonderfully acted, and there is a lot going on between them. It is important for the music never to get in the way of those great moments. The reward for me is when it all comes together at the broadcast and it looks and sounds great--you almost feel like a fan watching it for the first time.

AIG: Looking back over the last 4 Seasons, what was your favourite piece of your own work, like when you saw the final cut with the music added, you just thought "wow, that is absolutely perfect, I sure kicked ass on that one!"

SC: Everything! (kidding). I would have to say that the last episode of Season 4 had it all, from a musical point of view. Enormous action and tension, great emotional story arcs coming to their conclusion, and wonderful musical opportunities which I didn't screw up! Also, I loved the episode where George Mason sacrifices himself in Season 2 by crashing the plane carrying the nuclear device in the desert. It was superby written and directed, and instead of composing the score with tension and pulses, I chose to focus on the greater theme of the episode, which involved notions of personal sacrifice. I thought it played very well.

AIG: Do you watch 24 when it airs? If so, when you watch it, are you able to step back from your role as the composer to follow and appreciate the story, or do you constantly find yourself analyzing how the music is working with everything else?

SC: I try to watch it air each week, because I learn much about how the show sounds when it broadcasts. However I can never watch an episode of "24" without thinking that I could've done better in certain areas. It's just a human thing, I guess. It's not that I'm unhappy with what I did; it just this part of me that has trouble letting go sometimes. Years before I worked as a composer, I was a sound effects editor for the TV show "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine". I learned a lot about how sound works against picture, and it actually helped me be a better composer because I learned how the music can work against very sound effect-heavy areas. While a composer's mantra is to "always play the music louder", I have actually argued on occasion to have the music brought down in certain areas because the sound effects are better suited to tell the story for that particular area.

AIG: When the actual music for the series is recorded, are you guys using an orchestra in a studio, or are you creating all the different instrument sounds using synths and stuff?

SC: I have recorded live elements for certain episodes of "24", but by and large it is done with samplers and synthesizers. There are time and budget issues preventing me from recording live each and every week, but I would love to do so. I am hoping to do so.

AIG: What is the weirdest sound effect or thing you have ever used to create a unique sound in your music while composing for 24?

SC: What a question! I once designed an effect where I placed a microphone in a plastic bag and put it into a bowl of custard style yogurt. I then took an air gun and released it in and around the microphone. It created this bizarre "sucking" effect which I used on a scene where Jack was confined in some sort of claustrophobic area. I was going for some kind of subliminal "losing my breath" effect.

AIG: I've noticed that something you do very well in 24 is to re-use a musical theme in a new scene, new episode or even a different season, but put a new twist on it. When you do this, what is the thought process behind it? Does it have to do with the desire to evoke a similar response in the viewer or set a similar mood to the previous use of the musical theme, or is it just kind of an overall effort to create continuity?

SC: Re-using themes comes as a benefit from working on a series that has lasted for a few years. It hopefully connects the viewer from the past to the present, whether they are aware of it or not. I will not always do that. Defense Secretary Heller had a more heroic theme in the early part of Season 4. His appearance in the latter part of Season 4 didn't warrant its re-use.

AIG: Many of the cast of 24 have said in interviews that it is a really positive working environment with a lot of camaraderie. Is the same true for you guys on the crew side?

SC: This is the best cast and crew I have ever worked with. Normally, there is a cast "side" and a crew "side". Here, it is not the case. Executive Producer Joel Surnow sets the tone here, which is that he appreciates every person working on the show, whether you are the star or a show runner. Kiefer Sutherland also has great respect for the crew. Every Halloween he throws a huge party for the cast and crew, and let me tell you, those are fun bashes--the best costumes you will ever see.

AIG: I've also noticed that a lot of characters on the show seem to have their own consistent musical themes. Who is your favourite character to write music for and why? What is your favourite relationship dynamic to write music for and why?

SC: I have no favorite theme. Regarding dynamics, I love when "24" invokes a little humor every now and again. I do like the character Chloe. She really brings an interesting energy when interacting with anyone, particularly Jack.

AIG: You've also done the music for the the upcoming 24 video game for Sony Playstation. How does working on a video game compare to working in a TV series? Is the process different?

SC: Very different. Writing music for film and TV is a Post-production process. Writing music for games is a "during" production process. That is to say, the mission and graphics are always being updated; story lines are changing. Most importantly, the music is adaptive--it has to conform with the movements of a player; as a result a good player will finish missions faster and the music will be shorter. An inexperienced player will need more time and as a result the music has to be longer. The score has to be written in a way to accommodate all these scenarios.

AIG: Obviously, you are under immense time pressure in a TV production environment because the deadlines are super specific. What tricks do you use to keep yourself going when you feel stunted or uninspired?

SC: If I'm really stuck, I'm most likely hungry, tired, or in need of exercise, each of which require that I stand up and physically leave the studio, if only for a few minutes. If I have the discipline to do that, then when you come back and sit down you have a fresher mind and can continue. It's really a leap of faith each and every time you aspire to be creative. It requires a certain level of trust in yourself, which you develop more and more over time.

Once again, the staff of our website thanks Sean Callery for his insightful responses, which have definitely shed light not only on his process as a composer working on the show, but also on the "behind the scenes" process as a whole.

The 24 Soundtrack, featuring Sean Callery's amazing original score, can be purchased here!

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