Kevin Kliesch talks about composing the score for Disney Junior’s “Sofia the First”

Kevin Kliesch is a composer that recently earned his first Emmy nomination for his work on the hit Disney Junior series “Sofia The First”. He has worked as a composer and orchestrator on over 100 feature films spanning the past seventeen years, including “Frozen”, “The Hangover” and “Tangled”. He also received his first Annie Award nomination for his work on the “Thundercats” series in 2012. Media Mikes had a chance to chat with Kevin about his work both composing and orchestrating.

Mike Gencarelli: Tell us how you got started composing for the Disney Junior series “Sofia the First”?
Kevin Kliesch: I had worked as an orchestrator on “Tangled” in 2010 and became friends with the film’s editor. After hearing my mockups and orchestrations from Alan Menken’s score, he happened to recommend me to the head of music at the Disney Channel since they were looking for a composer to score their new series “Sofia the First.” I met with the Sofia team and they liked my background, so I got the job.

MG: Congrats on your first Emmy nomination for your work on the show; what do you enjoy most about composing for this show?
KK: Thanks! The best thing about writing for Sofia is that I get to write the traditional Disney-style music that we all grew up with. The producers wanted to stay away from typical cartoon music and instead draw on the lush sound of past Disney films, which I am honored to have been a part of, having worked as an orchestrator on “Enchanted,” “The Muppets” and “Tangled.”

MG: How is it going from a show like “Sofia the First” to working with DC Comics’ animated movies like “Superman: Unbound” and “Justice League: War”?
KK: The two are musically about as far apart as you can get! I really enjoy scoring the DC films because it gives me a chance to write in a completely different genre than the Disney style. I’ve always been a fan of action scores, so it’s great to be able to call up a different palette of sounds and get my superhero vibe going.

MG: “Frozen” and Tangled” are two of my favorite newer Disney films; tell us about your involvement with these films?
KK: I was the orchestrator on both of those films. On “Tangled,” I worked with the legendary Alan Menken on bringing his score to life. He would send me complete piano sketches and I would have to take those and make complete orchestra scores from those sketches. I also had to do computer mockups of all of the music so the directors and producers could hear what the score was going to sound like before we went to record it with a live orchestra. On “Frozen,” I didn’t have to do any of the mockups since the composer Christophe Beck did his own mockups, but I did wind up orchestrating about two thirds of the score from his sketches.

MG: Switching roles from orchestrator to composer; what do you enjoy most and why?
KK: As an orchestrator, I get to work on someone else’s vision of how the score should support the film’s narrative. As a composer, I get to create that vision myself – which is eminently enjoyable. Being able to translate emotion into music is both very challenging and rewarding.

MG: How does it differ doing a score for a film than it does for a television series?
KK: There’s not much difference in terms of how I approach the story. Both genres require that the music support the drama and the characters; I always strive to give emotional weight to what’s happening on screen. There’s also not much difference in the time I have to do each project. While a DC film might have 70 minutes of music, I’m usually given a few weeks to complete it. On my television series, I usually wind up writing 20 minutes per episode, and I get anywhere from 7-14 days to do that. Both genres require that I write about 3 minutes a day to reach my deadline.

MG: I have a two year old daughter, who loves “Sofia the First”; with you also having a young daughter, does it only making working on a show like this 100% better?
KK: Absolutely! My 6-year-old comes into my studio every day and asks me what episode I’m working on. Sometimes I’ll play the whole episode for her, which she loves because she gets to watch it before anyone else! I also really enjoy watching the episodes with her when they air on tv.

MG: Being a fan of the series; I have to ask was it a daunting task to redo the theme song for the reboot series of “Thundercats”?
KK: It was daunting only for the fact that the producers wanted to compress the 2-minute original theme song down into 10 seconds, so I had to figure out how not to make the die-hard fans angry!

MG: What else do you have in the cards for the rest of 2014 and onwards?
KK: “Sofia the First” has been renewed for a third season, so that will keep me busy well into 2015. I’ve also been approached to orchestrate a new ABC/Disney television series called “Galavant” which will have original songs written by Alan Menken and an original score by Christopher Lennertz. So I’m super-excited to be working with the Disney team again!

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Filed Under: Film Interviews, Interviews, Music Interviews Tagged With: composing, disney, junior, kevin, kliesch, score, ...

Korn’s Jonathan Davis and Nicholas O’Toole talk about composing film “After the Dark”

“After The Dark” is the latest film by director John Huddles. The film takes place at an international school in Jakarta, where a philosophy teacher challenges his class of twenty graduating seniors to choose which ten of them would take shelter underground and reboot the human race in the event of a nuclear apocalypse. The film was scored by veteran film composer Nicholas O’Toole and Korn front man Jonathan Davis and Media Mikes had the pleasure of talking with both of them about their work on the film and their ongoing collaboration with one another.

Adam Lawton: How did you both become involved with the film?
Nicholas O’Toole:  I was approached by George Zakk who was one of the producers on the film. I had known him from another project and they had just started to go into post production on this film. George had known that Jonathan and I had been working together for quite some time and it seemed like a good fit. This led to a discussion with director John Huddles. We ended up hitting it off right away and we have stayed friends since.

AL: What was the creative process like between the two of you?
NO: The dynamic is great as we have known each other for so long. We get what the other one does. I myself am very technically minded and I have a degree in film score work where Jonathan is prolific in songwriting, EDM and a variety of other things including film scoring. We sort of mind shared this project.  Jonathan is very dynamic and variant based. He brings a lot to the table from sound design, to mood and colors. I handle the more technical side of things such as arranging and post work. With Jonathan on the road a lot he and I developed a good solution for sharing our thoughts and ideas. We walked in to the project already having a pretty good flow.

AL: Jonathan, did you find any similarities in your writing style for the film and you writing style for Korn?
Jonathan Davis: It is completely different. That’s why I love it. It challenges me. When you are writing a film score you are trying to convey an emotion part of the film. That’s the whole reason why I love doing things like this as it is so different from the other writing that I do. When you are working on a song you have versus and choruses to stick to and with a project like this there are no rules. It’s really different.

AL: Is scoring something you picture yourself doing more of?
JD: I love doing it and am open to doing more. I am just a musical junkie. When I got sober back in the day I replaced partying with music. (Laughs) It is something that I can’t get enough of.

AL: Did you both work on the same parts together or did you work separately on various parts of the film?
NO: It was purely linear in this particular instance. John Huddles was involved as well from the ground level which made things even greater. Having John involved certainly reduced the re-writes. Normally you create a bunch of material and then show case but for this film John was there the whole time and fully invested. I think we just moved from beginning to end on this and then went back and did some adjusting where it was needed. I think you can sort of hear that in the arc of the story. We kept things moving and it felt very natural.

AL: How much of the film were you allowed to see at one time when you were scoring?
NO: We got the film in a reel which is the general process of post production. We are all contracted to confidentiality. You get the entire film however they may still be editing and changing some of the things. We would get new reels every week. We had a screening with the director where we saw the film in its entirety and we discussed where the music would go and for how long and what type of feel was needed. Everything gets spotted out and then we follow those notes and begin writing. You definitely have to understand the narrative in order to be able to start scoring.

AL: After the initial playing of the film with the score were there a lot of changes requested by the director?
NO: Things did change. The film was shot in Indonesia which is known for a style of music called Gamelan. Jonathan had some previous experiences with this style of music as had I in the past so this ended up being a pleasant coincident. We were going to take a more Gamelan eccentric approach anyhow which we did at first. John Huddles liked it but wanted to try a different approach. We repositioned ourselves in a way that caught fire and we were able to just take off. We kept things quite minimal arrangement wise and then mixed in a little Gamelan with electronic and hypnotic elements. We kept things very natural.

AL: Jonathan, did you have any reservations about working on the project? And do you have to get a specific type of mind set to work on this type of music?
JD: Not really. I love doing music. It’s always fun working with Nick and writing music. It was really great working with a director who had a specific vision. This was something so completely normal from what I do in my day job. I think you have to take yourself away because you are writing a piece of music not a song. I have to wrap my head around that but it’s basically music.

AL: Being that you guys have a friendship with one another outside of your work what do you enjoy most about working with each other?
JD: For me we are just friends making music. It’s a simple and pure thing. I am having fun making music for a cool movie and getting paid for it. There is no bad side to this what so ever. It’s just fun!
NO: The collaboration process is enhancing because if it was just me I would be writing out of my head. Jonathan adds another creative brain which comes from a completely different place. When you put the two together the result is always something bigger than what it would have been. Jonathan is prolific outside of Korn in ways that I think fans of the band will totally understand after hearing this. Like Jonathan said it’s just fun and we have a good vibe together so it’s great to be able to keep that going.

AL: What other projects do you guys have in the works for the rest of 2014?
NO: I am always negotiating on some sort of film project. Sometimes the project is working with Jonathan and sometimes it’s on my own. Jonathan and I have a good system worked out.
JD: I have quite a lot going on with Korn but with computers these days it allows Nick and me to be in different places but still be able to work together on projects with one another. I always have my noise buried in my laptop writing.

 

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Filed Under: Interviews, Music Interviews Tagged With: composing, dark, davis, film, jonathan, korns, ...

Steven Price talks about composing the score for “Gravity”

I am a huge fan of film scores, always have been. I am always keeping my eyes open for a new favorite. Well, I have found him…enter Steven Price. Steven has three film scores currently under his belt including “Attack of the Block” and “The World’s End”. His latest score for the hugely successful film “Gravity” is no question the best score of the year! I have a feeling it is going to be winning many awards in the coming months. Media Mikes had a chance to chat about developing the score for this film and his involvement with the film.

Mike Gencarelli: Where you ever concerned about delivering the sound to the soundlessness of space with your score for “Gravity”?
Steven Price: It was one of those things that looking back on it I should have been absolutely terrified. At the time we were so into trying things and experimenting that I didn’t realize what a ridiculous thing that I had attempted to do until I finished it really. This was actually lucky cause otherwise I would have sat frozen to my chair and never written a note. At the time it felt like it was a great opportunity to take on this daunting task but I can see now that it was perhaps now quite an ambitious task to undertake.

MG: I felt like the score was the third member of the cast in the film; was that a goal of yours?
SP: The hope for the music was that it was going to add to this idea of immersion. The camera was floating up in space, weightless like the characters and the music was there to follow through with that. You were up in space with them and you felt like you were immersed in that. For me it is the third character in some ways but I was always closely tied to the character of Ryan. A lot of what the music was trying to do was express her emotions and feelings. The hope was certainly that it would have this immersive feel and the sense that it would really all come together as a whole experience.

MG: What did you use for inspiration to come up with this amazing score?
SP: From the word “Go”, Alfonso (Cuarón) was really clear that he didn’t want this to be a traditional film score. I didn’t go and listen to other film scores about space. I avoided things like that actually. We would listen to all types of different music and draw specific aspects from each. You might be listening to rock music one week and then the next some really extreme electronica. All of these things would trigger off little experiments that I would use to apply during the writing process. Everything was really open and we had a lot of freedom. There was no one telling us how we had to create the sound. We got to make something that really fitted this film well and that was also very distinctive.

MG: I read that the score was mixed to be enhanced with the Dolby Atmos technology; tell us about that process?
SP: Yeah! That was the last thing that we did. We came back this past summer and did a new mix for that. This film really suits with Dolby Atmos and the whole thing about it is that you are completely surrounded by speakers. They are all around you. I based a lot around the knowledge that we were doing that when I wrote it as well. You can take it to another level. So if the camera enters the helmet of Sandra Bullock, then all of the sudden the score can feel like it compressed around your head. We had a lot of fun doing that and it is easily my favorite mix. There are so few Dolby Atmos screens in the UK but it is the one that I recommend to my friends for sure in America!

MG: “Don’t Let Go” is one hell of an emotional 11+ minute track; give us some background on its development?
SP: When I wrote it originally it started as 4 or 5 cues. They all did separate things but were designed to flow together. It became the bit that I was most proud of, so that is why I put it on the album as one continuous track. It just felt like it worked so well. It starts off with the introduction of the most dramatic stuff. You’ve had all this chaos and disorientation in the film for the first 20 minutes and this was the first time when you can take a breath. So it let me do a little bit of that kind of writing style which then went into a really choreographed action section. This idea came along early in the writing process that as the actors move around that I can reflect their movement within the music. I thought that that aspect was sort of a breakthrough and I was very excited during mixing that one. I was just so happy with how it all came together and how the emotions carried through it.

MG: What was your timeline on this film?
SP: I started back in December 2011 and we finished the main film mix November/December of last year but then came back like I said this year and did a little more. So I have been involved for the better part of two years now, which in the great scheme of this project is nothing. There are people that have spent around four or five years working on it. But it was great that since it was in fact so much longer than the typical composing project on a film where you are always in a race against time that with this film you got a chance to go back and try different things. I was also involved with temp mixes with the sound crew, so we all sort of evolved the sound together. It was pretty rare and really great to see the whole project develop over the years.

MG: It’s been a busy year for you with “Gravity” and “The World’s End”, tell us about how ?
SP: I had done a film called “Attack of the Block”, in which Edgar Wright produced a few years ago. So “The World’s End” came from that basically. It was just great to work with Edgar on that film. He is so interested in his music. The whole film is so cleverly structured and the music is a part of that. You get really involved really early. Again, I got a script way before they even shot that one and got to discuss how they were going to do things and how we could adapt the sound. That was great fun and a lot of my role in that was around the energy of how everything happened in one night in the film. We got to play into a bunch of different styles since there were comedy bits, action bits and even romantic bits as well. It was just good fun to be able to press different buttons. From being in this very immersive “Gravity” world, it was great to break out and do something different.

MG: What do you have planned after this film?
SP: There are a few things that I have knocking about. Since I am relatively new to this whole composing thing and I am not one of these people that have done like 50 films, I still feel incredibly lucky to be doing it. But also I feel paranoid that it will stop all of the sudden [laughs]. So there are a few things in the works but I don’t want to curse them by talking about them just yet. But there is definitely some exciting stuff coming up!

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Filed Under: Film Interviews, Interviews Tagged With: composing, gravity, price, score, steven, talks, ...

David Kates & Joshua Mosley discuss composing “Mass Effect: Paragon Lost”

David Kates & Joshua Mosley are the composers of Production I.G.’s “Mass Effect: Paragon Lost”, which is an animated prequel to BioWare’s “Mass Effect 3”.  The film is being released on Blu-ray/DVD on  December 28, 2012 and packs a hell of an epic score.  Media Mikes had a chance to chat with David and Joshua about working together on this project and with the “Mass Effect” franchise.

Mike Gencarelli: Tell us about how you two ended up collaborating on “Mass Effect: Paragon Lost”?
Joshua Mosley: Really great to talk with you. Shortly after I was hired on to the film I discovered the music of David Kates – particularly his work on the Mass Effect games. I really dug the way he put together his cues. I reached out and connected through social media. I felt he would be a great collaborator on this film. Soon after we met in person, I invited him to join me on this creative adventure. It was a totally awesome and fun experience working with David.
David Kates: Thanks for including us. We love what you guys are doing, and thrilled to be a part of it. Joshua, I recall, reached out to me through social networking, and mentioned that he had listened to some of my music so I reciprocated and checked out was he was doing, and was really moved by what he was creating. And I say moved, because it’s one thing to be impressed, and another altogether, to be moved. I felt that Joshua’s writing was coming from a very honest place, and I knew I wanted to get to know him. When the opportunity to collaborate on Mass Effect: Paragon Lost came about, I was initially very surprised because at the time, no one knew an animated version of the franchise was in the works. I was thrilled to be included, and fascinated by the potential creativity in bringing what I had composed on the games to the screen with Joshua.

MG: David, How does composing a “Mass Effect” animated movie differ from the video game series?
DK: The mission in composing for the game, particularly Mass Effect 2, was to give each level of the game its own musical identity while keeping the overall quality consistent, but the process is tedious and limiting. One of my favorite levels that I worked on was Garrus because I found him to be a character tormented by his own internal challenges. He wasn’t human, yet he identified with human qualities like compassion, justice, and loyalty. I wanted to bring out his discomfort in this while also accentuating this underlying, almost chemical level need to participate in battle. To achieve this, I had to create short loops that had different layers of content, and those layers would be trigger-based on what the player achieves while playing. It’s very challenging and difficult to really dig into a character’s development this way. In the movie, though, the story is laid out and develops chronologically, and there are so many opportunities to compose themes that you can use to comment on what you see on the screen. In fact, the dramatization of Mass Effect: Paragon Lost is one of the aspects of my collaboration with Joshua that I’m most proud of. I feel we gave the story real dimension, and brought out the real emotion that was written in the script.

MG: Since this is a prequel to the third game, does that pose any issue when approaching the sound?
JM: Sure it does. We definitely wanted to capture the essence of the musical landscape of the Mass Effect games, including elements from all three titles. That sound also had to translate to a big cinematic experience. I think it fits well alongside the games.
DK: We both studied and analyzed the scores from the games to make sure not to leave any identifiable elements out, and we knew we wanted this score to have a cinematic and expansive feel that brings the games to the big screen.

MG: What you were most concerned about when handling the “Mass Effect” universe for the fans?
JM: We definitely wanted the score to fit into the sonic experience of the Mass Effect games and give the fans that same emotional feeling that they got when they played them.
DK: We certainly wanted the score to feel as though it naturally lives alongside the other productions, and were initially concerned how our musical approach would live well with the anime style of animation. Fortunately, the two elements blended successfully and we didn’t have to go back and alter our sound palette.

MG: The film has a very epic sci-fi score behind it, tell us about the inspiration?
JM: Yes, this is a very epic score but at the center of it all is the humanity and the spiritual and emotional journey that Vega embarks on through the film. There are definitely big sci-fi action cues throughout but there is also a very intimate emotional underscore that gives it the depth it needed to support and propel that story.
DK: I would say our inspiration was the spiritual nature we discovered in the story. Joshua and I talked for many hours about what we wanted to achieve, and that included accentuating the underlying humanity of what was going on. James Vega goes through an experience that no one would ever expect to go through in their lives, yet, every one of us can imagine being confronted with making the kind of decisions that could mean the lives of so many, particularly the ones we know and love. We really dedicated ourselves to making sure that this would be the inspiration that motivated every note we wrote in this score.

MG: Tell us what each of you have planned next?
JM: I begin work on a new video game and film in January. I am also in talks on a few other projects of which I cannot disclose any information. Thanks again for having us!
DK: I’ve been fortunate to be participating in The Helfman Institute Composer in Residence program this past year, and I’ve been composing my first Operetta based on the biblical character Miriam. We’re rehearsing it now, and will be performing it in Los Angeles in late January.
Cheers to you and your readers!! Thanks so much and wishing everyone a merry holiday season.

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Filed Under: Interviews, Music Interviews Tagged With: composing, david, discuss, effect, joshua, kates, ...
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