How ‘Andor’ score went maximum, while ‘The Studio’ composer acted solo
Sometimes a 60-part orchestra is needed to score a series effectively; Sometimes only a single musician is needed.
These extremes are illustrated by two of the most popular shows of this season: the Apple TV+ satirical series ‘The Studio’, whose innovative percussion score is the work of Antonio Sanchez; And the much-praised Disney+ drama ‘Andor’, that the ‘Star Wars’ ear jump from De-De-Rebellion Saga has closed with new music from Brandon Roberts.
The one-man band from Sanchez is a nice element of the Hollywood showbizz-Sendender “The Studio”. He did not know Showrunners Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg for this, but it turned out that they used his All-Drums score for the movie “Birdman” 2014 as a temporary soundtrack for “The Studio” and enjoyed what they heard.
“They sent me the first episode and I could see that what worked for them was the percussion, the timing and the rhythm,” says Sanchez. His years on the road as a jazz drummer enabled him to “do a lot with less, to be decisive and intense, but with a lightness,” he says.
It is not only Sanchez improvising to the scenes. “Often it is perhaps five drum tracks stacked on top of another to give it an almost infinite series of color,” he explains. “I will do one pass with just a normal drum set. The second pass can be with brushes, a third pass with hammers, a fourth pass can be cimbal or different things with my hands.”
And to distinguish ‘the studio’ from ‘Birdman’, he added bass, piano and, depending on the storyline, sampled brass or wood blowers, all exclusively only in his studio near Barcelona, Spain, Spain; No other musicians participated.
For the second season of “Andor” Roberts needed a 60-piece London Orchestra, an eight-voiced choir and a variety of unusual instruments for the Yavin, Mina-Rau and Ghorman planets.
The original composer of “Andor”, Emmy nominated Nicholas Britell, started the season and scored all episode 4, most of the episode 5 and part of 6 before he had to leave the project. The most important thing is that he wrote the Ghorman people who are prominent in episode 8 when the protesters are slaughtered by imperial troops.
“I wanted to maintain the DNA and the palette that Nick created for season 1 and use some of those themes,” says Roberts. “But then [showrunner] Tony Gilroy was very clear that there would be new planets, plot developments and character expansion that new thematic material, new ideas and larger world construction would require. “
Because he jumped in the middle of post production, Roberts could see all 12 episodes before he started composing. Yavin needed a theme that was ‘melodic and orchestrian’ and grand, while the wheat planet Mina-Rau demanded something ‘earthly and healthy’, Americana, and Ghorman more bowed to Viennese Waltzes with Eastern European colors, including Cimbalom and Hammercimer.
Roberts’ music for the complicated Cassian-Bix relationship was crucial in later episodes, while the early jungle-maneques benefited from the use of unusual percussion of Roberts, including Angklungs, an Indonesian bamboo instrument that was once used in “Planet of the Apes”.
Background “Source Music” became a nice part of the assignment, which invented a local Ghorman band (“Kafhaus”) with intestinal contracting geniolin; Ritualistic tribal drums for the wedding on Chandrila; And composing an operating issue that is sung in the Ghorman language (“Almost like it is a classic piece that the rounds made through the Melkweg,” says Roberts).
An intimidation factor was the place of “Andor” in the general chronology of “Star Wars”. It follows the feature film Prequels scored by John Williams, then the Britell scored “Andor” season 1, but precedes “Rogue One” (scored by Michael Giacchino), which was a prequel for the original, Williams-Scored “Star Wars: A New Hope.”
“The biggest challenge was to create a musical continuity, while at the same time trying to bring my own voice to it,” says Roberts. “Much a small contribution to ‘Star Wars’ is a dream come true for a composer.”
