BIO
Arnaud Drieu is a multi-award-winning composer for films born in 1982. He is based in Paris, France. Fascinated by soundtracks since his childhood, he began composing music in 1997, at the age of 15. His first creations were electronic music, and his style evolved in a cinematic way. For years, he studied harmony and orchestration with a personal tutor to develop his skills in orchestral writing.
The music of Arnaud refers the legendary composers he always admired like James Newton Howard, Danny Elfman, Hans Zimmer, Thomas Newman, or Alexandre Desplat, to name a few, and covers a wide range of instrumentation, including orchestra, synthesizers, choirs, sound design and many other elements.
He wrote the score music for 6 feature films and for over 45 short films, in different genres : drama, thriller, fantasy, romance, horror, science fiction, action, comedy, animation and documentaries... His works won 5 awards in festivals.
During the process of collaborating with a director, Arnaud always focuses on the story. How to compliment the film and respect the vision of the filmmaker? His music is often sensitive, and includes multiple layers of emotion.
Bilingual both in English and French, he uses to collaborate with international directors.
Biography of the film composer Arnaud Drieu from France
Creating the music for films, the assignment of a film score composer
As a composer, I focus on creating film music. This engagement is the result of many years of training, experimentations, studies, work. I think that the path of a film composer unrolls over a lifetime, and each project is a milestone toward greater skills. The best film score composers out there worked during years to hone their art. There are some trends in film scoring, this is right. But to be honest, just calling for this tricks is not enough, and the film composer must have a deep comprehension of many aspects: how music is done, how it can evoke some emotions, how it works along with the picture, how to dialog with the director and the rest of the team, the history or film music and what exists out there. And it takes a long time to train on these domains.
Every note works in sync with the story of the film
To me, as a composer for films, hazard has almost no room in the process. Let’s be frank, sometimes, an unexpected thing happens and triggers the inspiration in a different way. Apart from these rare sparkles, the whole process is a craft relying on conscious and active shaping of the music. Each track has a function. Whether it is to contrast the scene, raise a sense of beauty, fear, or any other. Aside from this role, the film score composer has to create some bonds and connect the elements of the film together. It is generally achieved by using some musical themes, some specific arrangements, some characteristic sounds, rhythms, concepts. Each bit of a scene is here for a reason, and the music cannot be random. Its meaning is so important, it must be an inseparable part of the film.
Composing music for feature films, short films and other
There is no real term like feature film composer, short film composer, or series composer. A lot of nowadays film composer work on various projects, ranging from a film, a short film, a series for a show, a trailer, a documentary. While the genres are different, all of them base on the same root, narration of a story and score music plays a role in a close way. The film composer for shorts has less room, less medium material to express their musical ideas, while feature film composer can work on many variations of a single theme over the course of the movie. The show composer has to find a balance between new material and variations on recurrent themes, as the global duration of the show exceeds feature films. It must not be repetitive, but shall be familiar and connecting.