SMA Spotlight: Composers Arhynn Descy and Tara Creme on IWD 2020
In honour of International Women’s Day this weekend, we caught up with Tara Creme and Arhynn Descy, two of our brilliant SMA composers, to talk through their recent work, their progress, advice for new composers, and the women in TV, film and music they’re following right now!
Let’s get into it…
Q> Tara, you recently scored Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth – can you tell us a little bit about how you came to be attached to the project, and how you approached writing the score?
Tara> I know Jeanie from years back. We were on a Contemporary Arts Degree course together and have collaborated before, composing and performing music for an art exhibition opening. While she was editing Seahorse she heard one of my short piano pieces and placed it in a scene in the film. It worked and she asked me to compose the score, so it felt quite lucky as they hadn’t really been thinking of using a composer. I recorded violin, piano, acoustic guitar, cello and accordion, as well as some electronic sounds.
In my approach to the music I was mostly trying to convey Freddie’s inner emotions – hope and expectancy, sadness, conflict. There were some beautiful shots of nature in some of the scenes, including seahorses in the sea, which really helped to inspire me and allowed the music space.
Q> You’ve worked across documentary, theatre and concert – how does each process differ?
Tara: Concert is in one way the hardest for me, because I don’t really have formal music training, and you don’t get the stimulus and framework that comes with a film or theatre piece. The music also has to develop and have structure in a way that film and theatre music doesn’t so much. But it is also incredibly satisfying because the music is all mine, stands alone and isn’t being chopped up by filmmakers! Having my music performed live by musicians in great venues is a wonderful experience. I love musicians! The same goes for theatre; it’s exciting to be there on the first tech night, bringing in the music, and making any necessary timing or mixing changes immediately after that!
I have always loved cinema and it’s a real privilege to compose for a medium I love. I really enjoy the collaboration involved – how you’re put together with a new (or returning) team each time and feed off each other. I also like the exact nature of composing for film — getting the exact point in the picture where the music will come in and out for example. I like the whole process – spotting sessions with the director/editor, getting my logic project set up with the film, working in my studio, shifting things around to picture, recording/mixing the music and finally sitting in on the dub. And I love the way music has such a role in setting the atmosphere of a film, and the magic that’s made when picture and music/sound come together. I also actually like the deadlines, even if tight (not too tight please), there’s somehow a kind of excitement to that.
Q> Arhynn, you recently scored an indie horror film, The Tombs, which has been nominated for Best Thriller at the National Film Awards! Can you tell us about how the project came into being, and how you wrote a soundtrack that supports the storytelling as well as the scares!
Arhynn> I was approached very last minute for this film – I was literally working on it from one day to the next. In fact, I was in LA at the time and had to fly back to London mid-project, which meant working on my laptop on the flight! The film takes place in the London Tombs, which is basically a gruesome historical horror experience. I wanted to create a sense of the claustrophobia of the place as well riff off of the themes of the various exhibits, gradually building up the pace as the story picked up in scariness. For the claustrophobia I chose to keep the music in the same key almost the whole way through so that it gives the viewer the sense of being stuck there with no release. The release only comes later. I had great fun manipulating themes to fit the different exhibits, for example the main theme morphs into a honky-tonk version when they arrive in an old London pub and then becomes evil circus music when they encounter some clowns.
Q> Amongst your other work, you’ve written scores for a number of wonderful short films – how does the process of composing for a short piece as opposed to a feature differ, for you?
Arhynn> For me, the process is utterly different between the two. In a short film first of all, there is significantly less music to write and the scenes are generally very short, so it’s easy to have an immediate sense of how your music needs to help the flow of the story, with much less structural planning and generating of material. Also, the themes I write can be shorter with much less need to be able to develop them.
In a feature, on the other hand, I spend time planning an overarching structure to support the story and this will include keys and how and when they will change, how themes will be used and developed and where they’ll be introduced. I generate a lot of material and spend time finding all sorts of ingenious ways to vary the material.
Q> When you’re working to picture, what kind of information are you looking out for to guide your composition?
Tara> I usually want to know what we want the music to do here – are we telling a particular character’s point of view? Are we providing a point of reflection, are we setting the scene? Are there particular emotions or feelings that we want the music to help convey?
Arhynn> Yes, like Tara I’m thinking about those things and also more practical stuff. For example, what is the tempo of the scene? Are there any important hit points? Do we need to stay out of the way of dialogue? Then there are weird ones like is there a sound in the scene that will affect what key you’ll write in…e.g. a bell ringing? And for me, things like colour, the rhythm of onscreen movement, camera movements all play a part in my decision-making.
Q> Whose work are you particularly taken by at the moment in the world of TV and film?
Tara> For Women’s Day I was asked by Scala Radio’s Mark Kermode to talk about a recent score I liked and what came to mind was one by a less well-known composer, Florencia di Concillio, for the French film Ava, a debut feature from a couple of years ago. Very bold and an interesting palette of manipulated cello, prepared piano and electronics.
I really like Anne Nitikin’s American Animals score, and Nainita Desai’s For Sama. I heard a couple of tracks from her forthcoming feature The Reason I Jump which sounded great too. I haven’t caught up with Monos yet but have heard some of Mica Levi’s score which sounded great, so I’m looking forward to hearing that to picture. I was also really impressed by Hannah Peel’s score for the Game of Thrones documentary, and of course there’s Hildur!
I haven’t seen Arhynn’s The Tombs but the title music sounds fantastic – very scary and great textures! There are loads more. One of the nice things about organisations like Europe’s Alliance for Women Film Composers is meeting all the many talented women composers out there, who are all very supportive of each other.
There are some really amazing female filmmakers around at the moment. Although my last two films are by men, I seem to have mostly worked with female directors in the last few years, and love them all – recently Jeanie Finlay, Cosima Spender, Ashtar Al Khirsan, Ewa Banaszkiewicz and Gaelle Denis.
Arhynn> Aw, thank you Tara. I was definitely going for scary in that track! I listened to your music played on Mark Kermode’s show that you mentioned above. I think you have a fantastically unique voice, especially with the more experimental work you’re doing.
Like Tara, I love Anne Nikitin’s score for American Animals and Nainita Desai’s For Sama. In the film-making world there have been some amazing films recently, but because this is for IWD I’m going to mention a couple of women film makers that I’m taken by. Amma Asante, who is a British director, is doing some amazing work. Her latest film Where Hands Touch is about black people in Nazi Germany – a whole section of people that have been written out of the history books! Amma has also recently directed episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale and Mrs America…definitely someone to watch. One of my favourite films from last year is The Mustang, directed by Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre. I think she has a style that really stands out. I do also need to mention Charlize Theron – she is extraordinary both as an actress and a producer. I loved Bombshell from last year… and she and I are both South African, so there’s an extra bit of pride there too!
Q> What advice might you give to a young composer just starting out in the industry?
Arhynn> There are two main pieces of advice I’d give. One is practical and the other is a little more psychological. The first is get out there and meet people – meet and meet and meet. Tell everybody what you do and what you’re looking for, though not in an obnoxious way, obviously! It’s quite amazing where opportunities come from and most of the time it’s from the least expected people and places.
Tara> Yes, I agree with this. Connections can be made almost by accident and lead to some great collaborations. It can be hard if you’re not naturally outgoing, and don’t want to feel ‘pushy’, but think of it not as networking but simply enjoying meeting and getting to know people.
Arhynn> Absolutely. It’s also important to figure out who you are as an artist. Work on ‘your voice’. It’s what people will hire you for, it’s what you’ll be remembered for, it’s what will make you stand out from everyone else. To do this, you need to know who you are as a person and while that is a lifetime search, start figuring it out and letting that influence your music.
Tara> And don’t wait to be employed to be writing music! Experiment and write the music you want to write, then get people to hear it. I’ve heard several very successful film/tv composers say “keep something for yourself” – another way of saying know who you are and maybe keep some projects for yourself. Also, watch films! Love the media you’re working in.
Q> And finally, what are you working on at the moment?
Tara> I’m just finishing the mixes on a feature documentary by director John Eames called March for Dignity about a group of activists trying to put on a Pride march in Georgia, and the huge opposition they face. It’s the most music I’ve written for a single film and I really enjoyed it. I’m also writing a concert piece for pianist Kamilla Arku and violinist Dhyani Heath, who will perform it in three concerts in May – London, Paris and Cambridge.
Arhynn> I am in the end stages of scoring a heist film that takes place in Zambia called Black Dollar. It has given me the opportunity to write music with an African flavour, which is good fun.
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