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It’s the boiling point scenario every film composer sweats: playing your ideas for the director for the first time.
In many modern cases, it can be over the phone or over Zoom. For John Powell, who was on this day in early January sitting feet away from Pierre Coffin, the lead director of Illumination’s Minions & Monsters, it was in person.
“It’s a very dangerous moment,” Powell says of the pivotal minute. “It can go so horribly wrong.”
Coffin reached out to Powell, one of the preeminent animation composers known for his scores for How to Train Your Dragon and Shrek, to work on his first Minions movie. It was going to be the first feature in the Despicable Me franchise not scored by Heitor Pereira. Powell had flown to Paris and met with Coffin at Illumination’s offices, heard his wants and needs, spotted the movie, then started to write. Powell, remaining in the city, emerged a week later with some musical cues.
