Rising Stars: Meet Nate Underkuffler

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nate Underkuffler. 

Hi Nate, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers.
I grew up in a small town in rural Maine, and after seeing the film BATMAN at 7 or 8 years old, thought the music in it was amazing and had my mother buy me the soundtrack on cassette tape. I had lots of other interests as a child too – Meteorology, Geology, Gorillas, but music written for film endured and after arranging by ear a medley of melodies from the film ARMAGEDDON to perform at my Viola recital, I decided this music stuff might be attainable and I applied to Berklee College of music in Boston. After completing that, playing in a band for a few years, I got an internship in Santa Monica with a film composer. I worked long hours for next to little pay, and loved all of it. Plenty of good teeth-cutting! I gravitated specifically to the “Music Editing” part of the process, which appealed to my love of film music and my general personality of being detail-oriented and organized, and in 2015 I took the plunge to do freelance music editing. It ended up being a fairly easy plunge, because despite the instability of beginning a freelance career I quickly realized how little I had been paid for the composer’s assistant position! I worked on some very fun low-budget films and some big-budget films, and loved the wide variety of filmmaking teams and seeing what we can create together. Music Editing is a niche gig, and I strive to master it.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
My favorite hobby (now that I can’t call film music a hobby – how LA of me!) is hiking and exploring mountains, which endlessly capture my imagination. That made LA a relatively easy fit for me. It was harder for my girlfriend Justina who also moved here with me, who is not designed for the desert climate, and leaving family thousands of miles away was really hard for her too. Toss in this city’s unforgiving cost of living and the demanding, often unpredictable entertainment industry, and that always caused some bumps in the road. We persevered and I now am happy to report Justina is my wife and mother of my son! I’m sure plenty of people chasing dreams to this big sprawling place can relate to this whole scenario. Another bump I guess is navigating the intense, driven personalities who inhabit the entertainment industry. A lot of passion and ambition exists here, including my own passion and ambitions, and its important to learn what your personal and professional boundaries should be to keep yourself and your family healthy.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
Music Editing can be a few different responsibilities and skill sets. First can be editing together pre-existing music (often from other films) to form a temporary film score for a film while it is still being edited, so the studio and test audiences can better know how the film will work in its final form. A film without any music is nearly rudderless in some genres, so having music in your preview screenings, studio screenings, and throughout the post-production process is pretty vital even if it is cobbled together from other sources. The composer will then use that temp music to better understand what the filmmakers are liking. (or at least used to – often one and the same!) As the composer begins work, I also support them in various ways with skills I’ve developed, including just being their eyes and ears in the cutting room. I recently completed work on a sequel to the beloved holiday classic “A Christmas Story” and I’m quite proud of my work on that, with a director and editor who really encouraged my creativity to take lots of risks and pursue bold ideas with my choices in what music to use. There is this obscure disco version of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” that I had the idea to try for a shopping sequence, and it ended up becoming one of the set pieces in the film. I hadn’t worked in a comedy a whole lot, and the whole film was such a fun, rewarding way to spend my summer!

It’s weird that I don’t know exactly what could set me apart from music editors because I’ve seen so few of them working, as a film usually hires only one. I would totally like to be a bug on the wall with other music editors and see how they work, so I could better answer your question, or at least steal all their good ideas!

We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up.
A film music-related one – I discovered a film music fan message board (Shoutout to filmtracks.com!) when I was 14 in 2000 – the earliest days of social media. It was back before anyone was using the term. I had never met anyone who shared my enthusiasm for film music until  I found these mysterious people on the internet, and I made some good friends and they really helped to fan the flames of my passion and interest. In 2002 many of us met in person for a John Williams concert in Ohio and drove cross-country to get there. It was surreal to my 16-year-old self, and I had an amazing time with all these film music fans who were quite a bit older than I was. It was an excellent lapse in judgement on the part of my parents to let me actually do this. I was a huge Danny Elfman fan and this one guy with the handle “The Texas Ranger” was too, and as you can imagine he was quite a character. He invited me to drive with him to the concert and played me all sorts of Bernard Herrmann and various film music deep cuts and I thought he was the coolest guy. I was in awe in a way only a 16-year-old can be. Again, really appreciate my parents somehow letting me do this. The website Filmtracks.com is still active, and I still post on their old-school message board. A few of us, with younger posters, met up again this past year for the John Williams Hollywood bowl show. It was an amazing reunion of sorts, and really fun to be someone who contributes to the conversation from “both ends” now!

Contact Info:

• Other: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm4020655