Ilse Will Say
Welcome to My Brain. I'm Ilse, and every Wednesday I sit down with actors, filmmakers, comedians, and storycreators to talk about the stuff that doesn't make the press kit. How they actually got here, the project that almost didn't happen, the festival story they can't believe they're telling me, and whatever weird detour we end up on. Haunted sets, folklore they secretly believe in, the best taco in town. It's part industry real talk, part group chat, and I promise I'm more curious than qualified.
Ilse Will Say
Tony Scott-Green: Reformed chronically late person
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Tony Scott-Green spent years as a corporate consultant with an entire soundtrack playing in his head before he finally let it out of the speakers. This episode is about what happens when you actually listen to the thing that makes you different.
Tony walks Ilse through his path from a bedroom guitarist in Scotland too anxious to play live, through decades in tech consulting, to composing scores for feature films and building sonic branding for major companies out of his Chicago and LA studio. He gets into the exercise that changed everything, a literal hour by hour map of a Thursday ten years in the future that his wife made him write out, and how that became his real roadmap off the consulting track. The conversation also wanders into Scottish folklore, banshees, the muse, and a fully formed conspiracy theory about grapefruit juice. Follow Tony at @tonyscottgreen on Instagram.
Tony's documentary First Feature recently screened at the Chattanooga Film Festival. Find it linked in his Instagram bio.
In this episode:
- 00:00 – Tony's reformed chronic lateness
- 01:28 – Cold open and intro
- 03:42 – Growing up in Scotland, bedroom guitarist to engineering school
- 05:40 – The Thursday ten years from now exercise
- 09:59 – Why networking is really just being a good hang
- 10:22 – Music for Imaginary Films, the demo reel that got him his first score
- 13:05 – Hot Cakes
- 15:38 – How Tony learned to actually take a hard director's note
- 16:56 – Scottish folklore and getting woo woo
- 19:30 – The Rachel Dratch line: if you believe in magic, you'll see more of it
- 21:22 – The grapefruit juice conspiracy theory
- 22:44 – Tony's documentary, First Feature
Mentioned in this episode:
Thank you to our sponsor, Joel Maisonet Photography: maisonetphotography.com
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Ilse Will Say is an Intrepida Entertainment podcast, hosted by Ilse Zacharias Rivera. Produced and edited by Jacob Cagle. Music by Eric Backus. Photography by Joel Maisonet.
The views and opinions expressed on Ilse Will Say are entirely those of the host and guests, and do not reflect the views of any employers, sponsors, or innocent bystanders. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Nothing said here is professional advice. We're here for the laughs, y'all.
Tony Scott Green, with a man with three names, I'm sure he is so punctual. Is that true?
SPEAKER_00Um I'm a reformed chronically late person.
SPEAKER_01Ah what reformed you?
SPEAKER_00Um it just it just got the point where it was just pissing people off. And I I was the guy you said, hey, we're all meeting at seven for for dinner. At like five to seven, I'd be laying on the sofa going, I should think about taking a shower and heading up.
SPEAKER_01Wow. So you were like a half hour, hour wait guy.
SPEAKER_00Hour, sometimes hour plus.
SPEAKER_01Stop.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah. And this is so it just got to the point where that was just not sustainable. People were getting angry. And this is this is back in the day when if someone said to you on a Monday, hey, we're meeting at Saturday at seven, you wouldn't have another conversation. You'd be like, there was no, hey, are we still on tonight? You know, it was just no cell phone. That was yeah, that that that was done. But yeah, I'm a reformed chronically lay person. And to that end, it pisses me off when other people are late. Because you know, the thing you hate most about yourself is uh the thing you hate most in other people, is the thing you hate most inside yourself, and I know that lay person is still in me. So when I see other people late, I'm like, oh.
SPEAKER_01No. He describes himself in his own bio as probably the worst surfer in Santa Monica. Also, a Scotsman who spent almost 20 years in corporate consulting before realizing the thing that made him different was the music playing in his head that nobody else could hear. Welcome back to Ilse Will Say, the show where we contain multitudes. Welcome to my brain. I'm Ilse, your host, a woman who has definitely written an entire imaginary comedy set after drinking some nasty grapefruit juice. Because why is grapefruit juice a thing? And assumed that that was just normal for everyone on a Tuesday. And that's basically the whole origin story here. Turns out most people don't hear a song develop in their head the way that he does. His wife had to tell him that. Which is how a management consultant with a catalog degree ends up leaving the boardroom to score film and TV, build sonic branding for major companies, and run a studio out of Chicago and LA that he describes, in his own words, as a bit like a mad scientist's laboratory. When he got laid off in 2009, his wife sat him down and made him plan out an entire fictional Thursday 10 years in the future, hour by hour. That exercise became his actual roadmap. And my guest today, boy, does he know what it means to actually listen to a song, to a scene, to the thing everyone else in the room is too busy to notice. Please welcome Tony Scott Green.
SPEAKER_00Hey, thank you, Yose. That was such a great intro. That's awesome. I love intros for someone doesn't just read what you've given them, they kind of put their spin on it. Well, I don't, you know, you know where you're FS and someone and they just they're just reading and someone's given them the too long bio, and there's no sense of, hey, how do I take this and reshape it? And they just go kind of go top to bottom in the bio. So I I like what you did there. Because listening to it, I thought though, oh, there's that that that that's that's that's kind of funny. Then I thought, oh, but all that is true. I've known all those all those things actually happened. So yeah, so thank you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, all those things did actually happen. Um, and so I want to know a little bit about that moment. I mean, I love your wife already, yeah. But that is that is an incredible gift that happened. So a little, what is um just a short version of your story of of how you got here?
SPEAKER_00Oh, uh grew up in Scotland and was a musician in my teenage years, played guitar, uh, but was also, and this is worth mentioning, uh, was just really anxious and really frightened of being on stage. So I was a great, a great bedroom guitarist. I loved music, I was obsessed with it, I really wanted to do something with it, but I couldn't see a way to make that happen. There was no one around me who was uh uh doing that that I knew of where I could say, okay, you know, how do how do we make this work? What what's the what's the bridge from where I am to where I'd like to be? There's nothing like that. And so I went to engineering school, um, started working software, uh came to the States on a temporary assignment, it's supposed to be two and a half years, wound up staying for over 30 years, obviously. But just got to a point where music was always in my mind, and I all there was just always music playing in my head. And I kept thinking at some point I'm gonna get back to it, we'll find a way to make that happen. So instead of just being my head, we'll make it come out of the speakers. I'm I'm pointing to the speakers in the studio, by the way. And I say that. And it that that was just the whole thing, and you you nailed it right there with that process, uh, that thing that happened, that kind of inflect that tipping point, where it was just, hey, I don't think everyone uh I don't think everyone can do this or everyone hears this, and this might be the thing I have. And then you think, well, how do I go about that? And I was very lucky to be in a relationship with someone who was uh really supportive and very, very encouraging about pursuing that.
SPEAKER_01And did you actually do the Thursday 10 years from now, hour for hour?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So here's uh uh in fact since you mentioned it, and I think this is actually I'm I'll go into detail because I think it's such a great exercise for anyone.
SPEAKER_01I think so too. I was thinking of doing it after this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so here's so here's here's how it worked out for me, and everyone can do a version of this. And um it was like 2009 economic downturn. My consulting firm laid me off, and I was looking for another consulting job, and everyone would say, Oh, you know, yeah, we know you. If we can close this one deal, we'll bring you on, and that'd be great. But nobody was closing any deals, and that wasn't happening. And so I talked to uh my wife Lisa, and she said, It's a Thursday, 10 years from now, lay out what you're doing. And I say, Oh, I'm probably doing this and that. And she's like, No, no, take time, break it down hour by hour from when you wake up in the morning to when we go to bed at night. So I laid out something that was like, Well, um, I get up, I've got uh a director, I call with a director about a potential feature film, and then I've got musicians coming in to record for because I'm closing out another feature film, and then I'm heading out to LA for some meetings, and then you come out because you've got work out there, and you join us, and we have dinner with some friends, and we're we stay in LA for a little while. So I kind of laid it out like that. And she said, That's great. I said, if you get another consulting job like you're looking for right now, a full-time job, will you be able to do that? And I said, Well, no, not right away, but by then, 10 years from now from now, I won't be consulting for someone. I'll I'll be going uh freelance, I'll be independent, so I'll have control over my time and the projects I take. So I'll have more time for music. And over time, I'll be able to ramp the consulting down from 100% of my time to zero and ramp music up from, you know, or like you know, five or ten percent of my time to a hundred percent. It'll be I'll completely flip them over, but they'll be over a 10-year period. My wife said, So start doing that now so that in 10 years' time you're there.
SPEAKER_01Smart lady.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. But then but it's it's such a simple thing. Then the next day I called, you know, uh our accountant and said, Hey, um, I'd like to set up a company and I'm gonna go uh become a freelance consultant. And I reached out to all the companies I've been trying to get full-time jobs with and said, Look, I no longer want a full-time job. I'm interested in doing part-time consulting. And instantly it was like, Oh, that's great. We don't have budget for a fully loaded salary, but we can bring you on for a few hours a week or for short-handed. And so it became so it that happened. Then I had control over my time instead of being locked into a 40, 50, 60 hour a week job with all that travel. And I had a little more time and control over that, and so I could say, okay, after when this project ends, I'm gonna take three months and work on music, or maybe I was on a project where it's like, hey, it's just 20 hours a week, and that frees me up for a lot of other time to work on music. And over 10 years, I was able to kind of flip things over. So that's how I was able to migrate from consulting to music. But it was a 10-year period.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's always the business side to the artist, and I think a lot of folks don't want to talk about the business side of artistry because it's not as sexy, it's not as fun, but it still needs to get done. Because if no one's there to s to hear it or listen to it, then you know what is the point of continuing to have such a uh a big rest uh these vast materials, right? If no one is actually listening.
SPEAKER_00I know. You're just trying you're trying to meet people. I think when you first start doing that, I'll be keen to know your your experience of this. I think when you first start doing it, or if you're at an event now, you see people doing this, which is you go to events and you think, I'm I'm looking for a job, hire me, hire me. I'm looking for I'm looking for something, take my business card, this, that. And after a while, you're like, hey, I just want to hang with interesting fun people. Yeah, help the help them connect with other interesting fun people and do that. And then what happens is as a natural byproduct of that, someone says, Oh, well, we're working on this project and you should totally score it. So it really is just that it's about being a good hang and a good connector and a good member of the community.
SPEAKER_01That is exactly right. And the beautiful thing about it is you will eventually meet the right people, and then that group will just only get bigger and bigger and bigger. And so you had this epiphany, the part-time consulting worked out. What was that first job?
SPEAKER_00Oh.
SPEAKER_01How did you start that that music uh journey?
SPEAKER_00Well, when I started the music journey, I was just let's see, I think at that point I'd been I'd gotten back into playing guitar and I'd be doing some sessions and I would go out and play live once, twice a month. And at some point, you know, I decided, hey, I really want to focus on writing for a picture. And someone said, Oh, do you have a demo reel? And I'm like, No. And that's that's I think for a lot of people that's kind of a stumbling block. It's like, well, I haven't really done anything. So I came up with this idea. I created an album, I called it Music for Imaginary Films, and I imagined films, I imagine pieces of art and filmmakers, and I kind of did a little cross-reference. I was like, okay, I I really like um this poem. How would it be if these filmmakers made a movie about what's happening in this poem? Then I'd write a piece of music for that. So I did that like 12 times. Had it up my website, and then a few months later, so now I had something, and it was kind of a variety of things. But I had this is all stuff I just made up myself. I hadn't actually been hired to do any of this, but it kind of represented what I was uh capable of. And a composer friend called me up several months later and he goes, Hey, um have you done any bigger films? I'm like, No, I haven't. Is there any indie films? Like, no, not really. He said, I've I've got this director who's reached out to me. I'm too busy. I sent him to your website, and he heard one piece of music and really likes it, wants to talk to you about doing the score for the film. And that's how I got my first uh that's how I got my first film.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so a website and like um proof of your work.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, proof of work, and it was yeah, and it was just, oh, this guy can't actually make music. And it so happened that the director heard this piece, and the piece wound up being in the film. So that that that was really nice. So it wasn't just oh I like that, um, but it wound up being in the film. So that that was great. But that's how I got that's how I got that first uh my my first feature.
SPEAKER_01I think that translates to just about every role in in like a a movie bit in the movie business, because you know, an editor has to have a real, a director has to have a real like everything requires a proof of work. Because everybody can say that they can do the thing.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, you're already putting yourself on on like a smaller pool.
SPEAKER_00So I I think about that's like what if this decision was easy? Yes, and you're like, oh, I would do this.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Chicago's best kept secret. It's not deep dish. It's Joel MySonette Photography. He's legitimately the best, and it's about time everybody knew. Actors, execs, LinkedIn Lurkers, book at mycinetphotography.com and thank me later. And you know what else is easy? Hotcakes. They're like hot takes, but they stack up.
SPEAKER_00I'm ready for the hot cakes.
SPEAKER_01Weirdest instrument in your collection.
SPEAKER_00Um is called uh ande magnatique, and you put a cassette in here, and if you press these keys, um, it speeds up or slows down the tape.
SPEAKER_01Ooh, one movie score you wish you'd written. No thinking. Go.
SPEAKER_00Uh Raising Arizona. Pause followed by Paris, Texas. Close second.
SPEAKER_01Best spot in Santa Monica to clear your head.
SPEAKER_00Oh, uh it'll either be a Shay J or um the galley.
SPEAKER_01Best snack while working.
SPEAKER_00Almonds from Trader Joe's, like it's 50% less salt, and I'll just worst note a director's ever giving you on a score. Oh. I don't I don't think I can't think of a worse note. I mean, the there there are the people sometimes people tell also stories where someone's like, hey, could it be more purple? Could it be this or that? I don't think I've I don't think I've gotten anything like that. All all notes are tough.
SPEAKER_01Scotland or Hollywood, which one actually shaped your ear more?
SPEAKER_00Oh, Scotland.
SPEAKER_01Motorcycle, you wearing a helmet?
SPEAKER_00All the gear all the time. I always wear it home.
SPEAKER_01Uh what Scottish folklore do you actually believe in?
SPEAKER_00I'm not sure. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe the the banshees that appear howling outside a house before someone dies? Maybe. I don't know. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much for playing.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that that that that was that was fast. Can I can I go back to something you asked about just with the the worst notes?
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I've I really had to over time change my approach to getting notes, which is that you've got to really when you get notes that are really hard, you have to embrace them. Yes, you have to really lean into them and unpack them, and it's unpleasant. It's like it is like going through going to therapy. Someone says, Well, I don't like what's happening here, and I don't like this. And it's so early in my career, it was so like you you freeze up and you're like, oh, what am I gonna do? It's and now you're like, all right, let's tell me why. Tell me why it sucks. Tell me, and you have to really lean into it and get there and just be really engaged and impat impassive about it. Just like, well, let's let's get the rid of the problem.
SPEAKER_01Well, I think ego has a lot to do with it. And I think when I changed, I think two things for me changed. When I started thinking of life as creative versus competitive, like the director and I are not in a competition, we are in creativity together. And second, when I realized that my job was to make you look good. It's to make the director look good, it's to make the producer look good, it's to make the CEO look good. Like that is my job as an actor, that is my job as a writer. Um so if I can do my job, I think everybody on set should be that that is everyone's job on set. You know, the director needs to make the actors look good. So if we're all thinking of the collective versus the versus mean mentality, I think it would solve most of the issues on set.
SPEAKER_00That's that's that's a really good point. I like that. But that's it's it's okay. It's okay to work at things.
SPEAKER_01That's the only way we can do it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01However, we do get a little weird on this podcast, and I did want to ask in in relation to the Scottish folklore question, um, how woo-woo do you get? Do you get woo-woo? Do you believe in anything?
SPEAKER_00The biggest thing I believe in is that the music is not inside me, but the music comes through me. And so, you know, Lou Reed once said that the music in his brain, it was like there was a radio station playing. He said, If I can if I can be, if I can just get in the right direction, I can tune into that radio station and I hear it. And Philip Glass said that inspirational music was like an underground river, and if he could be still enough, he could feel the river vibrating beneath his feet. So I get woo-woo in the sense that I believe that these things are out there and they come through me, but I have to be working and in the flow for them to come to me. These things come to me when I'm working.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I love that. The muse, uh, Big Magic talks about that. Yeah, the there's some great examples in there.
SPEAKER_00The one of um the woman who's were the po she's she's working out in the fields, and she would the analogy of uh the wind is coming down, and yes, and she's like trying to race to the house to get a pen and paper, and it would just go right through her. And the idea that I that idea has gone on to the next person that can capture it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that at one point she grabbed it and pulled it back and wrote the poem backwards.
SPEAKER_00That I forgot I forgot about that piece.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that gives me goosebumps. Um, but I did hear an interview you did recently where you said, um, if you believe in magic, you'll see it more.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that was so that that just came out today. That's and it's even just a clip from this film. I got a photographer friend, Julius Adorso, that I met through another musician from Apache Gross. We were all working in a project together. Julius came by and shot some and interviewed me. We talked about my creative process. And that line is from all people, um, the comedian Rachel Dratch.
SPEAKER_01Oh.
SPEAKER_00And she was just because she is playing Rocky, she's in the Rocky Horror Show on Broadway right now, and she was just interviewing the New York Times and she closed out the interview with that line. She said, if you believe in magic, you'll see more magic.
SPEAKER_01So that's hilarious because I was listening to her podcast about woo-woo stuff right before this interview.
SPEAKER_00So if you believe in good things or magic or whatever, you'll see more of it. So why so why not?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah. Why not?
SPEAKER_00Exactly. So if that's woo-woo, um just sign me up. Um I'm I'm all over that. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I love that.
SPEAKER_00What about you?
SPEAKER_01What about me?
SPEAKER_00Who would you get?
SPEAKER_01Oh, I get really woo-woo. Give me an example. I don't um I used to listen to a lot of podcasts about aliens and uh the these two gentlemen who would just pick a story from a journal from like the 1800s and then try and find as many as as as many evidence as they could about a poltergeist or a weird, like the sphere, an object that just landed and and it rolled by itself and things of that nature. And all that to say, I don't necessarily I wouldn't back it up. I wouldn't back anything up and say, absolutely, this is 100% true. But what I've enjoyed about listening to this ghost talk and alien talk and poltergeist and uh, you know, this pope that was uh when meditating, he would tap into the divine and give people uh these prophecies, and now they're the uh these records, uh records. Anywho, and you know, some of his words have come to life and they're true, and you know, he predicted like 9-11, a bunch of stuff like that. All right, can I will I back it up? No, but I think what I loved is now the world has that spark of magic that I I remembered when I was a kid, where like anything is possible, where the world is awe, like it's awe-inspiring, and that's what I love about the Woo.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, as a kid, you want there to be a little bit of magic in the world. It's like the old Harry Potter thing. You want you want to you want to believe that to be real? You want to believe that that that could be out there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And I think just tapping into that and just thinking, oh, it might be plausible.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. And even if even if it's not, the fact that you are willing to entertain it changes the way you perceive the day. And generally for the better.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it makes me think of, you know, even when I was um drinking like the grapefruit that I talked about, which is true, I was drinking grapefruit, and then I came up with a 10-minute set of on grapefruit and a conspiracy theory of the grapefruit and how marketing has shaped, you know, grapefruit to be this healthy, delicious drink, and actually it's terrible, and no one's willing to admit it, you know, and it's really any and that's my music, right? Like to you, that that might be you know a score. To me, that's that's my tapping in. That's my tuning in.
SPEAKER_00That's funny. I like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
SPEAKER_00Oh, it's my absolutely my pleasure. This is this is so fun.
SPEAKER_01You were like, I don't know if I'm gonna be funny.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I I I I never knew.
SPEAKER_01You're hilarious, yeah, and very insightful.
SPEAKER_00Oh, well, well, well, thank you.
SPEAKER_01So are you but wait, hold on. Oh my goodness, we were having such a great time that I forgot to mention Tony's film. The documentary first feature went to the Chattanooga Film Festival. Amazing. Please, please, please. Um, if you enjoyed this episode, please go follow him at Tony Scott Green on Instagram. And if you go to the bio, it'll take you to first feature. He's so talented. I loved how he talked about, you know, the the woo-woo-ness of the arts, of how he's tapped into the musicality around him. So fun, so great. Friends, if you enjoyed this episode, please like, subscribe. Uh, tell me what runs through your head when you're tapped in. I'd love to know that actually. So, yes, please go check out first feature, the documentary. Tony Scott Green, everybody. Ilse out. I'm so sorry I used the third person. Ilse Will Say is an Entrepida entertainment podcast produced and edited by Jacob Cagle, music by Eric Facus, and photography by Joel Mysenet, and I am your host, Ilse Sachary Rivera. The views and opinions expressed on Ilse Will Say are entirely those of the host and guests and do not reflect the views of any employers, sponsors, or innocent bystanders. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Nothing said here should be taken as professional advice, expert opinion, legal guidance, or a reason to DMSU conspiracy theories. We're here for the laps, y'all. Carry on.
