Composers from Amazon’s leading shows joined the Variety Streaming Room for a Q&A moderated by Variety‘s Artisans Editor, Jazz Tangcay.
“Tales From the Loop’s” Paul Leonard-Morgan and “Carnival Row’s” Nathan Barr joined composers Emile Mosseri (“Homecoming” Season 2), Ariel Marx (“Ted Bundy: Falling For A Killer”), Faith Soloway (“Transparent: Musicale Finale”), Thomas Mizer and Curtis Moore (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” Season 3) focused on the working relationship between composers and directors as they found the sonic palette for their respective shows.
The composers on Amazon’s hit shows and Emmy contenders swap notes on the collaborative process, whether its with directors or with fellow composers. Leonard-Morgan shares what it was like to work with legendary composer, Phillip Glass, who he calls “a fantastic composer and he’s got all these beautiful chords.” Leonard-Morgan shares how initial ideas for “Tales From the Loop” were going to be piano and cello sounds, instead, they ended up with a 50-piece orchestra.
Mosseri came in to score the second season of “Homecoming,” noting that the first season hadn’t used a composer. Working with director Kyle Alvarez, the composer who recently worked on the score for “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” said, “He [Alvarez] wanted big, old cinematic, grandiose throwback film music.” What Mosseri didn’t realize was some episodes would require up to twenty-seven minutes of music, “They’re thirty-minute episodes and the sheer volume was fun and challenging.”
Longtime collaborating partners, Curtis Moore and Thomas Mizer were given a new and exciting challenge for “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” – to write a song for Shy Baldwin. “Not just any song,” Mizer adds, creators Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino asked, ‘Could you please write the biggest hit of 1959?’ And thirty-seven iterations later, “One Less Angel” was born.
While trying to find the sonic environment for “Ted Bundy: Falling for a Killer,” Marx says, “I always had in the back of my mind, there are a lot of people who are still living, families of victims, Liz and Molly themselves are going to be watching this.” She constantly asked herself, “Would they feel that this music was respective to their experience?”
Nathan Barr talked about the constant battle composers face with temp music and the importance of coming in early to the collaborative process. “We can all talk forever about how complicated temp music makes our lives at times.” He continued, “I think anytime we can get in early before temp is great because it helps us set the stage or we’re not copying someone else. We’re fighting that battle.”
The Variety Streaming Room is dedicated to presenting virtual conversations that span from private screenings of upcoming projects in film and TV, exclusive Q&As with creators and talent and relevant B2B discussions with industry thought leaders.
Watch the full Q&A, moderated by Variety’s Jazz Tangcay, above.