Quotes from Howard Shore

When you see 'Lord of the Rings,' you want to feel like you've been dropped into it and that you're part of it. You don't want to be aware of how it's being done; you just want it to feel really seamless.

'Saturday Night Live' was actually started with a show that Lorne Michaels and I did at a summer camp called Timberlane in Ontario when we were 14 and 15. We would do an improvisational show with music, comedy and acting.

I've been writing music since I was 9. I took harmony and counterpoint classes when I was studying the clarinet. So, I've been writing for an awfully long time. It just became part of everyday life.

I actually like the collaboration of working with different artists.

When you're working on film music, you're only working on 20, 30-minute sections at a time.

I like to read and dream and create music that is based on the imagery of text. If you have the combination of a great book and a great filmmaker, what could be better for the composer?

I think once a year it's good to look back at the history of Oscar and to embrace the great work that everybody's done this year and set it in place to the great work that's gone on before us.

'Hugo' is made in the classical style of the 1940s.

The music for 'The Departed' could have been played by an orchestra, but you make a decision about orchestration based on the context of the film. You want the music to broaden the scope of a film, not just repeat what you're seeing.

I think 'Two Towers' is a completely distinct film from 'Fellowship of the Ring' or 'Return of the King.' I think that you can watch them as a group and watch how the story evolves, but I think each one was made in its own entirety, and each one has its own palate of sound and music and color and characterization.

All of the silent films had live music accompaniment, so it's actually a very rich period in music.

The sarangi, the ney flute are pretty ancient instruments.

Composing is sort of an intuitive act. You have to put yourself in the right frame of mind.

It is very gratifying to see the music from 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy find a new life on the concert stage as it is performed by different orchestras and choruses throughout the world.

My first score for 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy, 'The Fellowship of the Ring,' was the beginning of my journey into the world of Tolkien, and I will always hold a special fondness for the music and the experience.

Film music really is about point of view and you can shift it wherever you want really depending on how you look at it.

Sometimes you want to use the music in a clarity way to explain something in the film.

I read all of the books by Tolkien, including 'The Hobbit,' when I was in my twenties, and his deep love of nature and all things green resonates deeply with me.

I'm interested in good collaborations and in working with directors who bring something new and interesting out of you.

I always believed 'The Fly' to be a classic opera story. It's a tale of love and death, true love surviving in the face of physical decay and ultimate sacrifice.

Theater and film are essentially the same - just different kinds of storytelling.

A lot of what a composer does has to do with storytelling, and there are different ways of fusing music with picture to express different storytelling ideas.

I like to do a lot of research on all of the films I work on. So, I like to read a lot. That's always an interesting part of it with me.

I love working with an orchestra, but there are many ways to make music.