‘The Girl in the Pool’ Composer Adam Bosarge Talks the Delightful Sounds of Paranoia
Who doesn’t love a good surprise party? In Quiver Distribution’s latest film, The Girl in the Pool, Tom (Freddie Prinze Jr.) is struggling to maintain his composure during his birthday celebration as he’s secretly concealed the body of his murdered mistress in his family’s home. Paranoia grips him as he navigates through whispers and cryptic hints from those around him. As he delves deeper into the mystery, he discovers he’s not the only one hiding something, leading to a tense unraveling of truths and betrayals amidst a desperate search for answers, revealing a twist that nobody could have seen coming.
Adding to the film’s suspense is the score by composer Adam Bosarge (Fear the Night, House of Darkness) who experimented with everything from processed voices to strings, which he thinks, “are as important to movies as popcorn.” When elaborating on the score he says, “A lot of the percussion in the score is done with prepared piano, which is a piano with objects placed on the strings to affect the sound, like screws, erasers, books, etc. A piano is maybe the quintessential suburban household instrument, so taking this thing that’s capable of expressing perfect domesticity, twisting screws into it, and banging on it like a drum felt like an appropriate metaphor for what Tom goes through.”
Read our full interview with Bosarge below.
Dread Central: What first attracted you to composing for film?
Adam Bosarge: I wish I could remember when it first started to feel like an actual possibility. Probably not until I got my first film! I’ve always loved movies, and the language of it is just sort of in my bones. I started playing and writing music around 12 or 13 and was deeply inspired by classical and film music. But I didn’t think I could ever write orchestral music, because I wasn’t in music classes and didn’t play an orchestral instrument. Then I went to film school with the intent of becoming a filmmaker, and it was there that I started making music for my and my friends’ student films. So, while I always loved and was inspired by film music, it wasn’t until after college that I started seriously trying to get good at the craft.
There are a few film scores I remember really trying to understand when I first started playing music. Those are Philip Glass’ Koyaanisqatsi score, Howard Shore’s The Lord of the Rings score, and James Newton Howard’s score for Signs. I’m sure there were plenty of others, but I specifically remember trying to transcribe some of those cues into my first DAW or play them on piano. Obviously, some great scores are missing from that list, but as a teenager, I didn’t know where to begin trying to take apart a John Williams or Bernard Herrmann score. Those would have to wait another decade!
DC: At what point were you brought on to The Girl in the Pool? During filming or after it was already completed? Ideally, at what point do you begin working on the film?
AB: After it was already completed. For me, that’s ideal! While I’m sure there are some parts of the process that could be done early, I imagine whatever I write before seeing the film would have to be subject to change. And it can be difficult to completely excise old ideas and start fresh. I’ve always preferred to work by diving in and only coming up for air sparingly, so having a bunch of extra time at the top to organize all my diving equipment would probably just make me anxious.
A finished film has so many qualities that can’t really be expressed or explained any other way, especially the pace. The shape of a film over time is a huge part of what drives the score. Dramatic peaks are often quick compared to the lulls. The edit is where the movie is made, and so much of a director’s intent and vision is expressed implicitly within it.
DC: What direction did the director give you for how she wanted the score to sound?
AB: The first direction I got from Dakota was to focus on non-orchestral sounds. Which is quite an open-ended challenge, but a good one! So there were musical styles we wanted to avoid, but there was no big, bright target at the beginning. We found the sound of the music together over time; I would send some scored scenes and we would discuss what was and wasn’t working. Things sped up as we honed the palette. What we ended up on was a mix of prepared piano, percussion, voice, strings, and sound design, probably in that descending order of prominence, and some very minimalist melodic and thematic material. It was a luxury to get to work so closely with Dakota to find something unique to this film, and I’m really proud of the results!
DC: Do you have a favorite scene, musically, in the film?
AB: I have to pick two! First is the scene where the Girl in the Pool herself, Hannah, played by Gabrielle Haugh, is alone in the house. It’s a big scene, but it’s a quiet one. This was also the hardest scene to score, with countless versions and tons of trial and error. In some ways, it’s the DNA of the whole score: simple, quiet presentation of material that expands and explodes in the more intense scenes.
Second is the scene where, spoiler alert, Freddie Prinze Jr.’s character Tom discovers and deals with Hannah’s dead body. This was the first scene where Dakota and I were totally happy with the score, and that allowed us to reverse-engineer everything else. If the scene with Hannah alone is the clearest, most minimal presentation of the score, this scene is the other extreme.
DC: You incorporated a lot of women’s vocals into the score. Can you discuss this choice?
AB: The concept was that Hannah is constantly present in Tom’s mind, and the women’s vocals would keep her subconsciously present in the audience’s mind throughout the film. The vocals are sometimes heavily processed, drowned in effects and distant sounding, or sometimes crystal clear, whispering wordlessly into Tom’s and the audience’s ears. Sometimes the singing is a cacophony, but often it’s serene and steady. As Tom’s psyche is slowly being pulled apart from all angles the voices carry on, calmly and incessantly taunting him.
DC: The Girl in the Pool blurs the lines of what’s real at times. Did this allow you to be more experimental with the score?
AB: Typically in a film, I’m scoring the protagonist’s experience above everything else. In The Girl in the Pool, the protagonist experiences a long slide into paranoia and intoxication that was absolutely delightful to score. The main character, Tom doesn’t know what to believe, and often comedically struggles to reconcile with reality. So rather than totally ground the music with pitch-black, brooding realism, I needed to meet him where he was: a surreal nightmare he’s hoping to wake up from at any second.
A lot of the percussion in the score is done with prepared piano, which is a piano with objects placed on the strings to affect the sound, like screws, erasers, books, etc. A piano is maybe the quintessential suburban household instrument, so taking this thing that’s capable of expressing perfect domesticity, twisting screws into it, and banging on it like a drum felt like an appropriate metaphor for what Tom goes through. Like the processed vocals, there’s a pure musical instrument that’s been tortured or drowned, and is struggling to make its pleasant sound.
DC: How was The Girl in the Pool different from some of the other films you have worked on?
AB: I think it might be the least “genre” film I’ve scored, which led to that totally open-ended stylistic approach. I love working in genres and writing music in the same world as my favorite scores, but for this score, I relied on a different range of my musical identity and skill set. By not using the orchestra, all my experience making non-film music informed the technique and the arrangement so much more. With the limited palette, it was almost like writing for a band. A situation where I might typically reach for a timpani would instead call for banging on the low piano strings, or replacing a cymbal with scraping a guitar string, etc. In an orchestral score, the tricks of the trade are mostly things that have been passed down from the greats, but in this score, I got to use a lot of my own tricks.
DC: Musically, what are your biggest influences?
AB: I think there are two kinds of influences: some that are top-of-mind when working, that you conjure up intentionally to try to more clearly imagine what you’re trying to write. Something like pulling up a Ravel score to see how he achieved a mood you’re trying to emulate. But then there are the deeper influences, the ones you never actually think about but are so trained in your hands that they inform every decision you make.
If I really scrutinize where my hands go on the keyboard when I set them free, then my deepest influences have to be, starting with film music, John Williams (particularly the Star Wars, Jaws, and Sorcerer’s Stone scores), Bernard Herrmann’s Vertigo score, and not exactly film music, Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd score. For classical composers, it’s John Adams, Philip Glass, Olivier Messiaen, and Debussy. And for popular music, it’s the bands Deerhoof and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum.
DC: Do you have a favorite horror film score? What stood out to you most about it?
AB: I think gothic horror always lends itself to really fun scores. I mentioned Sweeney Todd as some of my favorite music already, and while I could maybe argue that’s a film score, I won’t pass the opportunity to mention another! John Williams’ 1979 Dracula score is amazing. It’s got all of the flavors and techniques of John Williams that everyone loves deployed in a dark, bloody melodrama. There’s so much great writing in it, and the main theme is fantastic. And it’s just two years after Star Wars!
One thing I love about John Williams is how much he scores with melody. Even in dialog scenes, he isn’t afraid of melody. My temptation is always to play it safe with dialog, and just give the scene space. Which isn’t a bad idea! But John Williams proves that if you just write the perfect melody, then you have nothing to worry about. Someday maybe I’ll just write one!
The Girl in the Pool is now available on VOD.
Categorized:Interviews
