Shie Rozow is an award-winning music editor and composer with over twenty years in the business. He consistently moves between television and film. His credits include such projects as Hustle & Flow, Charlie & the Chocolate Factory, Hellboy II, Tabloid, Avengers: Age of Ultron, and Arrow. His recent work can be seen and heard on Hulu’s Wu-Tang: An American Saga, where the producer and composer is the same person: the legendary RZA.
Shie and I talk about what it’s like to work with someone who is heavily steeped into the sound of the project, both as a producer and a creator of the music heard onscreen. We know him as RZA. Shie knows him as “Bobby.” A fact that made the Wu-Tang fan interviewing him endlessly jealous.
Awards Daily: How did you come to the show?
Shie Rozow: I got a phone call from the co-producer who got my name from RZA – I had worked with him (RZA) before. He asked for me and so they called me, and I said yes.
AD: That’s not a bad gig, to have RZA ask for you.
SR: It doesn’t suck. (Laughs). I’ve had worse days than the day I got the phone call saying, “RZA asked if you’re available.”
AD: What was the previous project you worked on him with?
SR: He directed a film called Love, Beats, Rhymes that starred Azealia Banks.
AD: That’s right!
SR: Lionsgate brought me on that one. They had a couple of music editors before me and then I was brought in sort of as a “fix-it” guy. And I guess I fixed it because he called me back. (Laughs). It was interesting because I felt like we hit it off and had a good relationship during the film, but once the film was over, that was it. I hadn’t heard from him since then, 3-4 years or whatever. Then out of the blue, I get a phone call. I guess I left a good impression.
AD: What’s it like working with a producer who’s also a musician working on the score?
SR: It’s interesting because RZA scored the show as well. RZA doesn’t have a ton of experience in traditional film scoring. Nor does he approach anything from a traditional point of view. He approaches it from the Wu-Tang point of view. So, he’s scoring it and we had the New Hippies perform some stuff and he brought it other people on occasion as needed. We had DJ King Tech working with us on certain episodes – sometimes on particular sections, sometimes on more, sometimes on tiny little things. There’s one episode where there’s a shot of Bobby (played by Ashton Sanders) scratching and he can’t get the timing quite right.
For that one, Tech actually scratched “Impeach the President” and I cut the scratches to picture so it matches what he’s doing (on film). Sometimes all I got from him was a scratch or two and then I cut the hell out of it and made it work. Other times he was taking tracks and creating new masters or remixing. And then sometimes Bobby (RZA) was making new tracks or remixes of his own. Sometimes he was writing original score. Often, the way it tended to work, is he would send me pretty raw stems that were written to picture, but not necessarily nailing it. It was obvious that the music needed to go with this scene, but it wasn’t necessarily dead-on, because he knows and trusts that I will then take it and move it and tweak it and give it that final polish. Sometimes he would give me optional music: “Here’s a bunch of stuff. Play with it.” Which is really fun to be given such free range. I have a lot of creative opportunities to play around.
During mixing, Alex Tse would often be there. RZA would sometimes be there – most of the time, he wasn’t. You get notes from them and then you do some more tweaks. If RZA wasn’t there, we’d send him a copy of the show, so he could give notes if we needed to go back to anything. It was really great. 99% of the time he was cool with the choices I was making and had no notes. It was great to have that kind of trust and that kind of back and forth. Other times I’d pick up the phone and say, “Hey, Bobby, I’ve got this idea, are you cool with that?” There were lots of different things that would happen – usually between midnight and 4 in the morning (Laughs). There were times I would get material at 2-3 in the morning that had to be ready for 9AM. We were on hip-hop time! (Laughs).
AD: In Wu-Tang Saga, there’s score, but there’s also a ton of songs. What’s challenging about having that mixture?
SR: On a show like this where there are that many songs per episode, even the most basic thing – like file management – just wrangling all the material. Keep in mind, there were songs that were scripted and then you try to get them, and you can, or you can’t. If a song was scripted and it was cleared before shooting, then I know that’s the song. That’s relatively easy. But there are places where, say, we’re at the Rib Shack and we just need some music for the scene and the Music Supervisor says, “Here’s five options to try,” and now I have to cut all five and send to Alex and RZA to see what they like. Multiply that by sometimes 4-5-6-7-8-10 scenes in a single episode. Sometimes I’m cutting literally 40-50 tracks in a single episode so they can pick the 4-5 tracks that will end up in it. And the next week I do it again. (Laughs). And you have to treat it like hallowed ground. The hard-core audience knows these songs inside and out. How do I cut them and make them fit picture and make them work creatively and help tell the story, hit all the right beats, and at the same time, keep the feel and integrity of the song, so the audience doesn’t feel thrown off when I edit?
You know, if you are cutting the Beatles, “Let it Be,” you can’t just jump around willy-nilly. People will notice it. If it’s a completely unknown song, I can do whatever the hell I want – nobody knows the song. It’s the same here. You’ve got “Seventh Chamber” and all these huge songs that everybody knows that you have to be very careful with. Also, on this show, there was a ton of performance on camera, where you see the actors singing on camera. All that stuff got pre-recorded, but depending on the circumstance, we were sometimes using the actual production when the live vocal was great, so why use the pre-record? And sometimes they gave a different emotional performance and you like a part of it, but not the other part of it, so you mix both together. Not to mention when it is pre-recorded, you have to fit it in their mouth. You have to keep it musical. Sometimes there’s cheating going on where it might be a smidge off, but it works to picture and it’s not noticeable, and it works musically. I had to use every trick in the book on this one to make stuff work.
AD: Is it harder to do that with hip-hop music vs. other types of music?
SR: I don’t know that the style is harder necessarily. The things that to me are always challenging is when you have a song that has a strong beat. Whether it’s pop, rock, or hip-hop, it doesn’t matter. When you have a strong beat, you’re locked into this grid. Because you have to cut on the beat, or else it sounds wrong. If you have a more ballad-y type of thing, where it’s a little more flow-y, you can move things around more and get away with it. To me, the hardest part with hip-hop is the lyrics. There are places where I have to catch specific lyrics on camera, but then we are off-camera and want to jump to different lyrics. What matters is when we want to catch a specific lyric with the scene because it helps tell the story. So, how do you make the edit to capture the lyric you want, or jump to another lyric without throwing the audience off?
AD: Did working on Hustle & Flow previously help?
SR: I’m sure it did. Hustle & Flow was my first hip-hop experience. Although I was an assistant on 2 Fast 2 Furious, which is where I met John Singleton, who then called me on Hustle. I did not grow up listening to hip-hop. It was not in my wheelhouse. But a song is a song and a beat is a beat. If you can listen to the song and learn the structure of the song, you can work with it. To me, it’s all music. I don’t care if it’s aboriginal-ethnic music, classical, film score, hip-hop, pop, rock, whatever it is, you just have to listen to the music and get it. Once you do, you can work with it. Music is music and we’re just telling stories with music.
AD: Every time I’ve interviewed someone on the tech, design, or off-camera side of filmmaking, they always come back to the story. Everyone sees themselves as a storyteller.
SR: That’s right. The interesting thing for me is if I do my job right, you don’t really notice. If you’re watching a movie or a TV show and you notice the music edit, that was a bad music edit. If you’re watching and thinking about how the music came into a scene or how it went out, it’s either in the wrong spot, or it didn’t come in in a natural way. Which takes you out of the story, because you are noticing something technical instead of getting sucked into the narrative. It’s all about telling the story and not being noticed.
AD: Did you view the Showtime documentary (Of Mics and Men) on the Wu-Tang Clan before you started on the show?
SR: Yeah, I saw it. Just because I was curious and because of my relationship with RZA. But it was before I even knew about the project. It was coincidental.
AD: Did it inform your work on this project?
SR: Not that much. You have to let the project itself inform you. You have to follow what’s on the screen, not what you know that isn’t on the screen. Because the audience only knows what’s on the screen. Or maybe they will if they’re a fan, but I can’t count on the audience knowing something I never told them. I can’t assume anything more than what we’ve given them onscreen. On this show, I did have lots of conversations with Alex and Bobby and you talk about motivations and you get into a lot more depth than what’s on the screen, and you understand the characters to a greater degree, which may affect how you do certain things. Because I’m trying to bring some of what’s unsaid onto the screen.
Sometimes it’s done in a very subconscious, subtle way. With the choices of songs. Sometimes the music supervisor will suggest a few songs and I’ll say this is the one that I think cuts the best to tell the story. If they agree with me, we’ll go with it. If they pick something else, that’s fine too. It’s a collaborative effort. I’m like the waiter. You tell me what you want, and I’ll bring you the best damn version of that with the best service I possibly can. If I think there’s a better dish, I may suggest it, but if you don’t like that dish, that’s fine. It’s your meal, not mine.