FRESH RELEASE: Just Buried
Just Buried is the first commercially released score of composer Darren Fung, who provides a quirky underscore for the macabre fun. Darren was kind enough to answer some questions on Just Buried, getting a foothold in the world of film scoring and how the music eventually got picked up by MovieScoreMedia.
First of all, could you tell me a bit about your musical background?
Well, like all good Chinese boys, I started playing piano when I was three years old. I composed my first orchestral piece of music when I was fifteen, through a project called the "Young Composers Project" with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. I think it was there where I learned a lot about orchestration, and also caught the composing bug. I had went to McGill in Montreal for my composition degree and a concentration in jazz piano, and I think for the most part had always wanted to do film music. I had a little bit of an artsy-fartsy stage (I'm too good for film music sort of attitude... it's too tonal..., artistically repugnant... LOL...) in my 3rd and 4th year of university, but I got back into it after school.
I got into the USC program, but I didn't want to fork up the ridiculous amounts of money to go there. So I took the NYU seminar with the late Buddy Baker where I got introduced to the recording process, albight using a methodology that was so outdated (click books, stopwatches). I had no money at the time to buy all of the gear, so what I did was I got friends who were still students in Sound Recording at McGill, gathered a bunch of friends, and did all of these short film scores with chamber and orchestral style groups. I finally started making a bit of money in the field, and bought my first Mac, and the rest is history.
Could you tell me a couple of titles you worked on before and what kind of music you delivered for them?
Just Buried was my second feature film. My first film, Summerhood was a coming of age summer camp film, which was pretty standard fare orchestral stuff, much more "in the box" then Just Buried. Previous to that, I had done a bunch of short films which went anywhere from full orchestra to funk. I think where my strengths lie (of course, like all emerging film composers) is the orchestral stuff, but I very much like to tie in unconvential elements to it, whether it be drum loops, ethnic or unusual instruments.
How were you contacted to the score for Just Buried?
Well, I actually just finished the score to Summerhood, and I was actually a bit terrified because I had no gigs lined up. So, I started to go through my old delegate lists from the various festivals and did cold calls, asking directors and producers if they'd be willing to receive a reel from me. It just happened that that day, Chaz Thorne (director) was thinking about music. He got my CD, loved it, and we met up later in Montreal. It turned out to be a wonderful working relationship.
How did you and the director decide where to put music?
Well, we did a traditional spotting session, but I can't overstate the importance of Chris "Coop" Cooper, the editor on the show, and John Watson, one of the producers on the show. We locked ourselves in one of the edit suites at PowerPost in Halifax, and for two days the four of us (including director Chaz Thorne) basically screened the film and decided where things were going in.
Coop and I spent a day or so trying to find temp music that worked, and that was actually a big part of our spotting process. Chaz said that he didn't want a traditional Hollywood sounding score, so we were trying to look for things that matched the quirkiness and the subtle humour of the film. We ended up with a lot of Thomas Newman stuff, specifically the American Beauty marimba stuff. For some of the bigger fight stuff, I think we had temped in Beetlejuice and some Danny Elfman stuff.
There are several percussive instruments in your ensemble. How did you decide on what instruments to use?
After we had spotted the film, Chaz had asked me to come up with some themes. I took the temp music that Coop and I chose, and tried to figure out what it was about it that resonated well with the film. It was the percussive nature of these tracks that added the quarkiness and subtle humour to the film. So, with that in mind, and the fact that Chaz didn't want a "conventional" Hollywood score, I looked through my sample libraries for interesting sounds, and came up with things like harpsichord, cîmbal (hammered dulcimer), celesta, marimba, vibraphone and pizzicato strings.
My recording engineer, Josh Tidsbury, was slightly amused when he saw the instrumentation list... he (jokingly) complained that I took up all of his stereo pairs with my ridiculous keyboard instrument requirements (piano, harpsichord, cîmbal, marimba, vibraphone, etc.). His mentor, classical producer Martha DeFrancisco asked "Surely they aren't all playing in the same cue?!?" (and of course, they were!)
This important role of percussion give us a hint of Thomas Newman's genre defining music. Was this a conscious decision?
LOL... well, yes. The big joke in the mix room was that they wanted to hire Thomas Newman but couldn't afford him! I think that the American Beauty temp score really helped us go towards that direction, but we really wanted to develop our own sound. Chaz thought that while the temp music worked, it wasn't in the pocket. I think the use of the harpsichord and the hammered dulcimer really helped us develop our own voice.
Despite some of the gruesome things happening, the music always remains relatively pretty. What's the reason behind this?
As gruesome as some of the murders are, it's not a gruesome film. It's a dark comedy, and I think the music adds to the quirkiness and the awkwardness on screen.
There's a cue for a montage of various funerals where only the editing and the music carries the story. Is it different to write for a scene where the music is so dominant as opposed to let's say a piece playing under dialogue?
It's definitely a lot more fun - you pretty much have carte blanche (not withstanding directorial approval, of course). It's so rare as a film composer to get such a substantial cue that is essentially your moment. You don't have to worry about writing something that will overwhelm dialogue, you don't have to worry about sound effects, and you basically get to be the star of that particular moment. This particular cue was actually the second cue that I wrote, and I never really found a way to bring those ideas back in the score. That being said, it's one of my favourite cues.
We can hear various organ pieces that appear at the funerals. Did you do the source material or was it all pre-composed?
I did do all of the source material with the exception of the one disco song at the wedding reception. And the yodeling.
One particular source music cue, "Pickles Has the Stick", was a lot of fun because I treated it a bit like an over-the-top scored cue. You'll notice that whenever Pickles comes into the picture, he has a particularly bombastic baroque leitmotif that comes in. But it doesn't come across as being overly bombastic because the music was mixed down to be source music. It was my attempt at being clever, but of course nobody notices!
How much music did you write in how much time?
I wrote 53 minutes in 4 weeks from Spotting to Recording. This was actually the first time I've ever had to hire orchestrators -- I was still getting notes in week four, and started to panic! We cut it so down to the wire... we had the parts from the last cue come in via e-mail 90 minutes into the last recording session! So to say it was nuts is a bit of an understatement!
Where was the music recorded and how many players did you use?
We recorded at Dvorak Hall in the Rudolfinum in Prague. We had 32 players I believe for two sessions, and 45 players for one session, which we used for all of the big bombastic brassy cues. We tracked some whistling, accordion, and drums here in Montreal. Petr Pycha at MUSA Ltd. in Prague was my contractor, and was absolutely wonderful in making our team feel at home.
What was it like to have your first CD release of a score? How was the music picked up and how were you involved in the release?
It was a pretty fun experience. My buddy Jeff Grace, who was also one of the orchestrators on the gig, sent my name over to Mikael Carlsson at MovieScore Media, and it really resonated with him. Mikael asked me to write some liner notes, and I've never had to talk about my "approach" to my music.
The CD doesn't seem to contain the whole score. How were the selections made on what to include?
I think Mikael and I felt that there was a lot of repetition in the score. Mikael did a first pass on selecting the cues, deciding which cues were going to be tied together, track ordering, and so on. I provided my input for some suggested changes, but Mikael was really fantastic about providing his expertise in terms of making a good CD.
Were you involved in the end credits song "Live Tonight"?
I wasn't really involved with it, although Chaz and I had talked about various options for the end credits song. John Wesley Chisholm (of the Johnny Favourite Swing Orchestra fame), a bunch of his friends out of Halifax, as well as local Haligonian singer (Carmen Townsend) recorded it.
Do you have any additional anecdotes to share?
It was just a wonderful experience to work with John, Pen, and Chaz on this project. It's very rare that an indie film gets a chance to record with an orchestra, and I've been so grateful for the opportunity to work with such amazing people. The film has been so instrumental in getting my career off the ground. I remember during the dub, we were all doing an e-mail break and John Watson looks over his laptop and asks me:
"Do you have an agent?"
"No...."
"You know who you should meet? You should meet Mike Gorfaine!"
And my eyes just sort of dropped. "You can get me a meeting with Mike Gorfaine?"
"I'm e-mailing him right now..."
Well, I never got a chance to meet Mike Gorfaine (of the Gorfaine Schwartz Agency), but I'm now repped by Maria Machado at GSA, and she is just absolutely amazing. For someone who is an emerging film composer, the opportunity to even get a meeting there is just phenomenal. John was willing to set up the meeting for me, and the trust and that the whole production team has given me has been humbling.
What film is up for you next?
I have a couple of films coming up that haven't been officially christened yet, so I can't really talk about them. One of them is another project with Chaz that will be very different from Just Buried -- not orchestral at all. The other one is a TV movie, but we're still in negotiations.
Samples courtesy of Screen Archives. Click here to buy the CD.
