Composer Anthony Willis spoke with CineConcerts about the score to the new film M3GAN!

CineConcerts (CC): What was it that got you into film music? 

Anthony Willis (AW): I was a chorister when I was younger. In England, there's a long-standing practice where young boys with unbroken voices would go and sing for Cathedral Choirs. My grandfather had been a part of it at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, and had really loved it. And so, when I showed an early interest in music, my parents signed me up. And Windsor's just this incredible place in England, only a short distance from London but has so much character. It's been in the public eye a lot recently because the Queen of England is now buried there.

So, this was a wonderful environment to learn- it gave me this explosion of music every day. All my friends were brilliant musicians and a lot of them had come from families of musicians. So, they were often already very proficient in multiple instruments by the age of 12, especially they’re ability to read music.

During that time, the film Titanic came out, and I was just mesmerized by it. It was the first time I realized the lengths that somebody would go to create a world on the screen, and it ignited something in me. I came home and realized I could play the score on the piano, which was the very beginnings of understanding how to compose music, how the engine runs, and I also saw this role that a score can play in helping to create the world. I built a model titanic from paper, and would blast the music while reenacting the maiden voyage departure from Southampton with my model train set, followed by several efforts to make my own Titanic film in my parents’ garden.

After I left Windsor, I went to my next school and they had some basic music tech equipment. I started to write my first music and started to bring my musical ideas to life on crappy samples in Cubase. That side of things has changed so much since then- on a fairly tight budget, you can get a lot of the samples that all the professional composers are now using- it’s really leveled the playing field for up-and-coming composers.

CC: So, it was James Horner that started it for you ultimately?

AW:  Yes, and I loved Hans Zimmer’s The Lion King, and so many of the scores from my childhood including all of Alan Menken’s Disney Scores. There was a wealth of amazing scores and composers- we had on rotation at home a core set of video tapes which included Free Willy, Homewood Bound, movies like that. My sisters were involved in this children's opera company that I wasn’t able to join because of my commitments as a chorister in Windsor. And my older sister kept going like, “You should look up our music director, Harry Gregson-Williams- he went to Hollywood to write with Hans Zimmer” I went to the theatre to see Kingdom of Heaven and there was his name! I guess it was the moment of “Oh, wow, somebody who was in my world went and did that.” That's a really important thing, I think, to know that your heroes are real people. Especially in the days where the internet was yet to really develop, there was very little access to information, and everything was a mystery! I also learned that Harry had done Shrek, and then that also introduced me to John Powell’s music. And then right before I moved to L.A. to do the USC film scoring program, I saw How to Train Your Dragon. It had been hard to explain to my friends exactly what I was wanting to do in L.A., so rather than explain I would just drag them along to How to Train Your Dragon. It's inspiring and magical and it's just incredible. Another amazing example of what somebody will do to create a world, a mythical Viking universe! It evoked so much authenticity.

CC: How did you approach this score? What is your creative process when you approach a specific genre like horror? 

AW: My first meeting with Gerard got me really excited about the project. Right out of the gate he said “We're not just going to do the horror doll thing as it’s been done before. I want to embrace the noir of it all and a contemporary hypnotic aesthetic- M3gan’s a digital enchantress”. He hired me because he liked my work on Promising Young Woman, and had a vision of  M3gan almost kind of like a 50’s house wife, a femme fatale. The film has such an interesting marriage of this classic feel, together with the AI element which brings a contemporary sophistication to it. Of course, as a Blumhouse film, it also called for moments of trademark unease and terror that the studio is so well known for, and the palette for it needed to be rich and varied to encompass all of M3gan’s attributes.

CC: And how did you define that? How did you go about figuring out musically how to define her without being on the nose about it? 

AW: Overall, we started out by exploring how far we could take an organic palette and infuse it with a robotic mindset. M3gan is astonishing in her realism to a human girl, and so what kind of parts idiomatically lend themselves to synth, and how could those translate on to organic colors? For example, taking a vibraphone, and ascribing to it a part that oscillates in a modular way. I've always thought that vibes are an interesting color for tech- it has kind of a sci fi connotation and it's metallic and it also sits beautifully in an acoustic space. But its motor gives it just a hint of technology under the surface. And that's what M3gan is. At least for the first half of the film, she’s very much in disguise. I also used a lot of harp harmonics in place of a synth pulse- they have an otherworldly quality and ambiguous but feminine timbre which I love. I also used a lot for parallel harmony which is something that’s very natural for a computer to do and is very natural for dance music, but when moving the chord down it really opens up and pivots the scale- essentially you accomplish a lot of chromaticism and harmonic ambiguity, but it’s packaged in a very palatable way, more or a contemporary aesthetic. Gerard loved string slides, so it was fun to slide between chords with the orchestra which added mystique and intrigue. Voice was also something Gerard was- it’s the most organic of colors, the ultimate symbol of humanity.

CC: When you see something so extreme happen on screen as a composer or your composing style, do you tend to try to go big and do crazy sounds, or do you start with something small and then expand from that? 

AW: You always know you can make big noises, expanding an idea to its largest iteration. But a lot of score has to be able to exist in a subverted format, so I generally like to start by looking for something that can exist at its most intimate level, some kind of signature harmony most of all, and explore what the film can hold motivically. Gerard was anxious that the score wasn't too traditionally melodic, and so I went something that was more modular- there’s a descending three note theme that’s sort of all over the movie, and also a parallel harmony and full that’s quite open so could be used for both wonder and also noir by twisting it a little. Of course, there 

CC: You did do a lot of distortion, right? And in terms of manipulating sounds, can you talk a little bit about instrumentation or any instruments that that you may have used to create crazy sounds that you might not have done normally? 

AW:  Gerard was really attracted to traditional horror action colors like anvils, low percussion and brass, and string orchestra, but he felt like there was an aspect missing- and so I started to experiment with distortion and industrial synths. It seemed like a stark contrast at first, but then began to make a lot of sense to implement those colors when M3gan was being violent-breaking her facade as an innocent doll, and revealing her superior robotic force! I got together with my synth programmer and we harvested as many warped industrial sounds as we could. It was really fun to weed through them, and objectively listen to all of them in the cold light of day. You keep processing them and then start infusing them into some of the thematic ideas, which I think really made an interesting sonic print on the score. There’s an altercation M3gan's has with Gemma (played by Allison Williams) towards the end of the film, and as she’s talking and as she becomes slightly unhinged, a little bit of a synth texture percolates through the organic facade. It’s a track called “Megan's Fantasy” and it’s an example of the cocktail of the musical elements, all within a piece of underscore.

CC: When you were brought on to this project? Did you start composing early, just in the script format, or did you actually start composing when you saw footage? 

AW:  Gerard had big Musical ambitions for M3gan. She needed to be able to sing and dance, and even compose her own lullaby, and so as well as having a composer who could handle the horror aspect, he was looking for someone with that kind of versatility and background to do a Disney style Song that was written into the script, and also bring that kind of fantasy and magic into M3gan’s score. I’d read the script before first meeting with Gerard and I was officially brought onto the project just before filming. We had a quick call to discuss the needs of the song, I wrote a melody which he liked, and he came back literally right away with some great lyrics, including the song’s title, “Tell me your Dreams” and then they shot the scene like the next day.  It was obvious some time before I saw the cut after the edit. Once I’d arranged the song, it really opened up possibilities for the score, in terms of M3gan’s more fantastical side. I didn’t compose the themes for the film until I was working with the cut- I really needed to see M3gan to find my way into her distinct character. 

CC: Did you have a concept in your mind that changed when you saw her or was it pretty much in line with what you had originally formed in your mind?

AW: I thought that she was going to be much more contemporary than the way that she was stylized with the kind of very classic, almost French aesthetic. She’s an amazing hybrid of this classic doll, with these incredible AI and contemporary sensibility. So, Gerard and I talked about classic noir films and scores, scores like Jerry Goldsmith’s Basic Instinct, and how to build that intrigue in. We also pushed the magical aspect of M3gan with the score, which ultimately leads to her perverse fantasy of how to parent and protect Cady.

CC: Is there something in this project that you did that you may not have done before or experimented with? 

AW: I would say definitely: a lot of the score was way out of my comfort zone, at least initially, especially the really aggressive synths. I think it will be rare that I'll have the opportunity to do scores that are as diverse as this one. M3gan’s such an unusual character, there's this vast scope inherently within her, from a doll, emulating the innocence of a child, the warmth of a parental guardian, to a violent killing machine with unbridled strength, and it definitely took me by surprise how much range she could hold!

CC: What’s next for you?  

AW: Well, I'm working with Emerald on her next movie right now, which is very cool. I'm really excited for that. It's hilarious and brilliant. And she's just a force of nature and an amazing film maker.

CC: Talk a little bit about collaborating with a director. Obviously you're bringing your own musical ideas to the table and there’s a balance to it. 

AW: Oh. 100%. And the directors that I work with, they're the ones that are making the movies that inspire everything. Gerard had such a strong influence on how the score for M3gan evolved, and he has such a broad taste and knowledge of music. Emerald obviously had really curated the soundtrack for Promising Young Woman, and the one that we’re working on now.  So, I look at the score as their scores really. And the best part is that it forces you to find something new in yourself through those collaborations. it’s a wonderful marriage of the two sensibilities, where they steer you and want you to bring the most impact to their vision. It’s wonderful to work with a director who will push you out of your comfort zone and create something new.

CC: You must stand back when the album's released, and you're like, I made that. An hour-long record for a feature film, that must be so rewarding. 

AW: It's never completely real until one or two things happen, or both, which is you see it on a screen either in your home on Amazon or Netflix or going to the theater and seeing the poster, or opening Apple Music and seeing the soundtrack exist in the market place. I love that moment because the mirror goes away a little. You can finally let go and see it sitting in the metropolis alongside everything else. When I think back to the start of the process, and how alien and fragile everything feels, it’s really cool to see it fully formed.

CC: Anything solo? Do you compose music just for you? 

AW: Yes absolutely- I think it’s really important to have an outlet for your passion, and to experiment outside the pressures of a film of commercial projects to nurture your ideas and tastes. Right before lockdown, I recorded some choral music. My friend Holly Sedillos, put a lovely choir together, and it turned out to be the last time that those singers could perform and record together for some time. Of course, the most beloved and successful composers are those who managed to bring this same passion their professional projects, which gives the music a life and audience that it otherwise might not find.

I think every composer who's fallen in love with music is just trying to recreate the same feeling that they had when they fell in love with their idols. And the idea that you could one day create that same feeling in other people is what drives you. I’ve also really enjoyed taking music from my films and performing it live. In the summer of 2021 I was invited to perform at the Málaga Film Festival which was a really special experience. I did some small chamber ensemble suites of music from a lot of my projects and took them to Malaga with their brilliant musicians. It’s really wonderful to bring music from the films into your life outside as an artist.

M3GAN is now in theaters!