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Julie:

We get up and make our kids’ lunches, and then one of us helps them get dressed for camp or school. If we’re in the middle of a project, while we’re doing all this, probably some ideas are germinating in our brains. If we’re trying to listen to a particular style, we’re listening to different music and working on lyrics out loud in the car.


If we’re working on putting music to a piece of film, we go to our studio and meet our director. We take a look at their film or video and then we talk about the style and whether the director has something in mind. If this isn’t a series, we talk about what kind of style we see. The main thing is deciding basically where the music goes. We discuss the role music will play in the film and the emotional impact we see it having. This is two or three hours of discussion.



Steve:

It’s a gradual process. There’s a certain rhythm to a film to the dialogue, the cutting that helps bring an attitude that the director wants. For example, music for comedies is generally overdone and, for dramas, subtle and underdone.



Julie:

Even if every step of the whole production process was delayed, our part can’t be delayed, so the pressure’s on us and we have two weeks. When you first look at the blank page and you haven’t started yet, there’s a lot of snacking to be done.



Steve:

After lunch we get to writing, sitting side-by-side, occasionally arm-wrestling for control of the keyboard. Once we start, we get more ideas. If the project is a series, then we’ve got musical material that we use. Generally what we aim to do is to write a specific piece of music that we call a cue. We decide what section of film we’re going to write music to, and we set a goal for the day. We write four minutes on a good day. That’s when we munch a lot.



Julie:

The mixing part is the later part of the day. It takes a lot of listening but not the kind of thought that creating takes. You listen to each cue over and over again until your ears turn blue to hear if it is the best balance and all the single melody lines come out like you want them to. If something for some reason is making a noise, you have to clear that up. It gets technical and nitpicky.


Depending on how close it is to the due date and how close we are to the studio, we may stay past dinner. When we get home, we step out of one role and step into another one. Our brains have totally been immersed in the writing all day and all of a sudden we have to click back.



Steve:

After the kids are in bed, we may sit down and watch a movie on occasion.



Julie:

But that is so rare. What we do is really very, very hard work. There are a lot of ups and downs with it, but there’s something about a creative job that keeps the mind on a young plane. Our day is always different. When you work on something that’s comedic you do a lot of laughing. That keeps you young at heart you enjoy what you’re doing. The variety of activities during the day and during the projects of our career keeps us on our toes.


As told to Katherine Gray



Steve and Julie Bernstein



Composers


Credits:

Warner Bros. cartoons, including “Animaniacs,” among other film and cartoon soundtracks


Home:

West Hills


Vacation spot:

Paris


Airport tension:

“I don’t see Steve’s need to sit on a plane for 45 minutes,” Julie said. “I would rather walk around and get on in the last 20 minutes.”


Steve’s favorite cartoon:

“Rocky and Bullwinkle”


Julie’s favorite snack food:

Fifteen little chocolate chip cookies in a glass of milk (“I scoop them out with a spoon”).

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