Now that World Relief Bend has released their film “Manifesto,” I thought I’d give a little “behind-the-scenes” peek at the score.
When they first asked me to score “Manifesto,” the entire team was under about a three week time crunch, and I wasn’t given a whole lot of information to base my work on. The film hadn’t been cut yet, and the script hadn’t even been officially approved. Basically, I was asked to write a ninety second piece of music that was “melancholy” at the beginning and “hopeful” by the end. This piece was simultaneously my audition and the rough draft of the score. Here’s what I came up with ::
The “melancholy” section begins with dark, somber pads and a few mournful notes on the duduk. Bass drum reverberations pave the way for the sweeping cello entrance, which leads to an arrival on a large string chord, accompanied by more pads. The bass drum and cello didn’t make it to the final draft, but aside from those two deletions, the opening of the final version of the score is the very first sketch I wrote.
For the “hopeful” section, I drew inspiration from the closing scenes of Return of the Jedi (special edition) and Star Wars – Episode I : The Phantom Menace, and I also had in mind the sound world of The Lion King (not the songs…the score). Well, the resounding response from the development team was that the end of the piece was too Disney, specifically too The Little Mermaid. Interesting.
So, I went back into the studio, this time–at the suggestion of the development team–channeling Batman Begins and District 9 ::
By itself, draft two (which went through three versions of its own) is by far my favorite. The problem with it is that it remains melancholy and foreboding for too long, thus undermining the purpose of the film, which is to excite, inspire, call to action.
One philosophical thing I tried in draft two that stuck for the final version of the film was to blend electronic sound with ethnic/organic sound. At 0:52 in draft two, there is a booming electronic drumbeat (right out of Batman Begins) that sets the tone for the ethnic drums that take over four seconds later. The electronic drums continue until the end of the piece, morphing into a heartbeat at 1:18.
The blending of drum sounds worked for two reasons: (1) I like that kind of music. Eric Serra rocks. (2) It seemed to me to fit the purpose of the film, which calls people to do something about suffering in the world, but also attempts to convey World Relief’s modernness and relevancy. Marrying ethnic and electronic sound seemed to fulfill those two themes effectively.
By the time I had finished draft two, the film was nearing its final cut, and the script had been recorded, so I decided to wait until the script was layered in and the cut was as locked as possible to continue scoring. Once I saw the film with Ann’s spoken text, I immediately understood the team’s problems with draft two and came up with what became the final version ::
In draft three, I took the modern, electronic sound idea even further. At the time–though I never said anything to anyone–the decision to go further with electronic sounds was an enormous risk for me. We were running out of time, and if the score had sounded too artificial or too lighthearted, I would have had to rewrite nearly two thirds of the middle of it, which would have cost me hours of work and caused me another dozen or so (assuming they wouldn’t have simply abandoned the idea of an original score at that point and payed for the rights to use something else, which would have been justified).
But it worked out 
It was a super fun project, and my favorite thing about it was that I believed in what was being communicated. It wasn’t just some marketing video or PSA…it was an affirmation aimed at the hearts of people that are trying to make the world a better place. I believe in those people, and writing this score was really fulfilling for me because I was asked to inspire them and maybe–even if it was only for ninety seconds–help them to believe a little bit more in themselves…and that made “Manifesto” an awesome responsibility, an awesome challenge, and an awesome opportunity.
