Resilience: Co-Creation, the Music Supporting the Storyline

Check out this month’s timely podcast with film composer and creator, Carlo Siliotto. We talk about co-creation; the music supporting the storyline.

The Writers Guild of America strike that began on May 2, 2023 continues as of the date of the release of this podcast.

You can listen into Carlo’s soundbites on AI in the creative process, the economics of residuals and governance as a committee member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

Carlo Siliotto is a Golden Globe nominated Film composer.  Since 1984 he has written music for over a hundred projects, ranging from theatrical features to documentaries and television series. Carlo is a prolific composer of concert music.. Carlo currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California. 

See you in the Founders Sandbox!

 

Transcription:

00:04
Welcome back to the Founder's Sandbox. I am Brenda McCabe. I own and operate a consulting firm, NextAct Advisors, where I have a simple mission. I like to assist entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs.

00:33
in building scalable, resilient, and well-governed businesses. The Founders Sandbox podcast is just an additional channel to feature founders, business owners, creators, corporate directors, and professional service firms who, like me, want to use the power of the private enterprise, small, medium, and large to create change for a better world.

01:02
Through storytelling with a guest on topics that include resilience, sustainable growth, and purpose-driven corporations or enterprises, my goal is to provide a fun environment to help each founder, one founder at a time, to build a better world through great corporate governance and creativity. Today, my guest is Carlos Idioto.

01:33
Carla and I are going to talk about resilience, the creator economy, co-creation with music supporting the storyline. So thank you, Carlo, for joining me in the Founder's Sandbox today. Thank you. So Carlo, among many things, is a Golden Globe nominated film composer. Since 1984, he has written music for over 100 projects.

02:02
ranging from theatrical features to documentaries and television series. Carlo is a prolific composer of concert music as well. Carlo currently lives and resides in Los Angeles where we met years ago. And he is a proud member of the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences. So thank you again for joining me in the Founder's Sandbox today. You're very welcome. Thank you for having me.

02:32
Harlow, you and I met during the pandemic and the peak. Your score and the documentary, Kassak produced by Oliver Stone, were both nominated for several awards, including the Asian Film Festival. I think it's really timely that you've agreed to be a guest on the Founder's Sandbox podcast, because we are living currently a writer's stride.

03:02
Right? The AMPTPs share of the residuals. There's a lot of discussion about the chat GBT, how it's affecting the creator economy. I think it's really timely that you agreed to speak to me here in the founder sandbox. So I would like you to start going back many, many years. Where did it all begin? You know, you and I've talked about your childhood in Italy.

03:32
and how I think it was at the age of six, you picked up your first violin. So how did it start? No, it started, I guess between six, seven and 10, something in that area. When my mother took me to a big art festival in the central Italy, in Spoleto, Umbria,

03:59
called the Two Worlds Festival, the Festival di Duemondi. This was a few hours from Rome. My mother would drive a little compact car and the concert she took me to was the Black Nativity performed by a band, a group of singers called the Voices of East Harlem. And it was the first time in my life

04:29
when I saw black people. I'd never seen black people in Italy at that time, you know, never ever. We arrived there, the main tenor, the principal voice of the group was a blind man, a big man, wearing a white robe, and they would perform the black nativity. So...

04:57
Oh, and I still remember some of the melodies because I got to get a record in that time. So I still remember some. So by the way, the concert, the end of the concert was like this. All the people on top of their own seats in this Baroque theater, clapping hands on time or rhythm with them. And it was kind of an epiphany to me, you know?

05:26
And on my way back to Rome in the car of my mother, she asked me, what you want for Christmas? You want a guitar or a bike? And I said, I want a guitar, I want a guitar. And this is how it started really. And so gospel music really dragged me to the music in general, you know, and still there. Yeah. And this is the very beginning, the unction.

05:54
You know, like, yeah. And it's interesting, it was actually a performance, right? With music as well as acting, right? And the Black nativity, correct? Yeah, but it was no acting. It was just music, but they were so beautiful to see while performing. And everything took place in a big baroque theater.

06:21
Marvelous Baroque theater, the theater Caio Melissa in Spoleto. And so it was all a big trip, actually. It was, yeah. And I know later on in your early, I guess, 20s, you formed a band and you would tour through Europe. And actually you had a specific tour in Africa. Yes.

06:50
We formed this band in the early 70s, which band was supposed to create new kind of sound by using the roots of the Italian South and Fork music, and create by studying it and by reproducing it a new sound, which we did actually.

07:18
We were one of the first bands in Europe of what they today would call world music. As far as I know, we were only two bands in Europe. One was our band and the other one was Alain Stivell in France, in Brittany.

07:46
In the late 70s, we have been invited to tour five countries of recent independency, Somalia, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zambia and Kenya. And before the tour started, I asked to our foreign ministry, because we were kind of a tribute to them, to the new democracy of these countries. I asked them to be able to have a twin

08:16
band in each country. So to perform together with and to rehearse together. So for us to learn about African music and for them to learn a little bit about our music and then perform together. And this was, and after the tour, actually I had the chance to be invited to teach music in Somalia. So I spent

08:44
many, many months in Somalia teaching composition because they needed Italian speaking teachers. Somalia used to be a colony of Italy and they had only North Korean teachers and they would teach music just saying ta ta ta and they know it's ta ta ta, know it's ta ta ta because they had no common language, no common way to speak.

09:13
except music. But so the musicians, when we first toured Somalia, they asked me to come back and to do something in Italian for them to progress a little bit. And I did it. And I was very, very young at that time. And that was a big, big experience. Because I was coming

09:43
fading out, disappearing with the old history of the rural Italy. And so I was familiar already with dealing with different cultures, you know, and that is what happened. What was the name of your band, Carlo? You didn't mention the name of your band. What would you mean? Sorry? The name of your band. The name of my band was Cansoniere del Lazio.

10:12
And there is some... Cansoniere means kind of a songbook, and Lazio is the region of Rome. So it's Cansoniere de Lazio, because we started by searching for local music in our region, as others had done in different regions. Actually,

10:39
The beginning of all this is also American, as my gospel choir was, because the very first guy searching music was Alan Lomax, and he did it in America. And he's the one who discovered Sonaterio Brown-McGee, Pete Seeger, and all the others. And he befriended with Diego Carpitella in Italy.

11:08
I was also an ethnomusicologist, and they started searching music in Sicily, producing different albums of their recordings. And so a group was created, and an institution, a istituto Ernesto de Martino, where all these materials landed eventually. And we became part of this big...

11:37
bigger body, you know, of searchers and lovers of Italian traditional music. Yes. And is there some similarity with the folk music that you so love and Central Asia and why you did the score for the series Nomads as well as Oliver Stone called you to do the composition, the score for Kazakh?

12:05
Yeah, of course, of course, it's the same path is the same pattern. Because when I came to Los Angeles, I was living still in Italy. And I arrived to Los Angeles to meet my new agency. And the first the very first meeting with my agency was, oh, you are going to meet all the people in the music departments of the studios.

12:32
Oh, but there is a movie cut for you and did this is its name is Nomad. I didn't even understand. I understood Nomad. And my English was very bad, worse than today. But at that time, so I, I have been looking on the web, but I didn't find any evidence of Nomad instead was Nomad.

13:00
I have the poster here. And so I was in competition with many others, but I do think that the thing that made them hire me was the fact that I had a different attitude towards the local music. So I said, if you guys want to hire me, you have to fly me to Kazakhstan, because I want to study the local music.

13:29
in order for me to include the local music in the concept, in the general concept of my score. Because this was an epic movie about the birth of a nation, basically. It was a period movie, 1710, when these wise men or us put together the children of all the different tribes of that area of Central Asia.

13:56
in order for them to grow together and to be connected one to another. You know, and this was the very beginning of the modern Kazakhstan, actually, today's Kazakhstan. So definitely it was fantastic because I went there first time and they sought for me everything. I had a collaborator. She...

14:25
they organized all the meetings for me to get aware of, I mean, knowledge about different instruments and stuff. So, but afterwards, actually I produced, I produced a documentary after scoring Nomad, I produced a documentary about the Kazakh music, which is called The Wolf on the Drum, because yeah.

14:55
Because after recording the old score for Nomad, my collaborator gave me, as a present, an eptagon frame drum, and once I hung this drum in my apartment here in Los Angeles, the image of a wolf formed. And this was two years later.

15:24
that I had back this drum in my apartment because it was before in my son's apartment in Los Angeles. And so I took it as a sign and I decided, because the wolf is the most shamanic among the animals. Take the she-wolf of Rome, feeding Romulus and Remus, but also in the Central Asia shamanic tradition, the wolf appears often.

15:54
And so I decided to put together a co-production between Italy and Kazakhstan. And we went back to Kazakhstan and we met with the Shaman people, shamans and musicians. And we put together this documentary that you can find on Arcoiris TV, which is an Italian kind of streaming TV. And now is there. It's called The Wolf on the Drum.

16:24
Yes, yes. You know, I'd like you to share with my listeners, most of my listeners are business owners, they're in technology that's driven by the digital, right? The web, the digital disruption. And they're creating enterprises that are scaling and bringing in investor money. And I consider it a privilege to have a true creator.

16:52
in the art space, right? The music space with me today. So I was struck, you know, we met when, when Kasak had been nominated for some awards and you had actually gifted me the original score, a CD, right? So I was listening and prior to going to some of the, the award ceremonies and at the film and listening to the final CD that was produced,

17:20
the titles of the songs were different to what you had originally. Yes. You're right when you composed these. So for business owners, and what is it like to co-create and have a give and take? I mean, what does it feel like for you as an artist to create, but also knowing that the ultimate consumer, buyer of your product, the producer, right?

17:49
may change some of the elements of your artwork? He did it, but it wasn't truly a conflict. It was a surprise for me to see that he wanted to change the name of the cues on the CD. But I guess he did it because he wanted to relate more to the images rather than just the feeling of the music. So he wanted to.

18:18
to have a more compact package. So I think he did it because of it. And actually at the end of the day, eventually I agreed with him. Because I remember I didn't even give proper names

18:48
before recording the cues. I had kind of codes, A1, A2, B1, B2, for this were my working titles for the cues, you know? Or then when I had to make up some titles for the CD, I create some titles, but actually I have to recognize that the titles

19:17
Igor, the director, gave to the music, were better than mine. And then we changed after he giving some titles, we shared some opinions and we changed some of them. You know, because- I imagine it's not only this film, but it probably happens in the industry itself, right? A movie producer will select-

19:42
Yeah, it depends who is producing the CD. In this case, the director and producer of the movie was also the producer of the music. I mean, he had the last say and there was no conflict. Actually, I asked him to change two or three of them and we changed them in perfect harmony.

20:11
If I take it back to the sandbox or the founder sandbox, I chose the name sandbox for this podcast because I work with a lot of technology founders with code. They have a sandbox, which is where they have their, like you said, you would name your scores A1, A2. They have code names as well. So it's again, a concept in the technology, the software space or digital health, the

20:41
or I'm trying to bring in the analogy to the creation of music for films. So thank you, it's fascinating, it's fascinating. What about, let's switch gears. I like to talk about resiliency, right? Again, a lot of the listeners of the podcast have very scarce resources and they're trying to create a large company, right? And it's all about resilience, is wearing the multiple hats.

21:11
As an artist and making money in the music business, can you explain the concept of residuals for my listeners and how perhaps the digital economy has enabled you artists with more ways to capture your residuals and actually have different revenue streams through the digitalization of the same? So two questions.

21:41
and how artists... So residuals are... And authorize is what the music you wrote is earning by being broadcasted, by being sold in CDs or in DVDs, by being performed.

22:10
and by being distributed and used by different people. So there is a second life for the music itself also out of the movies themselves. So the music I write for a certain movie earns authorized and residuals while the movie

22:39
every single time the movie is broadcasted, performed, screened, whatever, you know, but also the music can have its own life, you know, being broadcasted by itself or performed in a radio or by being sold in the form of CDs or albums, etc. This is basically

23:07
And this is the source of our earnings, I guess. I am the worst person to deal with money and with stuff, because I have a very bad relationship with money. And I consider music something sacred.

23:37
sacred that has been given to me as a gift from the universe. You know, and so I really don't like all these people who are thinking...

23:54
who are targeting, they are, those who want to make music in order to make money. I don't like them. I understand this market, I understand that we need people taking care of this aspect, but they have to be different people from the creators, you know, because, and definitely, I mean the number of the ones who don't want to deal at all with money.

24:24
You know, I'm so embarrassed when I have collaborators, for instance, right? And I don't want to know how much they've been paid by the production. If it's not me to pay them because I'm dealing with a package deal or something, you know, so it's for me to know, I have to know, you know, but I hate that.

24:52
I hate everything which is connected with money because I think that creation, and even if you take an example when you have a small budget for a movie, right? So you know already that you have to deal with, that you cannot afford the large orchestra even if needed and stuff. Okay, I pretend that the budget is the no budget.

25:20
So I, because I don't want the economic part of it, the money part of it to affect my creation and my freedom to imagine the universe, to imagine the never-ending space, you know? I have to feel that I'm free to create whatever I want to create with no limits. And then I would deal.

25:49
with the production, with the money part. So I am the worst of all. I cannot advise anyone. The only advice I can give to people is find the right partner for that. Find the right, thank God we have...

26:16
We have these societies representing us like ASCAP. I'm represented for North America by ASCAP, while I'm represented for Italy and the rest of the world by CIA in Europe. And they collect our money, you know, all around. And they are societies, groups, collecting our money.

26:42
the for perform for performing rights. You know, like I conduct my music. I am a performer. So there is some residuals coming from me performing. And also there is a secondary market, which is when, when a movie is, and this is true residuals, when, when, when a movie is a, after having his own life, but he has a second life on TV and here and there, blah, blah, blah.

27:12
It collects money, still keeps collecting money. And so, but thank God I'm well represented by ASCAP here, by CIA in Italy. And I also have in Italy kind of a manager slash advisor slash

27:38
accountant taking care of my economic situation in Italy, because I'm here, you know, and he is on the field. So he helps me a lot with this part of it. But really, I don't think music has been meant to, you know, the authorize, so the fact that, and then I have to say also that there is a different culture.

28:06
in America or in Europe. America is more copyright culture. In Europe and rest of the world is more authorized culture, which is meaning that if I write a cue, it is not, you can never ever sell.

28:34
to anybody this cue, because it's a product of my talent and is mine forever. It's not that I can sell to someone else and say, okay, put your name, give me the money, and the cue is yours. This is in the culture, but it's not in the European culture. It's not in the culture I grew up with.

29:02
which is different. So sometimes it's difficult to deal with both size of the medal. But I think that we are going to have a final result, including both cultures at the very end. Eventually we will have something like that. I love how you...

29:31
find the creative process as a composer is separate from the production. Yes, absolutely. And there should be professional managers that handle the money side. I think that is a very, it's a learning moment here in the podcast for founders. So your secret sauce may be the creation of code and maybe.

29:57
the new drug you're developing, but the production, so scaling things to get out to distribution is done by another entity or another person on your team or your co collaborators, right? I love it. Thank you. And without limitation of budget, the sky's the limit. I'm going to switch gears to another topic that's very near and dear to my heart and

30:25
part of the themes that I cover in the founders sandbox. And that's one of governance. I like to work with founders that early on work with proper governance structures to run the company, to create enterprise value for the shareholders, for the employees. It's about really governing, right? In ethical, legal and regulatory way. And

30:55
You have been sitting in the Mecca of the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences. And it's while it's not a governing body you've shared with me, can you share kind of some of the mechanisms by which you do work as a member? Do you work through committees? What is your...

31:24
last three years in the executive committee of the music branch of the Academy. So we are a big body in the sense that I think that the members of the music branch in the world, we are about from 700 to 1000 or something, okay? But of course you need a smaller group of people to lead.

31:53
the whole process we need to go through every year, right? So eligibility of the scores, new members, eligibility of the songs, all this stuff, plus different programs, side programs that Academy has, like the, every year I opt in to be...

32:19
in the committee of the international movies. So I vote for the international movies, for all these movies submitted by all the countries all around the world. So it is a very privileged observatory. You can see the best of the best coming from all around the world. And this is only the academy able to do such a thing. And so this is what we do. But besides, we change the

32:49
rules meetings, which means that we change the rules, for instance, what is the bar of time for the eligibility of a soundtrack or different rules that you can consider. And I think that the Academy is there to be and to keep being the beacon and the inspiration for everybody all around the world.

33:19
about the quality of filmmaking. We are supposed to keep the quality of the filmmaking at the super top notch. And we really mind the quality and is what we are preserving and fighting for.

33:49
And of course we have new elements every single time entering the scene, like the artificial intelligence. And I foresee that this year we are going to have a very big debate inside the Academy about artificial intelligence,

34:18
with the intellectual property of the things. And again, the academy is not for the academy to make decisions about money or exploitation of music and stuff, but quality and ethics, yes. And also...

34:47
or integrity and all this stuff. This is for the Academy to do. While there are other different groups, including ASCAP or CI, or the Society of Composers and Lyricists, which is not the guild, but is our Society of Composers and Lyricists here in America. And this group is actually taking care also of the economic parts. And also,

35:15
of the protection of the rights of the intellectual owners of the creations. And so this is what we're dealing with at the Academy or with the Society of Composers and Lyricists, which I'm also a member of. And so we are in good shape in this sense. I love it. Thank you very much. You're welcome.

35:46
timely issues as well with the current strike that's still going on and we're into the third month. You know, I like to give an opportunity to my guests to provide to my listeners how they might contact you or find your craft, your work. Would you like to speak to how we can find you and your website and the like?

36:13
that is very simple. You go Carlos Iliotto, oneworld.com, and this is my website. There you have my email address. And, but if you want to know more about my music or if you want to listen more about my music, you just Google my name and you go, or you go YouTube and you Google my name. And there are many, many things there that you can listen to.

36:44
Yes. Thank you, Carlo. So before we finalize, I'd like to ask all of my guests three questions. Actually, there's four, but I work with founders on building resilient companies. What does resilience mean to you? Resilience to me is

37:09
But I'm a white fly, I'm telling you. So I don't think I can help any entrepreneur by saying what I'm going to say because this is my craftsmanship, my artisanate, you know. Oh, I recently...

37:29
Talking with friends, with people in different environments about artificial intelligence, for instance, right? My reflection was basically this. So what is intelligence about? Intelligence, just intelligence, you and me, and the people who are listening us.

37:53
Okay, to us. And what is intelligence like? Intelligence is the way you connect your knowledge, you know, and you create something out of it, or you project what you're after connecting. And so the more intelligent is the one who connects at the best, you know, all the information he has or the experiences they went through or all this, okay.

38:23
Artificial intelligence does the same, exactly the same. So, but the thing is that artificial intelligence cannot, is not able to create excellence because, because they, the artificial intelligence fish into a pond, which is, uh, they already existed, they already existing. Yeah. And so.

38:50
And so, okay, they can combine, artificial intelligence can combine the elements and come up with something, suggesting something, but forget a new creation, forget something really, you know, you can use the voice of some singer and have this singer singing a different song, but you cannot create a new...

39:18
knew something, you know? So it's like, so by the way, in my business, I do think that artificial intelligence already exists in the sense that, you know, in movies, editors and directors, they use temporary music while they editing a movie, no? So temporary music, which is not the music of the

39:48
and using it on the screen there. And so, and sometimes they ask the new composers to emulate, to imitate that music. And so what comes up is no meat, no fish, is something, is an hybrid, which is not even...

40:13
manageable by the composer or the self-naming composer who does this kind of stuff. You know, you cannot, you don't imitate someone else. Either you have your own voice, so it is worth for a director to hire you, or if you have to just put together a replica of something else. So this is artificial intelligence. And we had people

40:42
true people, bones and flesh, being artificial intelligence already. So I do think that the use of artificial intelligence in the future will increase their job, but not my job. I am a potter. I am a kind of an artisan, a craftsman.

41:12
making pottery, you know, in my own atelier. But without me, IKEA or other big groups would never be able to create a new vase or a new lamp or new, if people like me wouldn't exist. You know, if some creators of original stuff wouldn't exist, how could possibly an industry?

41:41
replay them, you know, then you have the good designers working for the industry, but they are, they are craftsmen, craftsmen too, you know, a good, a good designer is, is a craftsman too, is someone who creates something new, original, and they create the chain then to, to sell it out, you know, but, but, but you know what I mean? So, so how

42:11
What was the question? So artificial intelligence today cannot, it exists, but it cannot create excellence. No, cannot, cannot because, because it works on the already existing. So what at the founder sandbox with Carlos. Next question. I ask all my guests.

42:37
Not one answers the same. There's no right or wrong. That's the beauty of asking this question. What is purpose-driven enterprise or purpose-driven craft? What does that, what does purpose-driven mean to you? The purpose is the pleasure to do it. It's the pleasure of the process, you know. And you know,

43:06
I learned this from the great ones. And I don't know if you are familiar with the name of Pierpaolo Pasolini. Pierpaolo Pasolini was a director, a poet, philosopher, whatever, you name it. And at the end of a movie called The Cameron by Boccaccio, right? He's impersonating the painter Giotto.

43:36
And the painter Giotto is painting during the movie, like kind of a coma here and there, is painting a big fresco in a cathedral. At the end of the movie, before delivering to the authorities the fresco, the next day, Pasolini Giotto sleeps in the night and he dreams of his painting, of his fresco. And this fresco,

44:05
or gets life. So the Madonna becomes Silvana Mangano, the actress and the angel, Nineto Dauri, another actor, and everything is in movement. So the next morning he wakes up, stares at his own painting and goes, why to realize an opus of art when it is so beautiful only to dream of it?

44:30
And I've been questioning myself about the meaning of this phrase for a long time. And finally, I have an answer. The answer is to dream of something when you dream of something while you are in the process of doing it. I'm writing my own opera in this moment, right? And I'm writing my opera absolutely in a spec way, speculative, so nobody...

44:59
commissioned me is something, but they have the freedom while writing it to dream of it. And while I'm writing a sequence or something or a specific scene, I see the actors, I see the theater, I hear the orchestra. And so what moves me and also because it has been the only thing I was able to do it. I mean, and I understood this kind of in my early days.

45:29
And I was, I studied architecture too, but you know, but I never graduated. I missed only four exams before graduating. I said, but I am a musician already. Why should I take a diploma for architecture? I will never be an architect. I am a musician. So, and so I'm not able to do anything else but this, you know?

45:59
Last one, second to last, what does sustainable or sustainability mean to you?

46:07
Sustainability to me means integrity. Yes. So in my job, in my environment of work, I mean in my business, which I don't like to call business, but just to use a simple term, means integrity. So the way you deal with the people, the way you deal with the orchestra, the way you...

46:37
You deal with people and you deal with the orchestra, with everybody surrounding you and helping you while doing something. Beautiful. Thank you, Carlo. Last question. Did you have fun in this Founder Sandbox today? Yes, yes, absolutely. Also, for a reason, the listeners will never know. So I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for joining.

47:07
me, Carlos Liotto, creator, composer, member of the Academy of Contemporary Art, and an incredible creator himself, who brought us to through stories in his craft of creating music, many analogies to that art.

47:36
a craft of creating a business that is resilient, purpose driven, and sustainable. So thank you for following the founders sandbox on your mainstream podcast channels. Have a great day. Thank you.