The world of audio fiction is in a golden age, evolving far past conventional radio performs into blockbuster-level, sonically wealthy experiences. A chief instance is the formidable audio drama Star Trek: Khan, a prequel that dives deep into the complicated origin story of the long-lasting, genetically engineered villain.
However how do you rating a narrative constructed for the ear, not the attention? How do you create a cinematic feeling with no single visible cue?
To search out out, we sat down with composing brothers Marcus and Sam Bagala. Their work spans movie, theater, and high-profile audio dramas like Harley Quinn and The Joker: Sound Thoughts. They’re uniquely positioned on the forefront of this evolving medium.
We spoke with them concerning the distinctive intimacy of audio, how the podcast workflow is breaking down the “stratified” and inflexible post-production pipelines of movie, and their “Shakespearean” method to scoring the tragic downfall of one in all sci-fi’s biggest antagonists.
Let’s dive in.
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NFS: You’ve each labored throughout movie, theater, and now audio fiction. What excites you most concerning the potentialities of storytelling by podcasts and audio dramas?
Marcus Bagala: I believe one thing that podcasts do very well is create a way of intimacy between the listener and the themes of the podcast. That is commonest in narrative non-fiction (suppose Serial) the place a number is basically speaking on to the listener, and one thing that I believe one thing that good audio-dramas writers do (Like Kirsten Beyer) is make the most of listeners’ familiarity with that format and use it to create intimacy with the characters within the story.
It could be a little bit of a trope at this level, however creating story alternatives for characters to voice their inside monologues can result in some actual magic, and it’s one thing that’s kind of distinctive to the format… The scenes the place we acquired to listen to from Khan or Magiver’s inside POV, in their very own phrases, are a few of the strongest and emotionally resonant scenes within the present. These are moments the place a personality is discovering one thing about themselves or coming to phrases with a troublesome reality… that emotional depth and complexity is like composer catnip for us and is basically rewarding to attain.
Sam Bagala: Podcasts and audio dramas depart the listener to create the visuals of the story they’re seeing of their heads. And people visuals can actually seem like so many alternative issues in line with every particular person, which is the actually enjoyable & lovely half. The human voice by itself has a lot energy (particularly with actors like Naveen Andrews and Wrenn Schmidt on the helm) – so once you add in sound design and rating…you actually do get that intimate sense that Marcus was speaking about. The know-how that’s accessible for audio & music manufacturing is mind-blowing. There are infinite potentialities to create attention-grabbing issues…
NFS: Are there any developments you’re seeing, and even serving to form, in how composers are being built-in into the podcast growth course of earlier on?
MB: I believe as a result of podcasts are nonetheless a comparatively younger artwork kind, there’s not as a lot of an entrenched sense that there’s a “proper” solution to do issues. In movie and TV tasks I’ve labored on, the rating is nearly universally the final cease earlier than the ultimate combine… and that was very a lot not the case for Khan.
When Secret Hideout/Paramount and CBS have been searching for a manufacturing companion for this challenge, Fred Greenhalgh (the director) requested me to compose a chunk of music to accompany the pitch that encapsulated how he was considering Khan may very well be embodied in audio. Amazingly, that demo simply caught to the challenge… There are main echoes of that early piece within the present as persons are listening to it now. The truth that we have been capable of have inventive consensus about what Khan ought to sound like SO early within the course of was a present that stored on giving.
SB: I believe the sooner composers are introduced on to the challenge, the simpler it’s to determine what the precise function of music will play within the challenge. It pertains to all the opposite storytelling components in such a giant approach (dialogue & sound design). So the extra you possibly can have an understanding of what the efficiency & pacing of the actors is like, the general arc of the story, and the function that sound design performs (which modifications drastically between scenes – intimate vs. motion)…you possibly can start to fill within the areas with music in methods that can complement, keep out of the best way, and likewise elevate the general story. These early conversations with the director and sound designer are vital to determine rapport, workflow, and the general imaginative and prescient of how the three components will work together (dialogue, sound design, and music). With Marcus’s very first demo, after which the demos we wrote a little bit later, which helped us create our tonal palette and a few of our foremost motivic materials, in addition to gave the remainder of the crew a style of how music may very well be used within the challenge. It’s at all times an ongoing dialogue.
MB: I’d additionally add, due to the best way podcast workflows have advanced, quite a lot of us working on this business are multi-disciplinary artists. Composing is my ardour, however I’ve labored each as a producer and a sound designer on different fairly high-profile fiction pods, and quite a lot of them have been alongside Dan Brunelle, our sound designer for Khan (and Dan additionally occurs to be a wonderful musician and composer himself).
Dan and I’s shut working relationship and a shared sense of workflow gave us quite a lot of freedom to work collaboratively in a approach that isn’t actually attainable within the extra stratified world of movie and TV.
If you happen to’re conversant in the post-production course of, our course of regarded a little bit like a dub session, the place each division is bringing the ultimate components collectively for the ultimate combine, however the important thing distinction is that the “dub” began a lot earlier, and every division concerned had some quantity of authority over the timeline of the episode. If Sam and I wanted a little bit additional house between scenes to let music play out, Sam and I have been empowered to make these edits to the episode within the grasp session. Equally, if Dan wanted to shift music this fashion or that to make a sound design component work, we trusted him with these changes.
Podcast folks have a status for being a little bit insane about pacing, and it’s completely earned (I can say that as a result of I’m one in all them), however I additionally suppose it’s type of a superpower. Listening to how correct pacing can have an effect on a dialogue edit or having music hit at JUST the precise second can have a huge impact on how a present feels. Our post-production crew workflow actually enabled us to make the most of that.
NFS: Do you every tackle particular roles when composing, like one focusing extra on orchestration, one other on sound design, or melody? Or is it a completely collaborative course of from begin to end?
SB: It’s totally collaborative from begin to end in that we’re working hand-in-hand in day by day dialogue for a 12 months’s time concerning the particular and common necessities of the rating. Marcus did such an unimaginable job making a imaginative and prescient for the rating in his preliminary theme, which actually set the groundwork, so far as method, instrumentation, harmonic language, and a central motif. From there, we constructed out one other 6-7 demos to seize completely different feels of the present – harmful jungles, spaceships getting ready for takeoff, a love theme, telepathic aliens, and so on.
That preliminary work helped us work out our workflow, hone in on instrumentation/orchestration decisions, develop extra themes, talk about plugins/software program/mixing… all these issues we like to geek out about.
Then, when it got here time to attain particular person episodes, we’d divide up the episodes between us after which go off to do our work individually, which incorporates all the roles – composing, arranging, orchestrating, and mixing a cue from begin to end. Regardless of me being in Philly and Marcus in NYC, we’re capable of ship one another our work by Slack in order that we are able to share ideas & suggestions concerning the music in actual time.
MB: I believe Sam actually nailed this, not a lot I can add right here!
NFS: Do you have got any musical or storytelling influences that performed a job in shaping your method to Star Trek: Khan? Both from the sci-fi style or past?
SB: Completely. Marcus and I very early on did a deep dive into the music of Star Trek, which has an unimaginable legacy of nice composers and scores. In fact, we revisited The Wrath of Khan, however we additionally spent a while with the brand new Trek scores, perhaps most particularly what Jeff Russo has been doing.
We put collectively a playlist of scores that regarded exterior of Trek as properly – some scores we listened to incorporate Hans Zimmer’s “Dune” rating, Sarah Schachner’s “Prey” rating, Nicholes Britell’s “Andor” rating, and Ramin Djwadi’s “Recreation of Thrones” rating… to call a couple of. As a result of Khan shouldn’t be a part of Starfleet, we got a possibility to discover one thing exterior of the musical palette that we regularly affiliate with Starfleet. Lots of the scores that we referenced have a standard theme that was related for us, which is… battling and surviving a harmful, unknown world.
MB: Past trying to the wealth of inspiration from previous trek scores, I believe we clocked early on that this was a narrative that was ripe for thematic growth. There’s such a wealthy, Shakespearean nature to the best way that Nicholas Meyer, after which Kirsten and David, selected to form this story, and that gave us quite a bit to work with.
We discovered not a lot tonally, however method-wise, Howard Shore’s rating for The Lord Of The Rings to be vastly influential. The way in which he used themes to each assist and, in some circumstances, enrich the storytelling was one thing we took quite a lot of cues from.
We felt it was vital to musically observe Khan’s transformation from the complicated, however finally hopeful chief we meet in Episode 1, to the damaged and vengeful man that we meet in Star Trek: Wrath of Khan.
As we have been engaged on the episodes, we’d sit down each week and discuss themes, “right here’s the place we introduce the hopeful Khan theme” or “right here’s the flip the place we introduce his villain theme, however a diminished model”, “Right here’s the love theme… and right here’s the place love turns into sorrow”.
I believe eagle-eared listeners will decide up what we’re doing with the themes, and even those that don’t, my hope is that alongside the stellar appearing performances, our music enhances the emotional journey that they’ll go on with Khan and his followers.
NFS: What are you most excited for listeners to expertise when listening to Star Trek: Khan?
SB: I’m excited for listeners to be taken on a journey – each sonically & emotionally. Nicholas Meyer, Kirsten, and David have written an extremely compelling story that has quite a lot of depth and complexity referring to so many alternative scopes of human expertise – love, loss, betrayal…you title it.
MB: Empathy! Khan is finally a villain, and I don’t suppose the writers got down to inform us something completely different, however I believe what they’ve achieved is given us a heartbreaking and exquisite portrait of somebody striving to be one thing extra, and it’s a captivating exploration of what went improper there and the way it would possibly’ve gone in a different way.
And a game-changing audio-only expertise! I’m not exaggerating once I say that this can be a present that I believe is pushing the boundaries of what this style can do, and I believe it succeeds. I’m so glad it’s out on this planet, and people get to expertise what we’ve been dwelling with for the previous couple of years.
NFS: What’s one thing distinctive or sudden that every of you brings to the collaboration?
MB: Up till considerably not too long ago, the overwhelming majority of my work as a composer was targeted on documentary tasks. Whether or not that’s movies, TV, or podcasts, I’ve been honing my storytelling abilities as a composer on stuff that truthfully simply requires a degree of subtlety that I don’t really feel when engaged on fiction tasks.
Khan’s rating shouldn’t be delicate by any stretch of the creativeness… however earlier in my profession, I had a very great editor gently scold me for “editorializing” a topic’s story with my music. That’s a lesson that I’ve taken into each challenge I’ve labored on since, non-fiction and fiction each. Being crystal clear concerning the intentionality of our music, what it’s doing right here, and ensuring we’re not imposing on the storytelling is one thing Sam might be sick of listening to me discuss!
SB: I used to be tremendous thrilled to play some piano for the present. George Takei requested that Sulu hearken to Beethoven or Chopin in his quarters. I recorded the Adagio second motion of Beethoven’s “Pathetique” sonata, which you’ll be able to hear in episode 5. I additionally recorded “Fur Elise” for the present. I majored in classical piano efficiency at The Boston Conservatory, so it’s at all times enjoyable and rewarding once I can revisit that aspect of myself…
Marcus and Sam BagalaCredit: Savannah Lauren
NFS: Do you have got any upcoming tasks you possibly can tease or discuss past Khan?
MB: A doc movie that I scored alongside one other collaborator of mine, Mark Baechle, and for which Sam supplied extra music, orchestrations, and piano for, really got here to theaters the identical week as Khan and is at the moment streaming Historical past Channel. It’s known as Clemente, and it’s about baseball legend and all-around inspiring human, Roberto Clemente. It’s a beautiful portrait of Roberto, each as a participant, however maybe extra importantly, as an individual, and the influence he had on the folks round him.
I’m additionally teaming up with Khan’s director, Fred Greenhalgh, for a really thrilling one-off challenge with DC Comics that I believe is being introduced quickly…
NFS: How has your inventive course of advanced since engaged on earlier tasks like Harley Quinn and The Joker: Sound Thoughts or Narcosis?
SB: The extra tasks that Marcus and I work on collectively, the extra I degree up my abilities! Marcus is an unimaginable collaborator in that he brings out the perfect within the folks round him. We’ve been capable of sharpen our strategy of working along with every new challenge, in that we are able to often say much less however talk extra clearly. The artwork of communication is vital… and if you find yourself brothers, you possibly can lower by quite a lot of hubris and be trustworthy about how you can carry your finest self to the challenge. Belief and respect are a giant a part of that.
MB: I believe simply to echo Sam, each challenge is a studying expertise, and every new challenge is a chance to carry what you realized on the final challenge to bear. While you’re beginning out, there’s a component of like… hanging on for pricey life that we’re not dealing a lot with anymore. So now that we’ve labored out the kinks in our workflow, we get to give attention to the extra ephemeral aspect of being a composer: attempting to overlook concerning the music and 0 in on turning into the perfect storytellers that we might be.
