“Dumb Money” Music Supervisor Susan Jacobs Takes it to the Bank With Cardi B, Kendrick Lamar, & Unknown Artists
In telling the true story of the 2021 Wall Street GameStop meltdown, Dumb Money (in theaters now) needed to transport audiences straight back to their Pandemic-era head spaces when grassroots investors led by Keith “Roaring Kitty” Gill (Paul Dano) defied hedge fund managers to boost the stock value of a previously obscure company. Intent on ...
Composer Kelly Mac Captures the Celestial Spirit of “Donyale Luna: Supermodel”
Donyale Luna was a whimsical invention. Born Peggy Ann Freeman in Detroit, she molded herself into a star. Luna conceived of and then captured remote dreams of glamour, fame, and adventure in the fashion industry. A tragically forgotten figure, the new documentary Donyale Luna: Supermodel – from director Nailah Jefferson – is a much-needed exploration ...
Best of Summer 2023: “Oppenheimer” Composer Ludwig Göransson Creates a New Kind of Atomic Scale
*It’s our annual “Best of Summer” look back at some (not all) of our favorite interviews from the past few months. This non-comprehensive look back includes the Barbenheimer phenomenon and the wonderful interviews that followed those two history-making films, chats with the talented folks behind Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, our profile of MPA ...
Beyond the Craft With Emmy Nominees From “The Last of Us,” “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story” & More
A ruined world, decimated by a fungi-borne plague and teeming with zombified hordes and hardened survivors who can be just as dangerous. A biopic about one of the all-time greatest musical tricksters who created an astonishingly successful career parodying hit songs. A reality show where contestants move into a palatial castle and need to cohere ...
“Oppenheimer” Composer Ludwig Göransson Creates a New Kind of Atomic Scale
When Chris Nolan wrapped Tenet in 2919, actor Robert Pattinson gave him a book of J. Robert Oppenheimer speeches as a parting gift. That tome led Nolan to Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer.” For the next three years, Nolan used the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography ...
“Grease: Rise of the Pink Ladies” Songwriter Justin Tranter on Capturing That ’50s Musical Magic
The Tony-nominated Broadway musical Grease captured a generation following its theatrical release in 1978, an era-defining film that starred John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John as a pair of unlikely teens falling in love. Since then, the beloved musical has been revived on Broadway, produced a movie sequel, and turned into a live television show. Debuting ...
“The White Lotus” Emmy-Nominated Music Supervisor Gabe Hilfer on Mia’s Musical Chops, Tanya’s Swan Song & More
Season two of Mike White’s killer satire The White Lotus established, from that gorgeous opening title sequence, that it was going to be a thing of beauty to hear as well as behold. Sure, you can hardly find a more lush location than Sicily, where this particular outpost of the titular resort chain is located, but Italy ...
“Transformers: Rise of the Beasts” Composer Jongnic Bontemps Lets the Emotion Ride
Paramount’s Transformers franchise was conceived by Michael Bay as a maximalist epic of crunching, crashing, morphing metal beasts and the humans caught in the metallic whirlwind of their drama. With director Steven Caple Jr. in the director’s chair for Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, the series now strives to balance the character and the spectacle ...
“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” Composer Daniel Pemberton Reveals a Few Score Secrets
Daniel Pemberton knows how to create energy. The composer, who’s frequently worked with filmmakers Aaron Sorkin, Danny Boyle, and Guy Ritchie, is a musician with an ear for the eclectic and electric. For proof, look and listen no further than his lush score for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Pemberton scores different universes, Spider-Men and Spider-Women—and ...
Music Supervisor Alex Patsavas Gives “Queen Charlotte” a Majestic Soundscape
While gossip is the prevailing currency on Bridgerton, the emotional depth of Queen Charlotte is Her Majesty’s greatest asset. For a woman who can seem quite cold in the original series, a peek into her own lonely bedchamber is, at times, searing. The intertwining pasts of the Queen (Golda Rosheuvel), Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh), and ...
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” Composer John Murphy Channels Rocket’s Emotional Journey
“It felt, to me, that this might be the most important of the Guardians for James [Gunn],” says Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 composer John Murphy after reading the script. “What struck me was how much darker the story was compared to the first two films. When I say darker, I mean emotionally within ...
“Hypnotic” Composer Rebel Rodriguez on Scoring The Robert Rodriguez/Ben Affleck Head-Trip Thriller
Rebel Rodriguez knew about Hypnotic even before the screenplay was written. The composer is one of the sons of its writer-director Robert Rodriguez, the famed helmer behind countless cult classics like From Dusk Till Dawn, the neo-noir stylized Sin City, Planet Terror, and the blood thirst avenge tour Machete. “This idea has been gestating for like ...
“Awkwafina is Nora From Queens” Composer Tangelene Bolton Drops the Needle
“I’ve been playing music since I was two or three, piano specifically, and then I was really into film starting in middle school, and I thought, ooh, maybe I’ll be a director one day,” says composer Tangelene Bolton, whose work can currently be heard on season three of Awkwafina is Nora From Queens. “I started ...
“Batman: The Doom that Came to Gotham” Composer Stefan L. Smith Draws out the Darkness
Batman: The Doom that Came to Gotham submerges Bruce Wayne (David Giuntoli) in a world of magic, myths, and monsters. Set a century ago in the roaring 20s, the glamour and grandeur of Gotham glimmer beneath an evil awakening set to consume the city. The edgy animated style based on the 2000-2001 comic book miniseries ...
“Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania” Composer Christophe Beck on Kang, the Langs, & Depeche Mode
Christophe Beck is one of the most prominent composers in the Marvel sandbox. He not only scored all three Ant-Man films but co-composed Hawkeye and, to great acclaim, WandaVision. After eight years of collaborating with the Marvel team, Beck is well-versed in the MCU’s sonic landscape. The composer’s first collaboration with director Peyton Reed was ...
“Babylon” Composer Justin Hurwitz Deconstructs His Oscar-Shortlisted Score
“I’m very obsessive, and I can only do one thing at a time, so when Damien has a movie to work on, I go all in.” That’s composer Justin Hurwitz talking about his ongoing collaboration with filmmaker Damien Chazelle, and clearly, the laser vision has paid off. Hurwitz started working on his Oscar short-listed score ...
“I Wanna Dance with Somebody” Composer Chanda Dancy on Scoring Whitney Houston’s Complex Life
When the shortlist for the 2023 Oscars was announced, composer Chanda Dancy was included for her work on the film Devotion. If she is nominated, she’ll make history as the first Black female composer to be nominated for an Academy Award. Dancy brings that winning streak into 2023 with her score for the new film Whitney Houston: I ...
Best of 2022: “Stranger Things 4” Music Editor Lena Glikson on Cutting Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill”
It’s that time of year—we look back on a few of our favorite interviews from 2022 in our annual year-end list. From the get-go, Netflix hit Stranger Things has excelled in the art and craft of needle drops. Encompassing eighties classics from David Bowie’s “Heroes” in Season One to “Everlasting Love” in Season Three, song ...
“Devotion” Score Mixer Alvin Wee on Letting the Music & Emotion Take Flight
Growing up in Malaysia, Alvin Wee was drawn to “big action movies” such as the Harry Potter series and Transformers. “I liked sensory overload, the loud, visual spectacle. My favorite movie was Superman with Christopher Reeve. It’s also my favorite score, by John Williams,” says Wee, the Score Mixer on Sony’s Devotion, now in theaters. ...
“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” Composer Ludwig Göransson on the Score’s Secret Weapon
One of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever director Ryan Coogler’s closest collaborators throughout his entire Marvel journey has been composer Ludwig Göransson. Beginning with Coogler’s 2018 Black Panther, Göransson has been by his side, helping him breathe life into the music and sounds of the fictional African nation of Wakanda. Along with other key collaborators like ...
