‘Dragon Mom’ (original score by CP)
I just wrapped up creating my first film score, for an amazing doc created by my friend Harrison Buck and his team - ‘Dragon Mom.’ The film is about a young disabled boy named Alden who faces immense challenges and is also incredibly full of life. Adaptive skiing gives him a powerful outlet, facilitated by his amazing mother. It’s a moving short film and I loved creating the score. Harrison and I worked together to create a sonic palette, and a variety of moods/phases that the film moved through. I got to work right away and figured out a group of instruments and a collective sound that would support some mysterious, out of time, emotive phrases on the banjo. While the banjo is the center of my performing career, I only use it in projects like these when it really calls for it. In this case it was Harrison’s idea and it fit beautifully. I urned in 2 pieces, and after some editing we know we were on the right track. I spent the next month in my studio building out the rest of the score, covering the remaining pieces of the film and the energy it moves through. I would often put the footage on the screen in front of my and just try different passages and tonalities until something was matching. Then I would almost immediately hit record and work through different iterations of the melodies, stating and restating themes, and flowing between them with sparse improvisations that kept to the feeling I was trying to transmit. There’s a lot of mystery in the music, as their is in the film. This is not a typical story, and the subjects are not typical humans, so the music hopefully matches the wonder in this story. Check out the trailer and stay tuned for the whole film, coming soon.