October 29, 2009

By By Mitchell Peters, L.A.

"The Twilight Saga: New Moon" director Chris Weitz has one distinctive memory from a meeting in Paris where he first screened bits of the movie to its composer, Alexandre Desplat.

"He was writing something down," Weitz said today (Oct. 29) during The Hollywood Reporter/Billboard Film and TV Music Conference in Los Angeles. Then he "showed me a child's drawing of waves -- a series of scribbles."

After laughs from the audience, Desplat, who composed music for "New Moon," said the drawing was a reaction to what he felt after watching the movie. "It's what my visual perception of the sound will be," he said. "I react intuitively and intellectually to what the picture is giving me."

During the planning stages of "New Moon," Weitz had a meeting with studio executives who said the upcoming film's score should have a sense of continuity from "Twilight," which was composed by Carter Burwell. But the execs had a change of heart after hearing Desplat's demos.

"You could see the moment when they let themselves off the hook," Weitz said. "And it became evident that this was going to be its own thing."

During the conversation -- which was moderated by BMI VP of film/TV relations Doreen Ringer Ross -- Weitz also discussed some of the challenges with putting together the "New Moon" soundtrack, which features exclusive songs by Thom Yorke, Bon Iver & St. Vincent, Lykke Li and Sea Wolf, among others.

"There's a much greater difference if you're using existing songs, because then you have a know item you're going to deploy in a specific way, and you know what kind of emotions it evokes," the director said. "That was never going to be the case, because songs (on "New Moon") were new."

"The Twilight Saga: New Moon" hits theaters on Nov. 20.

Subscribe to Billboard magazine today!