From Castlemania to LA: A MBHS graduate’s story

FARMINGTON – Mt. Blue High School graduate Nate Underkuffler can still remember the day he fell in love with film scores, though he wouldn’t fully realize the significance until years later.

“I was on the swing set at Mallett School – back when it was Castlemania – and I just remember Danny Elfman’s Beetlejuice score was running through my head. I didn’t really turn back after that. From then on, film music filled my psyche,” he said.

Underkuffler graduated in 2004, going on to study film scoring at Berklee College of Music in Boston.

“None of them liked it as much as I did, which wasn’t too surprising,” he said.

It wasn’t surprising largely due to Underkuffler’s upbringing in Regional School District 9, which boasts a generally well-regarded music department.

“Steve Muise is a nurturer. I wrote this bats**t crazy original piece my senior year for the high school’s orchestra and he was totally supportive,” Underkuffler recalls.

Muise, who has become a central figure in Mt. Blue’s music scene, was so supportive of Underkuffler’s intense passion for film score, that he even conducted the entire orchestra to perform his piece in concert.

“I didn’t even practice the viola that much,” Underkuffler laughs, “I did a really bad job of utilizing Mt. Blue’s musical resources. But as soon as I started making my own arrangements I was immediately interested.”

Underkuffler describes his teenage interest in music in a variety of ways- such as “terrorizing the community with a rock band,” and putting a Hollywood film score over any class project in order to make it that much more awesome.

“I had binders and binders of music. They were by far my most precious belongings,” he said.

At Berklee, Underkuffler found his Oz- realizing he was far from the Kansas of Franklin County. He found a new rock band to terrorize his new community with- eventually landing a record deal that put him on a two year tour around the world. The small townee was in a constant state of awe at the new, wide spans of opportunities at his fingertips.

After graduating he moved to Los Angeles, where the opportunities grew even larger.

“I found an internship doing 80 hours a week, essentially unpaid. But I was doing it with a smile. I was the perfect type of person to get used and abused by Hollywood. I had stars in my eyes the whole time,” Underkuffler said.

The internship opened his eyes to the real meaning of ‘moving up the ladder,’ requiring everything he had in perseverance, persistence and a “willingness to suffer.”

“You have to fall in love with the process. If you’re there for the money you’re screwed,” he said.

But the worked paid off, and Underkuffler is well on his way up the ladder- now freelancing as a film music editor. Despite some challenging aspects of the job, such as last minute gigs and being on constant call, Underkuffler has shown his skill by working with some big names in the movie industry such as Michael Bay who directed Armageddon and the Transformers movies and Alexandre Desplat who composed music for Harry Potter and The King’s Speech.

“I had just landed at Logan Airport for a visit home, when I got an email saying I had the opportunity to work with Desplat. It was one of his songs that played as the first dance at my wedding. I knew my 17-year-old self would never forgive me if I had passed that up, so I booked a flight back across the country for the next day,” Underkuffler said.

Film score stardom hasn’t gone to his head though. The Farmington native said he always tries to keep one foot in L.A. and one back at “Camp Eddie,” where he and his friends spent every possible minute.

“Mt. Blue afforded us the opportunity to create. They gave us the ability to explore and the support to do it by failing and getting back up again,” Underkuffler said.