Secret Magic Control Agency: A Unique Blend of Genres by Gabriel Hays
CineConcerts was very fortunate to speak with Gabriel Hays about his score to the new film Secret Magic Control Agency on Netflix! We discussed how his background in music, his process, and how he approached the unique needs of the film.
Composer Gabriel Hays
CineConcerts (CC): How did you get started on this particular project?
Gabriel Hays (GH): I basically had a relationship with the filmmakers. I had worked on another project with them with a friend and another composer friend of mine, Brad Breeck. And they just asked if we would be interested in looking at this one and after a bit of back-and-forth, we just moved forward on it.
I guess it was a project that was always pretty interesting to get involved with just because it had something familiar in that the characters are based on the fable Hansel and Gretel. Everyone can kind of remember little bits and pieces of that, the two kids who get lost in the forest and abducted by the witch and she wants to have them for dinner and all of that. So, that was kind of the first thing, but then I also saw some early footage that was pretty exciting. In the movie they start out as adults, I just thought it was a really interesting story idea and that pulled put me in.
CC: What sort of process did you have when you got started on the project? You said that you saw some animation, did they have final sequences ready to go for you or did you look at the script?
GH: Yeah, kind of all of the above. Initially I read the script just to kind of get a sense of the story they were telling ‘cause it's not, though it is based on the fable it is not a retelling of that fable, but it does incorporate it in fun ways. And then I got an early cut that had some finished sequences and a lot in the earlier stages of animation. Those are usually really—I’m pretty used to looking at things like that. There’s dialogue and some images that kind of help you understand what's going on and you can kind of work from that.
Usually, these movies, the animation typically doesn't change nearly as much as a live-action might so that is one advantage. Mostly it starts and gets a little shorter and maybe they cut a few things here and there but it doesn't, they don't interject generally a whole new scene right before the end. So that's nice.
CC: This movie is sort of a mash-up of two very different genres, fantasy and spy thriller. Personally, these genres bring to mind two very different types of music but you found a way to blend them together in a way that makes the score both quirky and epic. What sort of challenges did you have combining these two different styles?
GH: Yeah. Well, you nailed it right there, exactly, that was sort of part of the fun challenge to figure it out: Okay, you know, what's going to tell the story best? Very clearly, they are there secret agents, but they're in a Fairytale Land so it's not going to work to go straight inspired by James Bond or Mission Impossible, but there are clues in that kind of music that you wanted to take.
So, I did a lot of thinking about it and I think I knew I didn't have magic elements, some of that came from some sounds that were developed early on I worked with my cousin who's very talented musician and he came in and we worked on finding some sounds that were, like some magical bell sound and things like that that helped evoke some of that side of things. And then also, even more importantly, I had to kind of find things that I felt like the two shared
in common, the spy music and fairy tale music and that kind of storytelling. One of the things I felt like they both have is mystery, a real sense of mystery, and they get to it in different ways.
So, I would check out some spy films and music and vice-versa. I'm a huge fan of like Harry Potter™ so I looked at those kinds of things, not only those, but as benchmarks of those genres that I felt that would be relatable and fun too.
I mean, that was the other thing is it couldn't be too heavy-handed the whole time, you had to have like some good times too.
CC: We were able to listen to a few behind-the-scenes clips of the music before watching the film, but I particularly liked the cue that plays when we first see the organization for the first time, when Gretel is bringing Hansel in. It begins with a melody that really reminds me of the spy genre, music to sneak by, but then it moves seamlessly into this grand, sweeping introduction to the Agency that’s more epic and fantasy-esque.
And then later on in the film we get something really different when we meet the villain for the first time, she seems to have a musical identity of jazz. What inspired giving Elvira her own separate genre of music?
GH: First of all, the filmmakers were really keen on how to play her, that influence, and I think basically the idea there was just to think of what would she be listening to if you imagined her in this scenario? Like, she’d probably be listening to Frank Sinatra. It was as simple as that, it’s going to have that swing and that swagger of, a little schmaltz, but I love Frank Sinatra. It had to have that little tongue-in-cheek vibe with her and I think it's sort of helped to keep her, she's the villain, but it kept her fun at the same time.
CC: Are there any cues in particular that you would like people to look out for when watching the film?
GH: I think that first one you mentioned at the spy agency, which is the Secret Magic Control Agency itself. I think that that cue probably best encapsulates me trying to pull those worlds together of the spy and the fantasy, as you actually really kind of nail the quirks on it. I think that one has the feeling of lifting and then getting darker but then lighter and it's kind of always shifting between those feelings of light and dark from moment to moment. And I feel like that so much helps keep you on your toes as an audience member. “Wait, they’re succeeding, or are they? Yes, they are.” You can play with that in a fun way.
I guess those three cues from the behind-the-scenes videos would be three of among some others, but the three that I think represent some core feelings of the movie. The last one, which we need to get some titles on it so it's clear. I guess you've seen it so it's not giving it away but there’s one called “Here's Looking at You Not Kid” because they're back to being grownups and that encapsulates their journey together. There are the themes of, Hansel has a theme in there which comes in on the piano, which is, he's a charlatan as they say in the movie a lot and always up to mischief. So that's his theme but it's kind of re-presented in like, you know a little bit of a question of are they going to stay together or are they going their separate ways? It was fun to play around with their themes in that scene at the end of the movie.
CC: One of the things we talk about a lot is how, nowadays, there's no right way to compose, especially because of the advances in technology. The field has really, really widened on how to physically sit down and compose a score. It doesn't have to be pencil and paper or even traditional instruments. So, what is your process when you sit down to compose?
GH: Yeah, thanks for asking that question. I think I live in both worlds, in both the technology computer world, but also a little bit of the old school pen and paper world. Or pencil and paper, I can't say I could go straight to write it all down perfectly the first time.
But for me, I mean, this movie in particular for example, we had to figure out the themes a little bit before we could get into exactly where they go, you know, and for that I wrote some themes just on the piano. I’d sketch them out for myself and then I'd send a recording of just a piano version of a lot of the themes to the filmmakers. We just had a nice back and forth and kind of figured out after a while, we went through a number of them and figured out the ones that are in the movie and developed them from that.
For me, it's very important for me to find, especially on a project like this, is to find the core ideas that work for the movie. It’s a little bit of seeing the movie and an almost reacting to the movie away from it a little bit. Like, I might watch a scene and then think about it and write some music away from that scene, thinking about the emotions that occur to me. When I start to feel that’s right then I might go take that piece of music and play it against the scene and see. Okay, is this doing it or not? And then you kind of reassess from there.
It's always, because you're working with the medium of music to picture. You always have to kind of balance the idea of what you're writing with what’s coming from what the movie’s telling you and so you kind of have to work on them a little separately. But if they're too separate then they might not work together.
CC: You mentioned starting with the character themes, could you talk a little bit about developing one for one of the specific characters?
GH: I think at the core of it, the two biggest ones, are really what the one that we call the SMCA Theme, ‘cause it could play in for heroic moments, but then there's a couple themes for Hansel and Gretel together in particular that I found fun. And you hear it, that's a really simple one, which is a little playful thing that starts off the SMCA, but that's you know, that's like a really simple, playful theme. But finding the ones for them that could help tell their journey together,
I think…It’s a good question and hopefully I can answer it in a good way. I mostly, just like you kind of try to distill what the characters and what their arc in the story is and then find something you feel that could adapt to their journey. So, you might find a nice theme, but can you play it in different ways throughout the movie where you can, with the way it's supported or what instrument is played on, it might make it feel a little bit sad or reflective or it could also be heroic and really powerful. I find themes that can kind of have a little bit of that ability to change, as the movie evolves, are really fun to find and sometimes hard but the most gratifying really.
CC: Animation is a very different medium from “regular” film, live-action film. When I was watching this movie, I noticed that it’s got a lot of music. How is scoring animation different versus other projects that you've done, whether live action or short form.
GH: Yeah, that there's a lot of great things to think about there that I think about related to your question. On the logistical side of it writing, for me anyways, writing music for animation takes more time. Certainly, then then other forms usually.
Though I don't usually try to hit every little thing on the picture directly ‘cause it can be a little too on-the-nose. Those considerations are more present for sure. You definitely have to pay more attention to that.
And in general, a philosophical view on animation, I think you're doing a little bit more of the…world-building is a word that I often think of with animation. You are helping set the whole world that they're living in and I can think of a lot of movies where just the timbre of—I guess a live action movie does that too but I think animation kind of needs music even—music and animation go together so well and I feel like there's just so much that is leaned on for the music to say, “Here's the reality we're living in.” In this movie there's that and then of course like the spy fantasy themes kind of woven into that too. So, thinking about what does that mean in an animated movie was fun.
In terms of just getting it all done in time, yeah, you just have to plan ahead. And then also make sure you have a good crew of people to help you get to the finish line. You know, have arrangers and orchestrators and so all of that kind of stuff, it is a team effort in the end.
CC: Would you say that film music is more accentuated in animation as result of building the world musically?
GH: Yeah, I mean, traditionally it is, right? I just think a lot of movies, all the way back to the Looney Tunes stuff, which I grew up loving that, I think that was actually one of the things that pulled me into loving animation and also film music. As a kid I just couldn't get enough of Bugs Bunny for whatever reason. Other things too, I love a lot of other stuff too, I’ve always loved Hitchcock movies, those scores are incredible, among so many others.
It's almost impossible to separate a lot of great movies from the music once you see it. I mean you can think of Frozen in recent times or Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is an incredible example of a modern score that has, really such a key part of that story telling in addition to the amazing animation.
CC: Why film music? How did you get into it? It’s a specialized craft and the world, though small, is filled with so much creativity.
GH: When we all have our own journey into it, no two are exactly the same. I think from an early age, when I started taking piano lessons, I started writing my own music as well. I think when I was 9, I was learning Bach's Minuet in G, and I tried to write it backwards. I remember that was my idea of composing. And I guess I was just always into it and in high school I had a couple opportunities, I did a lot of theater in high school. I did directing, that's where I was most successful, I was not so much meant to be an actor, but I really enjoyed that and I always, have always loved movies. For one play, my theater teacher asked me to do the music for it.
So, that was the first chance of like, “Okay, what kind of music is going to go here and there?” Not to say that anybody really wants to hear whatever I wrote for that then but it was an informative experience of that I liked it and seemed to have an affinity for it.
But it took me awhile and I also will say, when I went to school, I ended up going to school for music, but I always had an inclination that I might want to try film scoring at some point, but I knew I didn't want to do it right off the bat. I wanted to pursue some other musical interests first, thinking it would be something, if I did do it, would come later and that's kind of what happened. In my late twenties, early thirties that’s when I decided all right, I'm going to give it a real go.
And so, when that happened, I just kind of went all-in and just tried to get into it as best I could.
Promotional Image for the Netflix film Secret Magic Control Agency
CC: Who are the film composers that inspire you today?
GH: Bernard Herrmann would be certainly on that list. I love how much of his own style he had and I remember hearing his scores and thinking, “Why aren’t the composers today writing more like him?” And there are a lot of reasons for that. But his taste, among many of his other traits, I think he's one of my favorites but I think I pull interest from all over the place.
Debussy, Stravinsky, Bach are probably in the Western tradition my three favorite composers. And then you know, I grew up listening to the Beatles. I love Radiohead, I played Afrobeat in New York and I love that music as well as a lot of other music that’s not from the US
And I studied Jazz in college, actually in Colorado, I went to Denver University. I went to a lot of great shows at the Boulder Theatre when I lived there.
CC: I feel like I’ve missed out on so much this past year, we all have, right? We’re just dying to get back to live performances in halls and to listen to music. It’s one of the things we miss the most.
GH: Me too. It’s such an important part of what I like to do, going to concerts.
CC: Listening to music is one of the most human things you can do, it's one of most visceral experiences you can have and there's a weird magic that happens when you marry something that an individual composer is able to write down and it sounds great as a stand-alone album. You can listen to your music as record and it works, you enjoy. But when you sit down on the couch and have it married to image, it’s a completely different emotional experience for a lot of people. Do you have that reaction when you listen to your music but with the picture? Like, “Wow, that really is great.” Or, “That, to me, doesn’t work at all.”
GH: Definitely both. Yeah, that's totally happened. That is fun too and I think you're kind of having a conversation with the storytelling a little bit and you're saying here's what you have to offer and then you throw it up against the screen. And sometimes an amazing thing too is you can put a piece of music up and you just like it better in another scene or sometimes you just nudge it one way or the other a little bit and finally, somehow, the pacing suddenly feels right. It's really hitting things in the way you wanted to so I think there's kind of a mystery to the art form.
You can get really meticulous about, this emotion is happening here and then this emotion is happening here and this is the story and you can try to hit all but there's also an intuitive level to it and a trial-and-error edit element to it that I think is a lot of fun actually.
CC: We touched on this a little bit earlier, but how do you compose, not just physically but in your mind? Do you see it? Some composers see color, they represent sounds with color. Do ideas just sort of pop into your head that you see visually or do you come from it in a purely musical standpoint, without the visuals, but just the emotion it needs?
GH: It’s a wonderful thing to think about. For me, almost anything I do, I'm usually composing from a feeling that I kind of know I want the piece of music to have. And sometimes I have a good idea of the vocabulary that to explore or to get to that feeling.
I think in the case of a spy music there's a very specific musical vocabulary that you can look back to, you can look at all the great Bond films or Mission Impossible, you can look at The Incredibles which is borrowing from that too and all sorts of movies like that. And you can kind of see, here's the language they speak and from that you kind of—that’s kind of what I did.
And then from that, what are the tools they’re using and how do I incorporate that and get a feeling like that for myself. Generally speaking, that's about spy music particularly, but I find for myself the process is…a really important thing for me to do along the way is once I get some idea that I might like—it might be a melody or melodic fragment or even like a fairly completed melody—is to take a step back and not, if I'm on the computer I could do this too but I'm kind of a fan of just writing down melodies before I get to the computer and just think about it, you know? Just sit there and kind of not play an instrument because we have all of our, I have my muscle memory from playing the piano and I play the piano that's my main instrument.
I try to get away from the muscle memory and kind of just think about it in my brain, like the shape of it and the length of it and is it telling the right arc. And that could be in film music or anything I'm writing but I think that step of just sitting there and making yourself get into your imagination, away from your habits a little bit is super helpful. Anytime I do that I usually improve whatever it is I'm working on.
CC: Composers put themselves out there. As any creative artist really, you put yourself out there with a creative idea. What is it like to overcome that vulnerability?
GH: I think, for me, it's definitely more of the case where I have to work with it a little bit. I realized I’m really comfortable just kind of going into a room, you know, I like working with other people too, but just doing the work.
And then when it comes to sharing with everybody, I mean, it's kind of hearkens back a little bit too when I used to play shows a lot more. I could get through it but stage fright was always an element for me. Having to be like, “Okay!” Once I’m in it I feel good, but I think I always have a little anxiety sharing it with the world. At a certain point I just have to let it go.
In certain cases, like this movie, I just tried to do my best by the movie. And so hopefully that's the ultimate test of whether or not hopefully it helps the movie tell the story and people enjoy the movie. If that's happening then I feel like I did all right.
CC: It’s funny, when you think of film composing it almost sounds very passive because, at least from the audience perspective, the music is always there, right? But there is a performative element to sitting down writing the score and then kind of figuring it out, conducting it, playing it, and then finally recording it. What is it like to sit down and see the finished product after the performance and do you kind of feel that it captures the nerves of the day and then sort of translates that into the image?
We’ve talked to some composers in the past about how if they've written something particularly difficult, they feel like the anxiety of the orchestra kind of comes through and has been fused with the performance on screen.
GH: Oh, wow, that's a really interesting observation. Yeah, you can.
I mean, I think to that last little point, I think you do really, to the benefit of having live players, you do feel like the energy of what the players were putting into their performance on screen. When they really dig in and really get it, that's where I think the magic comes in, is just that whole body of people working together to get something together and somehow that just propels energy like nothing else. An orchestra in the computer can sound very good but it's impossible to fully capture that same feeling of energy.
Having seen cuts of this after the dub mix, the final re-recording mix, after I did the music and send it to the Satoshi, who was the person who mixed the music and then we send it to Steffi who is the dub mixer. I got to hear a mix of that and for me it was actually very nice. I thought wow, it really came together. It works, you know, he did a really great mix and I felt like he did a nice job of just getting everything to sit together so well and was really impressive. I felt actually a little bit of relief like, “Okay, we made it.”
CC: It's a lot of music, do you know if this is going to get an album release?
GH: I'm hopeful, but I just don't know the answer to that yet.
CC: What’s next for you?
GH: On the TV side, I can't say anything just at the moment, but I am working on an album of my own music that I hope to finally get out this year that involves a string quartet and some other things. It’s hard to carve out time to do these things, but I'm looking to try to finally make that happen this year.