Musical Anatomy of a Superhero: Interview with Hollywood’s Renowned Genre Composers
Blake Neely and Sherri Chung
Neely and Chung have contributed to and been credited on dozens of film and TV projects over the years. The duo composed the music for Blindspot and numerous CW shows, including the entire Arrowverse – Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, and Batwoman – plus Riverdale. Blake’s film credits include a 2003 Emmy Award nomination for the theme of Everwood, the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films, King Kong, The Last Samurai, The Great Buck Howard, Elvis and Anabelle, Starter for 10, and The Wedding Date. In addition, Neely has composed the music for over twenty television series, including The Mentalist and You. Sherri’s film credits include Nancy Drew and The Hidden Staircase and The Other Side of Home, which was shortlisted for the 2017 Best Short Documentary Oscar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuPz00uUljU&feature=youtu
“All the Arrowverse shows, each show’s, [music] has to fit into the universe’s sound.”
What’s the balance of giving each superhero their own individual story and emotions through music while sticking with an overall brand of the universe itself?
Blake: The approach is an operatic approach, meaning… every character has a theme or a motif.
Sherri: We’re really specific about when [each] theme happens.
Blake: The crossovers are puzzles, you have to figure out the [musical] puzzle.
Benjamin Wallfisch
Benjamin Wallfish composed the music for the #1 box office film Shazam!; Andy Muschietti’s IT (the highest grossing horror film of all time), and Blade Runner: 2049 (with Academy Award winner Hans Zimmer). Benjamin has worked on over 75 feature films and has received Golden Globe, BAFTA, Grammy and Emmy nominations. Other recent projects include Hellboy, and Academy Award Best Picture nominee, Hidden Figures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoDeHhG1Kf0&feature=youtu
“The music [for Shazam!] is filled with so much hope.”
“Extreme music really fascinates me, where someone takes it to a whole other level of whatever that one thing is, and sometimes a movie demands that. That’s what we tried to do with Hellboy.”
Nightsky: Can you talk a little bit about Shazam!? It’s a kid’s movie, then it’s a superhero movie. How do you balance the music as to what demographic you’re going after; what sound you want to reach?
Benjamin: I don’t think at all about demographic. It’s all about story. Who you touch on the other side of that is one of the great joys of discovery. You never really know. I think Shazam was one of the great opportunities for me personally to pay my respects to my personal childhood heroes […] Shazam is a golden age [hero]. He was created just around the time Superman was created in the ‘30s. The music kind of had to acknowledge that. That was a big part of the decision making process – whilst being fresh and new to still be a syntax which was in that old school sound.
Pinar Toprak
Pinar Toprak is a Turkish-American composer for film, television and video games. She has won two International Film Music Critics Association Awards for The Lightkeepers (2009) and The Wind Gods (2013). Toprak most recently scored Captain Marvel (2019), the Superman prequel series Krypton, the Pixar animated short Purl and the superhero crossover, Justice League.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mZYobL0aRw&feature=youtu
“I can’t really talk much about Stargirl, but anything that I write, it’s really all about capturing their soul and their heart and what it is about them that makes them unique.”
“For me, what really captured me about [Captain Marvel’s] character is that she’s a hybrid. She’s half human and half Kree. It was really important for me to create these sounds. In the beginning, after I wrote her theme […] – Actually, I got out of the studio and went for a walk, and I came up with her theme on the walk, and I recorded it on a voice memo which I still have – so after I wrote her theme, it was more then about how can I capture the Kree side? Then I sat down and came up with a whole bunch of synth elements.”
“Emotional scenes are so delicate. For example, there was a scene in Captain Marvel with the Skrulls – it was really important for us to really feel what they were feeling. These were very human emotions, even though these are Skrulls, but that particular scene is very human. […] Less is more. […] Figuring out that space and let the emotion be what it is. Not necessarily hitting it too hard. I find emotional scenes are sometimes more fragile than the action ones.”
Hopefully, you enjoyed hearing these composers share their experiences! Did you learn anything you didn’t know before? What questions would you have asked of them? Share questions, reactions and comments below!
Bring Supernatural music into your home! Christopher Lennertz and Jay Gruska’s Supernatural: Original Television Soundtrack – Seasons 1-5 is linked in The WFB marketplace!
Christopher Lennertz and Wiki
Michael Giacchino and Wiki
Sherri Chung
Blake Neely and Wiki
Benjamin Wallfisch; Photo Courtesy of Gstatic.com
Pinar Toprak and Wiki
Many thanks to Chelsea for the partial transcription of Lennertz’ interview!
Leave a Reply