CineConcerts met with composer Jongnic Bontemps to discuss his score to the new film Transformers: Rise of the Beasts!

CineConcerts (CC): At what moment in your life did you realize that you wanted to compose for film, TV, and games?

Jongnic (J): When I was four years old and my mom wanted to hear the organ in the house, so she forced me to take organ lessons that soon morphed into piano lessons. And the piano became my best friend during middle and high school.

I did everything music in those formative years. I played with jazz bands. I played accompanying other singers. I wrote songs, I sang in the chorus. So, music was always a big part of my adolescence. It was never supposed to be my vocation because I saw so many of my talented teachers that were way better piano players than I could ever hope to be sure. And they all live at home with their mom’s giving lessons. So, I was like, you know what? This is not the life that I want. I'm going to go off and do something different. I'm going to be a lawyer, right?

So, when I went to college, I still decided to study music because it was what I love to do. But my thought was, I'll take the LSAT and I will just go to law school. So doesn't really matter what I do undergrad wise. Well, I took my LSAT and I wasn't going to law school, so I ended up getting into computers. Now, this was the beginning of the dot-com era, so we're talking about 1996. And they were looking basically for warm bodies to help build these websites. It was the time of AOL and chat rooms and e-commerce was just coming on board. So, it was a great time to get in it. Now, I'd always loved computers. I was a kid who actually also got the magazines with the computer programs, and it would take two days to type in the programing and debug it in my big twenty and my tape machine to record the actual program on the tape machine. So, I was always a computer nerd. And even early on I was doing music and computers through digital workstations, that kind of stuff. It was always some of the things that I really enjoyed.

So, I fell into it. I got hired and I started in a 15-year career doing software, teaching myself active server pages in Java, and eventually found myself leading product management for a Silicon Valley startup that was eventually bought by HP. At that point I asked myself, well, what do I want to do in life? What do I want to be world famous at? What I want to dedicate my life to? And was software really it? I'm good at it. I have a lot of runway. I can make a lot of money, blah blah blah. But I'm not quite sure this is what I want to invest my life in.

During that time, I started thinking about music and it started small. I just started playing the piano. Then I started playing in my church and I was never really good enough to be the first pianist because these church musicians are always ridiculous. I was like the third pianist, you know, the guy that would show up and just do the runs here and there. But still, I enjoyed that experience. Then randomly, I found this program called GarageBand, and I just started playing around with GarageBand and I guess the dormant music making ability came out. I started making some stuff and I shared it with a friend and she said, that sounds like film music. I was like, wait, there's music in film? Wait, somebody actually gets paid to do this? I don't believe this.

And then I said, you know what? I think I want to do that. I can do that!

Looking back at that moment, I was like the hubris of what I thought, that I could just make this transition. So, I started doing research. I met a bunch of people, started going to San Francisco. I was in Northern California at the time, so I actually went up to San Francisco. I started hanging out the school called Pyramind, which was a music production/ school/ community. Met some other people. I eventually met this guy named Clint Bajakian, who was the head of game music for Sony PlayStation at the time. So, he took me under his wing and he said, if you really want to do this thing, you basically have to erase your past and go to USC because no one's going to hire you to do film music at this point. So, I figured I have to go to USC.  

I went down there, visited, and I was able to coerce one of the professors there to give me private lessons. And I would fly down from Northern California to L.A. about twice a month to take private lessons. I did that for, I think, about nine months to a year. And then after that, I actually had a portfolio of stuff that I wasn't ashamed of and all the while I kept talking to everybody at USC, the director at the time, law professors visiting classes, attending sessions. So, they knew me. So, by the time my application showed up, they knew who I was. They knew my spirit, my desire to do this. And I actually had some music that didn't suck. So, they let me in. And I guess the rest is kind of history.

CC: That's amazing, your life went full circle. Because you started at a young age and it kind of defined you at that time and maybe it had been your calling all along.  

J: It is so true. And I think that's why it's important to have role models, because having or coming from a Caribbean background, my mom is Jamaican, my father is Haitian. They both came to this country at a young age and built a life here. Being an artist wasn't anything that we ever talked about. Also, seeing composers that look like me wasn't really even a thing. So, it was never really a possibility in my mind to do this. I always liked writing music and I was writing for the band, writing for myself, working electronic music, the whole nine. But I never thought of it as a career. Never even occurred to me as even as a possibility.

Well, you could say that maybe if I had known this thing and I had known I would be a film composer from the minute I hit the world, maybe that would have been different for me. But quite honestly, looking back, now is the time for me to do it. When I came in 12, 13 years ago, that was just the beginning of people looking for new voices, people lived experiences. And if I had come in earlier, maybe I wouldn't have been as welcomed.

And then the other thing, too, is, having a career in software where my job was to take requirements from the business, from marketing, probably to work with the developers, work with QA, a whole team and create a product that then they could actually go ahead and sell. All those skills are being employed today as a film composer, because my job is really to take the requirements from the director, the producers, the studio, work with the team and create a musical product that helps tell the story. So, all of those skills of being able to lead, communicate all that stuff that I forged during software, they're coming in so handy, actually essential today.

CC: I think that's what people don't realize, they just think that you've inherited these gifts and it just kind of comes to you and you get lucky. But no, scientific, analytical stuff is similar and they weave together. I think that gives you a unique perspective.

J: Oh, no, absolutely. I mean, there's a huge relationship synergy between music and math and music and computer science, right? In computer science you're using a language to create something that does this particular task. Same thing. Music, you're using the language of music to get a certain result, right? That's what film music is all about.

It's not I'm just going to create this thing because I feel like it, right? I'm creating because I want to get a certain result. I want to support a certain dramatic moment. I want to support a particular journey for a character. So, it's those inputs and then creating something, using the rules of music to get a result. And that's exactly what computer science is.

CC: So, let's dive into your music. Talk a little bit about how you got involved in this project. How did it how did you get on board?

J: I call it a sort of Cinderella story, but one of my mentors and teachers, Bruce Broughton, calls it more like the little train that could. I think I can. I think I can. And I finally got there.

So, remember that whole thing I had to go to USC? Well, it was not only because I had to erase my past, because when you go to a school like USC, nobody cares what happened before. It's like you went to us and you start.

I also had the opportunity to meet a ton of filmmakers along with the problem, because, of course, there's the School of Cinematic Arts right across the street from USC, and they encourage us to work on all of the productions that are coming out of USC, and they do everything from short form content to feature film content and episodic stuff. So, there's a lot of content that comes out of that and they all need music. So, they encourage us, our little class of 20, our cohort of 20, to go out there and meet a bunch of filmmakers like in the real world and start writing music for their projects.

So, one of the filmmakers I met early on was this guy named Steven Caple Jr. I worked on his very first short film at USC. Then I guess I did a good enough job because he asked me to do his next short film at USC. Then I did his first feature that went to Sundance, then on and on, so that by the time he was tapped to do Transformers: Rise of the Beast, he put my name into the ring. So that's how I was introduced to the project. But of course, you know, that relationship alone is not going to allow you to be hired to do that kind of project.

So, I didn't walk in saying, I'm the director's guy. I got the job. That was not the case whatsoever. I got an introduction. So, when the studio finally called and said, we know about this guy, JB, what's going on? Can we have a meeting? My agent said to me, okay, listen, you've been doing some work. You know, by this point I think maybe I had like 100 some odd credits to my name. But a lot of it was short films, documentaries, and maybe two TV shows, but nothing that required the music at the level of epic-ness for a Transformers movie, right?

My agent said, the studio called, they asked for some music and you don't have anything on your reel that warrants a Transformer score. So, they said we need you to go and write about 10 minutes of music that would sound like a Transformers movie. Go get it professionally recorded in L.A. with L.A. musicians, have a videographer show up and record the entire recording session. Have you be interviewed and talk about your process of making this music, Then hire a professional editor to put all that footage, that music and footage from the past movies together in a six-minute pitch reel that we can send to the studio. And we need it in two weeks. Oh, by the way, it's going to cost $20,000.

After I picked myself up off the floor and I went home and talked to my wife, said, Honey, this is what needs to happen. Now, we were saving money for a house, but I need to take some of that money and invest in this thing. And she's like, is there any other way to do it? I can't see any other way, because I don't have anything that really is going to tell the studio that I can do this. So, she said, okay. And about two and a half, three weeks later, I had a pitch ready to go off to the studio and it was crickets.. I didn't hear anything for about a month, maybe two. And this is like April of 2021. Maybe around May or June. I had a meeting with the Head of Music at Paramount, Randy Spendlove, and it was a great first meeting. We were still on Zoom because of the pandemic. So, we had a nice interaction. He felt really good about it and he asked, do we have any of your music? I was like…

Obviously, I took a deep breath and I said, actually, I don't know if you do, but I have this great pitch that I put together. Let me send it to you. Let me get your email and I'll directly send it to you.  I send it to him. I say, okay, great, I'm going to get a call back. Crickets. Nothing. And by this point, you know my director, Steve, and he's off in Montreal, starting the production movie. I'm not going to bother him because he's knee deep in production and then it's still crickets. I didn't really hear anything concrete until it was October of 21. I was coming back from the Critics’ Choice Awards because I was nominated for My Name is Pauli Murray, the score for that. And Steven Caple Jr called me. I was on the airport coming back to L.A., and he's like, I just got back from Peru. We're wrapping up. We're going in to talk music tomorrow. What's our strategy? And I'm like, Whoa! We went from like crickets to go time in a matter of, like, 10 minutes. Probably about, I would say maybe 2 to 4 weeks later, the deal was signed and I was the composer for Transformers: Rise of the Beast.

CC: What a stressful but amazing period of time. It just goes to show you how composers have to work. You have to be really flexible. But at the same time, you have to really put your creative hat on in a matter of two weeks. I mean, what you're talking about is not easy.

J: No, it was not. And again, it stretched me tremendously because I had never really produced music at this level. Obviously, I had done a few things for my USC thesis program where we work with our orchestra. I had done some library music for some trailer stuff, I'd done those kinds of things. But you know, to do this level of music in this short of time, I was super stressed about it, right? I mean, if I could do it and it's just going to be good enough and blah blah.

But I will say this the main theme that I wrote for that demo is actually the main theme for the Autobots in the movie.

CC: No way!

So, after you have this call and you need this in two weeks, as a composer, like what do you do? How did you process that and distill it down into, I have to write something. Do you go to the piano? Do you start doing stuff on the computer? What was the process to be able to get it to the score at the scoring session?

J: Remember that piano that I told you about, that I poured my little middle school heart out into. I still have that piano. And whenever I need to create something, I go to that piano and I start to work. And there's something just so connective and emotional for me on that instrument. It's not a great instrument. It's not a Steinway or any sort of crazy piano. It's like a little ceramic piano, a little Korean thing that's, inexpensive little upright piano. But, for whatever reason, we have history.

I was able to sit down there and start to bang out some of these tunes, and I knew I needed three tunes. I knew I needed a tune for the Autobots. I needed something for the baddies because I knew, Unicron was in the film, so I needed something for that character and then I knew that the other character was Scourge, I needed something for Scourge as well. So those three tunes came out with the piano and I tried to work because I wanted to show in the demo that's not only about the tune, but can we have a myriad of emotions for those characters.

So, it was about how could I cast this new Autobots tune into something that's heroic, something that's triumphant, something that is dire, something that's connective and emotional. So that piece of music, suite, really tried to capture all of those emotions with this one tune. So, I made sure that as I played on the piano, how would I sound with this harmonic progression or that harmonic progression or with this kind of ostinato? So, we tried to create the building blocks and give me enough at least theoretical material right around there and to really hone them in.

Then I go to the computer and it's always this do or die moment because, you know, you work at the piano and you have this idea of what the music will sound like in your head. And it usually sounds wonderful, right? You go to the computer and you start putting it in and it sounds like crap, but it's not anywhere near the level of excitement or emotionality that I wanted when I would just imagine in my head. So, then you’ve got to work through it. You're going to work past that.

Okay, so what's the problem now? The tune is fine, and maybe I need to change the, the harmonic progression a little bit. Or maybe I need to change the instrumentation a little bit. I’ve just got to keep working through it and getting it to that level that it needs to be so it matches the idea you had in your head.

We go through that process and we finally get to come up with something that I think works in the computer. Then, of course, once you have that, then you go through the whole process of orchestration, hiring an orchestra then going again and recording and having your mixer mix it. The thing is I had built a team of people over the years from all the projects and continue to believe in that team. That team continued to believe in me. So, they came on board and started working for either no money or for very little money because they believed in me. And we were like, hey, we're doing this together.

CC: When you talk about figuring out something that works, is that musically or is that an emotion? When do you say, I’ve got it?  

J: I think there's a certain point after having done this enough where you say, you know what? This works. And it's kind of a feeling, I know this works. And the backup of that is, can I remember it the next day? So, when I walk away, can I remember that tune the next day and can I sing it back? And then does it actually give me the same emotional content that I had when I was first sitting down? Because if I can't remember it and it doesn't mean anything to me, that means that the audience won’t be able to remember it, right?

So, it's really about giving it some time as well. And there's nothing like letting it bake and sit. And then during that time away from the piano, doing the dishes or spending time with family or whatever, that thing is still ruminating in the back of my mind. And maybe there'll be little variations that come up or I want to change when I go back and try that again. But it's really about giving it a little bit of element of time and seeing it stand the test of that. I mean, there are tons of ideas that I've come up with and the next day I listened to it and it sucked. And then there are a few where, you know what? No, this is actually still pretty good. And then if it lasts like a week later, it's still pretty good. Specifically, even with this Autobot theme for the movie, I said I wrote it during this demo process when I was hired and I started working on the film. I tried to get rid of it. I was like, I don't you know, this is not good. I don't need this anymore. But it just kept coming back. And I was like, you know what? Let's dive into it. And it ended up sticking to the film and really being this emotive engine that I was able to do all of this emotional work with across all of these different contexts. And it worked and it continued to work. So, it's a tune that I've been working with for two years now. So, I guess that one stood the test of time.

CC: Did you start composing to the script or did you see dailies? Or did you start composing later to a cut of the film?

J: Well, it wasn't until a little later. I was hired, let's just say it was like November of 2021. I didn't really start seeing picture until 2022. So, the first few months I was just writing away from the picture and I was just creating different kind of suites or themes away just because, it's a Transformers movie. So, I know we're going to go there. We need to be action packed or need something that's threatening. So, I was trying to capture these ideas and collect these sounds, right? So really kind of give me some material to work with so that when picture did show up, there were stuff that I can actually start to work with and see.

CC: You had like a template essentially to work from?

J: I had a template and I had some tools to work from, some sounds, some harmonic progressions, some themes, to work with. So, when the pictures started finally showing up, I actually had some stuff to start with. Now, sometimes in this process, you know, you put the stuff you had to picture and none of it works. None of this worked out the way I wanted it to. And sometimes it's close. I just need to fine tune it or break it apart and do something slightly different. And sometimes, wow, I couldn't imagine it working any better.

But you still have some stuff to try with because it's really about trying to break up that tyranny of the blank page. And when at least when you have something to start with, even if you have to start all over, it's actually way easier because we've done it once and can go back and do it again.

So, the other thing that also was very interesting was, I was hired very early on in this project, in November of 2021 and we just finished wrapping it up in May 2023? I was on if for a long time, and I guess there were two things that were in the back of my mind. One is the producers. I remember I had my first meeting with Lorenzo de Bonaventure. I was very quaking in my boots. I was a little scared because this guy's legendary. So, he gets on the zoom, he says, Welcome to Transformers. We're happy to have you. Don't f*ck it up.

I’m like, yes, sir. I will not f*ck it up. His advice was, he said, listen, composers get fired from a picture because they wait until the last minute to put any music to the picture. And then by the time we, the producers, the studio, hear it right, there's no time to do anything else besides change the composer. So, he says, I don't want that to happen here because we believe in you. So, we want to hear music as early as possible.

So, I said, okay, I understand the assignment. This is what you need. Now, everybody who I told this to, you know, more experienced composers, they're like, you shouldn't do that. You shouldn't do that because your music, if it goes into the picture and they don't like the picture, they're not going to like your music. If there’s some problem with the film they need to fix, they might think that it's your music or your music is only part of that problem.

Now, before you even had a chance to really start, you're already dead in the water. Lorenzo said he wants to see and hear music to picture as soon as possible. So, I listen to Lorenzo because again, his thought was we want to be able to give feedback early enough so we could steer you in the right direction before it's too late. So, I'm going to believe in that way.

When we had our first screening for the studio recut, I had the first reel, the first 20 minutes of the film scored, including a massive cold open that was a big action sequence. That sequence is no longer in the film, but, you know, there was a version of the cold open and I had that scored with original music. It went over great. People loved the film. The studios loved it. The music that was in it worked really well. The editors were really happy with it. And these are big time editors. And they were like, this works great. So, everybody was happy with this. It was like my first big test.

That was, I think, around March or April of 2022. And then after that, had basically been working at picture ever since. And the movie went through, obviously a bunch of iterations, a bunch of changes, a bunch of reedits, bunch of things like that. But you know what? Some of that music, not all of it, but some of that music that I wrote in that first cut is still in the movie today.

CC: It's a part of being a composer and a creative person in the industry, too, is going with your gut. And if it feels right, usually it works out. I've heard that a lot.

J: And my gut was telling me, you know what? Listen to what these folks are saying. They're not being, I don't think they're being disingenuous. I think they do want this to work out. I think that when they hire people, they want it to work out. I don't think that they're going and saying, we're just going to placate this guy because it’s what the director wants. No, I think they heard something they liked in the demo, you know, had a chance to meet me and like me as a person. So, I really thought and believed and rightly so, that this was really just about, what they said we want to hear it early enough so we can help steer it in the right direction and make sure that we are all successful.

CC: How much music did you write in total?

J: So, in the movie we have about an hour and forty-five minutes of score. It is a lot. I've probably written closer to four or five hours of music over the time.

CC: Holy moly. That's a lot of music.

J: It's a lot. We have a little folder that we call the Z old folder that has all old cues in it. I mean, it just goes on for days. Some of those things are because the picture changes. So, we had a new version of the cue, obviously, because the picture changed, some of it is I did multiple versions of a thing, and they picked one of them and some of them are whole rewrites, version eight to get this thing right. And there was version one through seven that just wasn't right, wasn't doing what it needed to do. Then they would reedit the picture and the music that was there had to fall out because it didn't work anymore with the new emotional arc or the change. So, it's a bunch of that kind of stuff.

CC: I find it really fascinating that you have this old piano that you grew up with. When you sit down at it, do you get into a zone where everything disappears? I feel like it grounds you in a really unique way for you to be able to think clearly about things.

J: It does. I mean, the entire world sort of melts away. My wife complains, you went downstairs and I didn’t see you for the past 2 hours. What happened? It was the only time.

CC: You were in the zone!

J: I was in the zone. And you're right. Everything sort of melts away, and it becomes like this almost healing space for me, you know? And you also have a world of possibility, because at that point, it's not about the computer. It's not about the orchestration and instrumentation. It's just about, do I have something that gives me the feeling that I want? And it's just pure possibility. So, I love going down there and just spending my time with the piano and trying to create something at that point in time. And I know that if it works on that instrument, it most likely will work when I move forward with it.

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts is now in theaters!