Curated by Emmy award-winning musical director Rickey Minor, documentary programming peer group governor Lois Vossen and composer Miriam Cutler, Perfect Harmony: A Live Performance Celebrating Music in Documentaries was held at The Television Academy's Saban Media Center on Wednesday night in North Hollywood.
An evening of music and film, the fascinating event screened a selection of scenes from acclaimed documentaries while a live orchestra performed its original score. The films highlighted were 13th, Always in Season, Hostile Planet, Love, Gilda, and United Skates. Each showing was preceded by a presenter and followed by a brief Q&A with the filmmakers.
The night was replete with memorable moments that highlighted the unique and fruitful collaborative process between composer and director, coupled with a mighty solo performance by Judith Hill and presentations from John Legend (United Skates) and Ava DuVernay (13th).
Hill, who performed during the screening of Hostile Planet, spoke on the significance of an original score. “The music helps people to get into the right emotion of what’s happening,” she said, “whether a soaring string line or powerful vocal. Composers and artists have a very important job of bringing people right into the heart of the [film’s] message.”
Osei Essed who worked as the composer for Always in Season with director Jacqueline Olive was in attendance and echoed similar sentiments as Hill, “when you’re writing original music, you have a chance to really respond to the narrative and flesh it out in a way that pre-recorded music probably cannot,” he said.
To continue the conversation we spoke with composer Jongnic Bontemps who worked on United Skates, a film about Black roller-skating culture executive produced by John Legend and directed by Dyana Winkler and Tina Brown. He discussed his experience working on the film and why it’s important for a director to involve the composer early on.
The Benefits of Collaborating Early
Invite the composer as early as possible for the project even if it’s just for a discussion or to share a script. When we invite music as an after-thought it doesn’t really let music inform the edit, the edit then informs the music.
Great films have been done that way but for me personally just to be involved early allows the project to sit with me and let ideas evolve. It does create more work because you’re on the project longer but all of it allows for you to be more of a creative force for the project because you’ve allowed it to marinate in your soul.
On Involving the Community
For United Skates….one of the important themes for the project has been authenticity. The directors and I are outsiders of the communities represented in the film. So, making sure we included the community as much as possible in all disciplines was super important because we were making the film for their community.
The directors had a great relationship with Keezo Kane who is synonymous with skate music in the Chicago area called the JB style. They connected us and having the ability to collaborate with someone who understood that style was amazing. We were able to craft music that was authentic and had the sound that was required for people to resonate with it from that community.
Music as the Connective Tissue
Documentaries are an amazing medium because they attempt to educate the audience. We're taking a subject and doing a deep dive into it, and hopefully the audience walks away with something that impacts their lives and builds empathy.
Music plays a huge part in helping to build that empathy. It has a way of going straight to the heart and it is the connective tissue. Music allows us to connect with what we are consuming much more viscerally and gives us the ability to lock in and keep our audience engaged.
