James Horner can do difficult. He’s produced first-rate scores for next to no money. He’s produced first-rate scores in next to no time (his music to Troy was written and recorded in two weeks, a favour to Warner Bros after the original composer’s efforts were rejected a month before the film’s release). Hell, he’s even sunk the Titanic. But Avatar isn’t mission difficult, it’s a mission impossible; the film its director, James Cameron, says will revolutionise cinema. “Avatar has been the most difficult film I have worked on and the biggest job I have undertaken,” Horner says. “It’s a huge two-and-half-hour epic and the score has got so much to do. When you see for the first time the [alien] world, you get right away the scale of what’s going on and the depth of what Jim has created. It is like the difference between hi-def and listening to a mono cassette.
“I promised Jim I wouldn’t take on any other work for a year-and-a-half, and it has taken that length of time. I work from four in the morning to about ten at night and that’s been my way of life since March. That’s the world I’m in now and it makes you feel estranged from everything. I’ll have to recover from that and get my head out of Avatar.”
