'Prodigal Son' composer Nathaniel Blume says Blake Neely told him to never be afraid to 'select all and delete'
Nathaniel Blume is one of the most dynamic composers working on screen today. His talent for crafting memorable musical interplays can be heard on Fox’s crime series 'Prodigal Son', and he is also responsible for composing the music for CNN’s '1968: The Year That Changed America', a four-part documentary series, as well as 'The Eighties', 'The Nineties', and 'The 2000s' from 'The Decades' series, all from executive producers Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman.
Additionally, Blume has co-composed several hit series with Blake Neely, including CNN’s documentary series 'The Movies', which traces the impact of movies on our culture, as well as 'The Sixties' and 'The Seventies' from 'The Decades' series.
MEA WorldWide (MEAWW) got a chance to speak with Blume about his recent projects as well as what the experience of working remotely has been like for him.
When you did the music for 'The Movies' series, did you delve into the music of each respective decade in order to get a feel for each era, or was it more of an overarching theme?
Blake (Neely) and I had already set up more of a timeless approach to 'The Decades' series on CNN, and 'The Movies' was no different. It’s especially effective when you’re dealing with a series of clips from all kinds of different films. The best way to transition from 'A Clockwork Orange' to 'The Godfather' is not necessarily to sound like either one of those scores.
Most likely, the best way to make that transition is to follow the lead of the narrative. So we’d ask ourselves about the narrative, "why are we making this transition and how can we enhance the historical context that is being conveyed?" Some of those films will inevitably have a score attached to the film already, and we had to stay clear of those instances. There is a specific theme for 'The Movies' that usually plays at the end of each episode, and you can hear variations on that theme all through the score spanning each decade, tying everything together.
What was your thought process when creating the signature theme for a complex character like Malcolm Bright in the 'Prodigal Son'? As characters change and evolve over the course of a season, how does that affect the underlying score?
If I’m being honest, there wasn’t a whole lot of thought that went into the theme itself. I read the script and it just kind of came out. I sent a 5-minute suite to Chris Fedak who was in New York shooting the pilot and he specifically called out the part of the suite that used the theme on solo piano in a haunting way. So naturally, that theme just blossomed from there. I had a lot of fun with it throughout the season.
In Episode 7, when it’s clear there’s no other option than to uncuff Martin, it starts with a variation on that theme in the piano and some discordant harmonies in the strings. Eventually, it makes its way to a big, more tonal statement of the theme. In Episode 9, Malcolm is trying to get some information out of someone who has been led to believe she’s at his apartment to have sex with him. It’s a dance because the two of them are being persistent in what they want out of the other one, so I was able to use the theme as a quasi-waltz.
What challenges did you face while recording musicians remotely for 'The Prodigal Son'?
The pandemic provided some big challenges, as has been the case for everyone. Usually, we record on a nice stage with a 40-piece string orchestra. That had to be rethought when the stay-at-home orders came about. So we ended up having everyone, including myself, my scoring assistant, the orchestrator, the musicians, and the mixer working by themselves in their own homes.
For logistical reasons, we couldn’t use as many musicians. But we had a 7-piece string group, some of whom recorded multiple passes. I sent them the music, they recorded on their own time, and then they sent it back to me. It takes out some of the fun of collaborating live, but that seemed to be the best method considering the time constraints of the post-production schedule.
Was there anything that distinctly stood out about the music on 'Prodigal Son' that made you particularly pleased with how the music turned out?
The pilot for 'Prodigal Son' is being submitted for Emmy consideration and that will always be near and dear to me. While the pilot process is grueling and extremely difficult, it’s also the birthplace of all of these ideas. That’s where the emotional main theme was introduced. It’s also where we set the tone for how we were going to do action, and the 'hand' sequence is still one of my favorite action scenes from the show. I think we established how we were going to be a little bit off the beaten path of a procedural throughout the pilot. Of course, it strayed even further throughout the season, but had we not established some of those things in the pilot then I’m not sure we could have gone where we ended up.
Blake Neely was your mentor and longtime collaborator in the CW Superhero universe - what advice or insights has he shared that has helped you in your professional career?
He still is my mentor and collaborator! We do 'The Flash' together. Before I started working with him, he was one of my professors at USC. And I’ll never forget one thing he told our class. "Never be afraid to 'Select All' and 'Delete." In fact, I think he went further to say that if you have to, throw that file in the trash and empty the trash.
One thing that is especially common among young composers is that you get really precious about your work. You’ve created something and you’re proud of it, and you should be. However, sometimes it’s just not working. It doesn’t mean it’s bad, but it’s just not right for that situation and you have to know when to abandon ship and start fresh. It’s so difficult to do sometimes, it really is. More times than not, when I’ve used that advice in the right situation, I like the new idea I’ve come up with infinitely more. Because it’s far more satisfying when it’s the right piece of music for the scene.