Check out ReviewFix’s exclusive interview with composer and musician Sarah McGuinness, known for her work on the recent Eddie Izzard documentary, “Believe.”
Review Fix: How difficult is it to write music for a film, compared to the way you would regularly?
Sarah McGuinness: It’s interesting ; there’s more freedom structurally in some ways, because you can spread things out over the course of a scene and only need to hit the key points musically, rather than delivering relentlessly every few seconds as in a song. You don’t have the tight three minute structure where you must adhere to the verse/bridge/chorus for it to work.
On the other hand it is a learning curve as to when to play and when to shut up! Sometimes unexpected silence can have a great dramatic impact when you’ve got used to hearing music throughout. It can create a very effective emotional shock, a kind of nakedness, which works well for documentary.
The device I suggested for this movie was to have the same relentless lyric and melody in many different, sometimes unrecognizable forms throughout, reflecting the character’s own journey, reaching its conclusion just as he was reaching the it himself – that it all came from his mother. That’s why you don’t hear the original simple ballad until that moment before his realization. Then everything should come together and we feel viscerally what’s behind it all, foreshadowing his own verbal admission of it. Now everyone knows about the device so it kind of spoils the surprise a bit, but when we were first playing the film in cinemas, there was a really electric moment each time we reached that point. People suddenly realized they’d been hearing the message subliminally through the music since the beginning, and everyone went really quiet and still.
That was very cool.
RF: What is your process like?
McGuinness: Generally I think about what I’m trying to say emotionally, wait for it to pop out as a phrase or a scrap of melody, and the sing it around for ages. I try to echo the natural cadence of the way I’d say something I’m feeling in the melody. Then I layer on top a sung bass line, a sung harmony and a rudimentary rhythm, before I go anywhere near the studio. That way I can stay really free and not get caught up with existing chord structures. Instead I sing each note in each chord just as I feel it, and only later piece it all together with piano, bass and rhythm. It works for me.
RF: In the “Believe” documentary, you perform the various songs in a bevy of different ways. How difficult was that?
McGuinness: It was a bit of an acting job, really. I tried to imagine myself in each of the time periods – an early 60’s session singing girl groupette doing a jingle for a washing up liquid campaign; an Ian Curtis wannabe in a long wide shouldered black coat for some of the 80’s underscoring and of course, Annie Lennox for other parts of that section! The most fun was imagining it was circa ’72 Bowie with a bevy of wild backing singers and a fabulous guitarist. Of course – in my mind – I was wearing some kind of spangly bodysuit and outrageous platform boots.
RF: When was the moment you decided to be a musician?
McGuinness: I don’t remember ever not being one! I started as early as I can remember (playing violin, would you believe) – but singing was always my release.
RF: Often times, it is a musician’s journey that defines them, what has your adventure in music been like and how has it made different?
McGuinness: It took me years to build up confidence in what I was doing, and I lost it very easily many times along the way. Now it’s finally coming together, but I know the struggle to get to this point has made me better able to write, to empathize and to communicate through my songwriting. I know people can relate to what I do now in a way they couldn’t before because I’ve reached a kind of honesty that you can only learn the hard way..
I feel like I’ve had a hard apprenticeship but it’s been so worth it.
RF: What are you working on now?
McGuinness: I actually haven’t announced this yet but I am excited to say we are working on a movie musical based in London in the 1980’s. After doing so much with my music career, and then working on the documentary, it seemed like the next logical step and I am thrilled to be part of it. I’ve also been writing the songs for a solo album, which will be a collection of very personal tracks that I’ve been developing for some time.
Leave a Reply