Featured Collaborator: David Alonso Garzón By Juliane Block
The Spanish composer (and visionary) David Alonso Garzón and I met through CollabFeature's first project The Owner. I am one of the filmmakers active in Train Station, CollabFeature's second feature project. When the efforts to finish the post of The Owner went into the hot period, Marty and Ian asked me to come onboard as co-producer, to overlook and organize the score. David was the leading composer of The Owner.
All I really did then was to channel David's and Mike's - the second composer's - creative energy. What had been missing before was just the right person to communicate between the composers and the filmmakers. David had already done A LOT of work without any guidance and I was looking at tons of pre-composed cues. No doubt, without his enthusiasm the film's score would not have been anywhere close to what it became.
The score of The Owner was subsequently nominated as one of the finalists for the Jerry Goldsmith Awards at the Cordoba International Film Music Festival.
During the process we emailed each other sometimes dozens of times every day. We were joking that all of us would drop into a big black depressive hole without all those emails. I can say David became a very good friend over this period, and even though we've never met in person, it feels as if we've know each other for ages now. He has continued to work on Train Station and I have agreed to be composer's captain again - one reason being him as part of the team.
I've seldom met a composer who embraced criticism as positively as David. Even if you come back the 8th or 10th time with suggestions or requests, he doesn't get tired to address everything AND the score usually still grows and gets better and better. I have worked with David on some of my own projects as well, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how our collaboration will evolve during the next years.
If there's anything bad about David to be said, it's his still ongoing refusal of using voice chats. (He's afraid his English isn't sufficient - but no matter if it's his constant work on becoming better, google translate, or just the many emails he received from me which needed addressing - soon he can't escape voice chat. His English emails are becoming too well written.)
David is an exceptional filmmaker who, next to being a writer, a father, and working on paid jobs, finds time to invest in passion projects. CollabFeature is proud to count him as part of the family :)