New interview with Bear McCreary (Caprica countdown)

Bear McCreary is one of the people involved in Caprica who were interviewed by L.A. Times this past week. You can read the full interview here.

You create your themes based on characters, so when something is not fully formed like "Caprica," do you just go on the script itself?
No, never. I honestly never read the script if I can avoid it because a lot will change from the time it's written to the time it's produced. Sometimes the entire tone of an episode can be reshaped in directing or editing or acting. I don't like to base my ideas off of an alternative reality. With that said, there are times where I need to know in advance certain character arcs. "Caprica" is a great example. I won't give you any spoilers, but there are certain reveals that I know are coming in the back half of the season, so I'm already planting seeds. I'm not going to mention anybody, but after things happen, you can go back to the beginning and see where, musically, I was telling you who these hidden characters are. Stuff like that is really fun.

That's awesome to think about that level of nuance. Let's talk about the two main characters: Eric Stoltz as Daniel Graystone and Esai Morales as Joseph Adama. What, musically, stood out for each of them?

Both of them are featured prominently in the pilot, so my initial original conceptual themes came from the pilot. Daniel is aristocratic and sophisticated and wealthy and very intelligent and highly educated. He's really the kind of character that we never saw on "Battlestar." So I wanted his music and generally the tone of the show itself to be more familiar. I didn't want it to have that kind of tribal raw energy that the "Battlestar" score had. So it's more western; it sounds more like a traditional chamber orchestra. You hear instruments that are not foreign to anyone. English horn and harp and piano. So it has a really calm, meditative yet familiar aspect. One of the things I wanted to say with that is that the world of Daniel Graystone is our world. It's more far-fetched in that it's advanced, but unlike "Battlestar," which is like a submarine, Caprica City is an environment that we are familiar with. So the music should be familiar.

You mentioned the Taurons ... so have you thought about the different musical themes that each culture could create?

Absolutely. And there had been times throughout "Battlestar" where we're dealing with people from different colonies and I wrote particular themes for them. But this is the first time I really tried to craft an identity for, not only Tauron, but Caprica as well. And it's something that I think we're going to explore more. Eric Stoltz is already talking to me about the episode he's directing where we get to see a little more of another colony. He's asking me what the music sounds like and I say, "I don't know. I'm not there yet." But we're gonna get there.

They also embedded a clip from a concert Bear held last year. If you haven't heard the Caprica theme performed live, here it is: