Chris Connor chats with The Wild Robot Composer Kris Bowers…
The Wild Robot has earned some of the strongest reviews for an animated film for some time. The score from Kris Bowers has been singled out for particular praise and could well feature in the awards mix. We sat down with the man behind the stand-out score to discuss how he came about shaping the score and some of the unique challenges presented by the film’s scale and story…
How did you find charting Roz’s growth?
A lot of that had to do with dealing with both the palette and the approach to composition. In that in the beginning of the film, a lot of the moments where we’re focusing on Roz’s point of view, sonically the score is very synth driven, very synth heavy, and also compositionally, it’s a lot of arpeggiated things and things that feel like more more aligned with her processing and how much she’s trying to take in information. And then as she grows, as she grows more human if you will, it becomes a bit more not only acoustic and organic, but also a bit more heartfelt and emotional. So there are two stark instances, for example, of her main theme; the first time you hear her theme is a part of her source music when she first turns on, and it’s this very synth heavy, computerised kind of sounding thing. Later in the film, during the truth sequence, when we hear her same theme, it’s now been re harmonized, and it’s now piano focused, and has much more of this acoustic, organic warmth to it.
How did you find separating Roz and the wildlife on the island?
Really, for me, it was about creating this palette that could traverse both of those spaces and at the same time, be really intentional with when each thing is leading. So again, for Roz, there is this suite of synth sounds that was created for her sound and her aesthetic, and that’s really forward in moments where she’s leading the scene. Then on the flip side, to represent the wilderness, I relied heavily on this percussion ensemble called sandbox percussion that plays really unorthodox percussion and approaches percussion pretty similarly to foley artists, where they’re playing planks of wood and metal pipes and glass bottles and scraps of tin metal and things like that. For me, that was inspired not only by the idea of these animals skittering through the forest and the sound design that would be inherent in that space, but also how these things are impacting Roz in a very physical way.
So there are times where we’re really seeing the wilderness take control over the situation and the scene, and it’s leaning more into that sandbox percussion sound. But maybe there might be an instance where Roz is being ripped apart by raccoons or being hit by branches, and there are metallic aspects of that percussion ensemble that are more forward, instead of it being synth based. One other element is actually choir that I use very specifically, where choir is actually only present in moments where Roz is very much demonstrating this human quality in this emotional aspect to herself, and we hear it first when she touches her heads with Bright Bill, and hear it more and more throughout the course of the film.
What was the starting point for you on The Wild Robot?
The very first thing was finding that palette. I talked to Chris Sanders about deciding on that palette range, and I wrote a few cues to demonstrate what that palette might look like across the board. And then the very next thing I did was write the main theme, which was for the migration sequence or that’s the iteration that I approached first, and then kind of broke it out from there. It was primarily trying to make sure that that sequence felt as strong as possible and melodically as clear as possible, and that we had a theme that could carry us through the entire film, so that as I developed it, if we heard it in the very end, that last sequence, or that last scene in the movie, it had this kind of cathartic, emotional release. And for me, that really meant not only developing it throughout the course of the film, but also making sure that the melody was as clear as possible.
You mentioned Chris Sanders there. How involved was he in shaping the score?
Super involved. I mean, it was a kind of director-composer relationship that I find is vanishingly rare these days, where we met in my studio every week, sometimes twice a week, toward the end of the process, and I was showing him cues, but not only playing them for him musically, but also diving into my my software to show him exactly what every instrument is doing, so that he could really get into the weeds with how he wanted things to sound. So there are times where I would show him a cue and he would say, ‘you know, that feels really great. That’s exciting. There’s just one section here that’s feeling a little bit busy. What can we do about that?’ Then we could get into it where it’s like, okay, well, the woodwinds are doing this, the percussion is doing this, the brass is doing this, you know, the strings are doing this. He’s like ‘oh, I really love what the brass is doing. Can we emphasise that more? Let’s take out some of the strings and some of the woodwind stuff, and lean on the brass a bit more’.
It reminded me of the videos I used to see when I was a kid of John Williams and Steven Spielberg, where it’s like, you know, talking about what the musicians are going to be playing in this very detailed way that was super excited for me to have a director that was that invested in seeing, all the working parts of the music, and really fascinated by it, and wanted to get into it in a way that felt purely collaborative and and exciting, and he was super supportive and you know, as one animator said, he’s like our biggest fans, as a collaborator, while at the same time making sure that he was a deep part of the process, so that He felt ownership over how the score sounded amazing.
I understand you had a child when the film was in development?
Yeah, exactly. So my daughter was about five months old when I first got the call about the project. I was on the project for almost two years. So she is just over two and a half now.
Did that relationship affect the score?
Yeah 1,000% I mean it was something that, even reading the book, I felt pretty strongly, just because I was at the beginning of figuring out how to be a parent. I also very much empathise with Roz, in that, like, I’m a pretty logically driven person. Honestly, music is the space where I connect with my emotions in the most clear and profound way outside of the context of music. I’m again, very logic driven. So that felt like something I could connect with was Roz and having this small, little being unlock this emotion in me is something that I’ve been experiencing for the last couple of years.
Then with the migration sequence in particular, which I’ve talked about. But you know, my first instance writing for that sequence, I approached it in a way that only looks at my relationship with my daughter from these rose coloured glasses of it being this perfect sweet thing for the majority of our life, and projecting out to the future what that would be like. I could only imagine the positive and so much of this film is exploring the obstacles and the troubles and difficulties of being a parent and having that parent child relationship, and it caused me to reflect a bit more on the realistic aspects of how inevitably I’m going to have moments of failing her and frustrating her. We’re going to have moments where we’re not going to see eye to eye and have difficult times, and God forbid, if there’s anything that happens that’s irreparable, it would be this massively devastating thing.
So thinking about what Roz and Breville have been through, and projecting myself out into the future, thinking about all the possibilities that will inevitably happen, that I fear might happen, and I hope don’t happen, all of that definitely unlocked some emotion in me that helped me not only write that main theme, but also approach the film in a way that was much more grounded and realistic, and didn’t treat this relationship with kid gloves, but more so handle it with the nuance that the story does.
One of the things about the Wild Robot is that the action comes quite late on in the film and it is very character driven. Did you find that was a challenge for the score?
So I approached that migration sequence to get that theme, but also to start to crack the code on like, what is this? Who are going to sound like at its most muscular? That was a question that Chris and I had, and some of the producers and studio had was like, you know, we’ve got to make sure that obviously this moment, this film, has heart and has these moments of tenderness. We need to make sure that the score can also go there when it needs to be massive and action based.
So that sequence was a big one, and then I started getting the other themes in place, and then pretty quickly I went on to the rescue mission sequence, because I was thinking that’s going to be one that needs to be really massive and big. So by the time I got to the ending sequence, I felt like I had a lot of clarity on my approach to those things where I had figured out ostinatos that were based on the main themes, that I could figure out how to use it as motors, and I figure out, you know, how this score was going to present itself in the most muscular form, in terms of that palette and the percussion and the synths and all that kind of stuff. And so by the time I said that ending sequence, I started working on that toward the end of the process, especially because they were continuing to iterate it visually. So I didn’t want to get too in the weeds until they had that pretty locked in. Once they did, I say the the last three months or so of my composing process was spent just on, the last 20 minutes in the movie, trying to lock that in.
This is your first animation. How does the process differ for you?
I think having that much time is amazing. Live action for the most part, they include music toward the end. Also, there’s often times where, wherever you fall in, you’re needing to support a lot of dialogue in moments where music is kind of in the background. There are also moments where, with live action, we’re so present with the diegetic sound in this space that that score sometimes needs to be more textural or again in the background, so that so much of the grounded aspect of real life, can come through in this sound.
With animation, they’re building everything from the ground up so it’s kind of a blank canvas for me to really allow music to have this massive presence, both sonically, but also melodically, especially with a movie like this where there isn’t much dialog. So it was really great to have the space to be able to compose these pretty massive sounding cues, and these moments where melody is very clear and overt and emotional and have this collaborative relationship with the sound designers as they’re building the sound it’s less about trying to stay out of the way of the things that are already captured on set, and more about trying to see how they can build things that are also married in a mess with the music in an interesting way, and vice versa.
Lastly, I’d say, is that with that much time, I’m able to really iterate as we go, where once they lock in a sequence and send it to the next phase of animation, whether it’s pre vis or whatever else it is, it doesn’t really change. Whereas with live action, they’re constantly adding, you know, 10 seconds here, 30 seconds shifting things around. They can’t really do that after a certain point with animation. So it made it so that I could write to picture in as specific and intentional and succinctive a way as I ever have, where I’m using the same sequence, or seeing the same sequence over and over again for over a year and continuing to just tinker with it and tinker with it, and having that much time to make sure that the score is as married to picture as possible is really a joy that I don’t often get.
We touched on Roz. Did you have any other of the animals that you enjoyed scoring the most?
I really love Fink I think that it was a lot of fun, not only just, like personality wise, like he’s just such a fun character, but also he really helped me unlock that sandbox percussion sound. a lot of the moments where sandbox is most featured is with Fink as a character. A lot of that has to do is, like, just his personality and who he is. And so I really had a lot of fun scoring, scoring his stuff, because I wanted to have this sly, kind of jazzy, offbeat feeling to him, and being able to lean into that. Also, the same time, Fink has such an interesting arc as a character that the score is able to follow that, where he goes on the first time you meet him, and his score is sly and kind of mischievous, and then toward the end, it’s sweet and earnest and heartfelt. By the time, he’s changed as a character as well. So his arc was a lot of fun to score.
Just on a personal note, you must be delighted of how the film’s done and how the score’s been singled out for a lot of praise.
Yeah. I mean, it’s amazing. I mean, I think with something like this is so special because it’s such a familial team. Like, we really felt like, even though it’s this big film for a big studio, like it felt like it was just me, Chris, Jeff the producer and Mary, the editor, and, you know, a couple of other people, for the entirety of the two years that I was working on it. There was so much art that was poured into it on everybody’s behalf. I remember seeing the first visuals and being like so hopeful that I could be a part of it, just based on what it was going to look like and wanting to live up to the high bar that was already set by the animators and by the legend that is Chris Sanders. And so for me, I was just trying to, I just wanted to do my best, you know, and wanted to put as much of my own heart in it as possible. And so when you do that, and then it’s received the way this film is received, I feel like it just means so much. I think this film is so special, and it’s amazing to be a part of it. I’m glad that people are connecting to it in that way.
SEE ALSO: Read our review of The Wild Robot here
Many thanks to Kris Bowers for taking the time for this interview.
Chris Connor