In this podcast interview, host Mark Stinson talks to composer Craig Dobbin about his work in the music industry, specifically in TV and film.

Dobbin has been working on the popular TV show "NCIS: LA" for half of its run, and he discusses his creative process for keeping the music engine and score behind the show running smoothly.

CREATIVE PROCESS

He explains that the show follows a weekly schedule, where he watches the episodes on Fridays, has a spotting session on Mondays to discuss music placement, and then works on composing from Tuesday to Saturday. They mix the show on Sundays, and then Dobbin moves on to the next episode. He describes the musical style of "NCIS: LA" as more modern and injected with humor, giving it a slightly different feel from the flagship "NCIS" and "NCIS: Hawaii" shows.

KEEPING IT FRESH

Dobbin shares insights into his creative approach and how he keeps the music fresh every week. He talks about the challenge of working within the established sonic world of the show while injecting his own voice gradually over time. He mentions learning from past experiences where he went too far with his musical choices and had to adjust based on feedback from the production team. Dobbin emphasizes the importance of collaboration and teamwork in the creative process, noting that he is in the service industry, fulfilling someone else's vision. He discusses the need to understand the producers' and writers' perspectives and create music that effectively conveys their vision.

COLLABORATION

The conversation also touches on Dobbin's experience working with the cast of "NCIS: LA" and the collaborative nature of the show. He mentions that he only recently met most of the actors at the show's wrap party, highlighting the separation between different departments in such a large production. Dobbin also briefly discusses his work on other projects, including Shark Week, where he has been composing for 33 years. He shares his long-standing collaboration with a specific editor for Shark Week and the level of understanding they have developed over time.

HIGHLIGHTED quotes from Craig:

1. "I felt like I was jumping onto a treadmill going a hundred miles an hour, and I just had to run as fast as I could to try to catch up and get myself up to speed."

2. "Creativity is the most fun when there are lots of parameters and boundaries that give me... It's like when you can set those limits for yourself, and so you've got this established sonic world, how can I express myself within these confines?"

3. "If you want a career in this, you've gotta get really good at delivering someone else's vision."

4. "I always try to watch something that I'm working on once as a fan, before I start listening to the music and trying to figure out how I'm gonna approach it."

WHAT'S NEXT

Starting to work on the score for a new film, "THE TASTING"

Craig's Website

@cdscores on Instagram

Craig's Facebook page

Copyright 2024 Mark Stinson

Music tracks are copyrighted and used for creative review purposes.

auto generated transcript

Craig, welcome to

Craig Dobbin, TV/Film Music Composer: the show. Thank you so much, mark. It really is great to be here.

Mark Stinson, host: And Craig's work, if you know this sound, (NCIS: LA theme song) this is a theme you've heard for well over a decade now. And as the show winds down, we're gonna talk to Craig about his next moves and some of his other projects.

Craig Dobbin, TV/Film Music Composer: That's great. It's I came aboard N C I S on season eight, so I've been with it for half of its run.

And it was already a whale, well-oiled machine when I came aboard, and so it felt I often described it as I felt like I was jumping onto a treadmill going a hundred miles an hour, and I just had run as fast as I could to try to catch up and get myself up to speed. But So it really is a weekly schedule.

So I see the shows on a Friday and I make my own individual notes about it. And then we do what's called a spotting session on Monday, which I watch the show with the sound effects people and the music editors and the direct. And the right, and usually not the director, but sometimes mostly the showrunner and the producers.

So it's and we'll do two or three like that, and then we'll have a week or two off, and then two or three like that, and then a week or two off,

Mark Stinson, host: and obviously it's driven by, the individual show and the scenes but and forgive me if I'm not using the right terminology, but I think about what is the brief, the brand that makes it an N C I S LA score.

That somebody listens to this and says, this is what the brand is

Craig Dobbin, TV/Film Music Composer: about. Yeah, so N C I S L A as distinct from the flagship N C I S and N C I S Hawaii. It's been interesting I've gotten more feedback from other people of oh, N C I S LA is this one or this one, and really how it's delineated, at least from what I've gotten back from people in terms of the musical style, is it's more modern.

Cuz that's la it's just slightly more hip. It's got a and plus it's got. I think the thing that makes it unique is the way we approach the humorous scenes, which is a very kind of more band rock approach to doing a banter or a humor scene than you would in a traditional kind of pisca strings orchestral, oh, this is supposed to be funny moment.

Mark Stinson, host: Yes, it does have some rock and roll drive, doesn't it? Definitely. And I'm thinking and you may have seen a little clip I posted a couple weeks ago, I talked to another Sonic Brander and composer, Gina Isham. And she just thought, how do you keep it fresh? And so I thought I would definitely bring this up to you.

Craig Dobbin, TV/Film Music Composer: So when I first came on the show, I had to educate myself on the musical world cuz I was coming into a preexisting sonic world.

Now, for me, creativity is the most fun when there's lots of parameters and boundaries that gives me, it's like when you can set those limits for yourself, and so you've got this established sonic world, how can I express myself? Within these confines of, okay, these instruments, this palette, it's if you give a painter here's your palette.

And then they go, oh, I've never used these before. How am I gonna paint with these? And so in the beginning it was easy cuz it was me finding my way through it. And writing in the style of the show. So I had to learn and actually take on like a different mindset and then write within those parameters.

And I got a call from the dubbing stage, can you split those French horns out? We think we're gonna take 'em out. And I'm like, oh, I've gotta educate them on French horns. So I just started dabbling little bits of french horns in along the way. And by the ending of the final episode, I've been able to go full on French horn heroic.

And it has have least primed the audience and the team of that is a voice we can use in the show. Yes.

Craig Dobbin, TV/Film Music Composer: it?

It really does, and when you're writing music for a show, as I like to say, I'm clear that I'm in the service industry because in many ways I am fulfilling or a part of fulfilling someone else's vision. It's like the producers and the writers have a vision for what they're trying to convey.

So I have to be really good at getting into their minds. Into their view of the show so that I can effectively create that in the final product. Which is very distinct from like when I write my own music or work with my band, which is we don't have, we get to do our own vision, but for this, it's like, And truthfully, I love the challenge of being able to see something from someone else's perspective and go, uhoh, I see how you want this scene to land.

Mark Stinson, host: I think that's a concept worth underscoring this idea that we're in service. To the producers, to the writers, to the show, actually to the franchise that you wanna put your fingerprint on it, but you're still delivering for the show.

Craig Dobbin, TV/Film Music Composer: Completely. Completely. And if you want a career in this, you've gotta get really good at delivering someone else's vision. Because if you try to inject yourself way too much, they'll be like, okay, good job, but we're not gonna hire you again cuz this was a hassle. Yes. So it really is being that team player, being willing to hear feedback, to hear what they want, and be able to quickly implement it in a way that really fulfills their vision.

Mark Stinson, host: And you're also not only collaborating on the music part, but you're surrounded by a lot of star power on the show with the actors like Chris O'Donnell and LL Cool J Linda Hunt, which I don't know if you can gimme any spoiler alerts as heady coming back for any kind of I would

I know. Can

Mark Stinson, host: only imagine. But what's it like being part of that kind of company and collaboration?

Craig Dobbin, TV/Film Music Composer: It's, first of all, just in working on it and seeing such great actors up on the screen in my studio, it's and the interesting thing was I didn't meet. A lot of the actors on the show until about two months ago.

This is, we're finished as they wrapped and when I went to the rap party and all the actors were there because they re it, it's interesting on a show that size, that there's, the departments are quite separate from one another. So there's the production crew and the pre-production crew and the writers, and then we have a little team in the post-production world, but it's not mostly the actors cuz they're really done with their part, however, Both Kenzie and De.

Mark Stinson, host: That's fantastic. We were talking about the other shows. In the series, the franchise. What was it like when these crossovers, you had to have a little bit of a taste of each show as these episodes were developing. How did you collaborate across the different shows?

Craig Dobbin, TV/Film Music Composer: That was a r that was a really interesting process because it's when they give me a show, They don't really tell me anything.

It just shows up in a hard drive on Friday and I download and watch it. And when the crossover happened, I didn't even know a crossover was happening. So I downloaded the show and I watched it and I'm like, why am I in the middle of something? Did I miss some episode? Are they doing this outta sequence? I didn't understand?

Us, yes. And not the other way around because they hadn't even started by the time we were finishing.

Mark Stinson, host: I love that behind the scenes development piece. Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. Yeah, we've been talking so much about N C I S. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the other work is that we'll talk about film advertising in addition, but just on TV Shark Week, you touched on a minute ago.

You've got a couple of great P B s kids, shows some documentaries. This gives you a chance to really flex your creative muscle, I presume.

Craig Dobbin, TV/Film Music Composer: Completely. If you wanna talk about like keeping things fresh, which was, I've been doing music for Shark Week for 33 years, so it's, it's if you want to finding different ways to approach sharks and how to do the music, and I can't tell you how many people ask me, it's oh, you do Shark week, duh.

Mark Stinson, host: create I'm not using that exact pillow.

Craig Dobbin, TV/Film Music Composer: But, and I was just before this call, I was talking to the editor on this year's the Shark Week episodes I'm doing I've been doing my friend Jeff, who I've been working with on Shark Week for the entire 33 years, he was a local news producer in Ventura. I was just starting out and this company matched us together and he's now become Mr.

Shark Week and I've been working with him for that long of a time and which has been incredible to have that length of a collaboration with someone. And it's when you work so long creatively with someone, You. He doesn't really need to say anything to me. He knows what I do. I know what he wants.

And it's like literally he'll go, here's a show. You got any questions? I'll be like, nah, I know what to do. He's I'll be back to you. See on

Craig Dobbin, TV/Film Music Composer: Yeah, exactly. Huh? Exactly. And it's a really, it's a real, I just watched the episode this morning for the first time, or one of the episodes I'm doing six this year.

And a really well done episode. I laughed, I cheered and so that's always my gauge. I always try to watch something that I'm working on. Once as a fan, before I start listening to the music and trying to figure out how I'm gonna approach it. Now that's difficult because my mind instantly wants to go to, Ugh, how am I gonna do that?

Or listen to that and go just back up and try to get just an overall view of the show, like the feelings, the emotions, the moments that I cheer, the moments I laughed, so that I can then. When I have to go in for the minutia of the project, I'm not missing the larger picture.

Mark Stinson, host: And we've been talking about TV brand franchises, but you've also had a chance to compose and have your work featured in commercials.

Craig Dobbin, TV/Film Music Composer: for you. It's, I tell people it's so different from working on a TV show.

When you're on a TV show, you're hired, when you're working on a commercial, you're always auditioning almost up to the very end because there's people competing. It basically goes out to 20, 30 composers. Everyone does versions, and then they'll whittle that down to 10 and whittle it to five and whittle it to two, and you're keeping doing revisions.

On N C I S, this last season, There were maybe two or three total revisions we had to do the whole season. Whereas on any given commercials, it's up to 30 or 35 revisions that will have to be done on a commercial. So yeah, it If you're lucky. If you're lucky. Yeah, exactly.

But you're working within a Sonic franchise. Still, there is a State Farm sound just there's an N C I S L A sound, right? How do you try to fit what you're doing into that established tone.

Craig Dobbin, TV/Film Music Composer: So they will often, in their brief, they'll say what they're looking for. And it's interesting, a lot of the commercials I've done, I mean at least with McDonald and State Farm, it's mostly the mnemonic.

As long as I incorporate their little or the State Farm little, mnemonic, it's good and it. Because that it's the melody with those specific ones that trigger it. And then I noticed that companies tend to, cuz I've done several McDonald's commercials in different, I don't know, sonic eras where they'll change, like what they're looking for inside in their sound.

And. It'll change. So sometimes my flavor or what it is that I provide, matches what they're looking for, and then I'll do a whole bunch of work and then sometimes it doesn't cuz they're onto something else. If they need a hip hop score or they're doing something like that, I'm not the guy for that, they'll find someone who can give that to them. Yeah.

Mark Stinson, host: But some of that Sonic Branding foundation, I think about State Farm, the legend being that it goes back to Barry Manilow this is an impact that you could have for decades.

Craig Dobbin, TV/Film Music Composer: That's right. That's right. He wrote that or that, like a good neighbor State Farm is their melody, which is still at least that, at least part of it, yes. It's keep that little da. Is kinda their little thing that they do. Yes,

Mark Stinson, host: indeed. Fantastic. Craig, what a great conversation about your work and career up until now. I'd love to turn the page and talk about what's next for you as anything N C I S LA will come to a close.

Craig Dobbin, TV/Film Music Composer: on next? So I, again, I'm right into Shark Week which is not new, but I'm really excited. It was what coming up after that. So a friend of mine is writing and directing her first feature film.

It's a psychological thriller called the Tasting that's set in the high end world of wine and sommelier. I've been telling people it's like Sideways meets Saul. It's a but a really well done script. And she's starting to shoot. She'll probably have cameras rolling June, July and which means I'll probably be working on it August, September.

Now the great thing about this is it's, given the subject matter of wine and where it is, we're actually gonna use a real orchestra and I'll have a 30, 40 piece string section that I'll get to work with and record in the final score, cuz it will be a lot of classically driven kind of pieces.

Yes.

Mark Stinson, host: With that kind of elevator pitch, sideways meets saw what can we expect? What, what's what's going through your mind? First of all, you, I do see you're going more symphonic, maybe more orchestral, but what's the horror part? What's the scary part?

Craig Dobbin, TV/Film Music Composer: It's it's a story of revenge.

It's the story of someone who has, let me see if I don't want to get into spoiler territory of this. I don't want to get my dr my friend angry at me. Yeah, that's okay. So it's a story of revenge of a, and. Of a young man who's been failed as a master sommelier, and once you've been failed enough times, you have to go all the way back to the beginning of your training.

So the music for me needs to feel very claustrophobic. Although I'll be using strings, I'll want them close micd. So you c It does, you don't get the sound of a big room cuz you know, symphony orchestras can be very expansive. But if you do it more like, The psycho orchestra, which was eight strings or 16 strings close micd, you get more of that claustrophobic sound where you can actually hear the bows hitting the strings and get that kind of tension from that kind of more small closed in.

Cuz it really does need to feel claustrophobic since most of it takes place in a wine cellar.

Craig Dobbin, TV/Film Music Composer: sound. It does, yeah.

You can make it more, and strings are the creative potential of string instruments, what they can do. It's like I'm gonna bring some string players up here and say, what are some weird sounds you can make with your violin? And we'll just start exploring those so that I can incorporate some of those textures, sounds and techniques and collaboration with people.

So inspires me like you get a great. Player and then you start asking them like, what's something that you've never done on strings that you've always wanted to do? What's something that you think would be a cool sound that the violin can make that you've never been asked to do before? And then start exploring some of those sounds and get them involved.

Cuz when people feel involved in a creative endeavor, they really do put, give you their best work when they, when they feel constrained of, you're like no, do it this way. No. Do it that way. They just, all of a sudden they start freezing up and they start losing confidence in themselves cuz you're telling them they're doing it wrong all the time.

Mark Stinson, host: That's helpful insight for any kind of creative. And I wanted to ask you about another aspect of music in TV and film, and that's licensing. I've had many guests who've been talking about from a singer songwriter, for example who've talked about other avenues to get work out, not just, music streaming on Spotify or putting an album out like we used to.

What is the state of the state in music licensing in shows these days?

Craig Dobbin, TV/Film Music Composer: It's. It's definitely a big business and it's definitely something you can make money at if you can get your music out there. There's a, pretty much all the major labels have their licensing wing and what all they do is pitch to shows and okay, here's our catalog.

And you. You can make a lot of money. You've just gotta get your music to music supervisors and people that can pitch it to shows and make it be known that music's available to license. Just an interesting story about N C I S and music licensing is so this is what I can tell you about the finale.

So they licensed a song for the finale, for the very end of the show, well known song. And they got it in the. It's the last thing you hear as you go out after the final episode of N C I S Entertainment. Tonight's doing a retrospective where they're talking about the show and doing interviews with the cast and like all that, and they wanted to show the final scene.

And the song is well known. I don't think it would be bad to say the song. It's hold on. I'm coming by by Sam and Dave and And I'm like I'm not gonna try to do something with saxes and guitars and that classic r and b. It's just it would just sound like a poor imitation anyway.

So I took, see the main title theme is not very easy to use anywhere. It's da, and it just doesn't translate very well. And so I'm like, all right, because that will have that nostalgia. They'll recognize the theme, but in a new context. So I did full on heroic orchestral. Epic version of the main title theme to end, at least my version of the show, which they'll show on entertainment tonight.

Mark Stinson, host: That's fantastic. I love these sort of insider stories and I know the listeners do too. Craig, what a fantastic conversation. I'll have all your contact information in the show notes cuz I know people are gonna wanna go back and watch some of these YouTube clips and see some of your other score and then follow and keep track of this new film that you'll be working on the tasting.

Something to get their workout.

Craig Dobbin, TV/Film Music Composer: I'm a firm believer, so one of the things that you should know about me is I've never had an agent. I've never had a manager, and I know that often young creatives like, oh, I need the right agent or the right manager to get me in the right doors. I don't think so. I really believe if you.

Really are committed to what you're doing and you just talked about it to everyone, the opportunity will present itself. I was watching some video today. Some guy said something and it just, I think it really applies. They said, what if I told you were only 12 nos from a billion dollar business?

And that's a skill that you learn. So just go out, share your things. It's not. Bad. Your creativity. It just wasn't right for that thing. So just keep going. Don't stop. Because I truly believe if you stick with it, there really is opportunities and work enough for everyone.

Mark Stinson, host: Thanks so much for sharing that.

Listeners, that could be the best. One minute and 10 seconds of encouragement and inspiration you'll hear all day. Craig and Craig knows what he's talking about. I'm sure you've had your

Craig Dobbin, TV/Film Music Composer: share of nose. Completely. Yeah. And maybe

Mark Stinson, host: every week when those guys tell you that is not gonna work. That's

Craig Dobbin, TV/Film Music Composer: right.

That's right.

Listeners, come back again next time. We'll continue these round the world travels. We've stamped our creative passport in Santa Barbara, California today, but we'll be continuing our creative journeys to talk to creative practitioners everywhere, how they get inspired, how they organize ideas, and how they gain the confidence and the connections to get their work out into the world.

Until next time, I'm Mark Stinson and we're unlocking your world of creativity. We'll see you soon.