Behind the Music
Bringing the Magnificat to the small screen
Music often makes the movie. Who doesn't recall gasping upon hearing the sweeping Jurassic Park suite as the camera zoomed out to reveal the once extinct dinosaurs now stomping across the plains of the epic theme park. Or the chill in your brain when a blazing sunset was pierced with the chant "Nants ingonyama bagithi baba". For this short film, music was always going to be at the center. It had to capture the complex feelings of a righteous man being asked to do something beyond his natural strength and it had to honor a sacred prayer treasured by millions of people of faith around the world.
In choosing the tone, the creative team gained inspiration from prayer, their favorite moments in cinema history, but most of all from the story itself. Take a peek behind the scenes to hear from the director and composer, just how our musical interpretation of the Magnificat came to be...
From our composer, Paul Terry:
First and foremost, our project director, Lindsey, had a phenomenal vision for the musical score and how it would weave into the animation! From the jump, I had positive direction and purpose — all without sacrificing artistic and emotional freedom! The overall tone and design was beautifully constructed before I even started crafting, which made my role awesome — it was like I got to create my own puzzle piece that I knew had somehow already fit into the board!
The main inspiration for the musical score was about capturing the feeling of gratitude during difficulty. I wanted the orchestration to convey emotions that move and shift — hope, sadness, pain — emotions that can all converge and ultimately still live in a place of gratitude, a place of giving thanks to God through the best and worst of times. I tried to think of Mary, and her humility. Humility is not a simple, or easy thing all the time. But it is a great opportunity to give ourselves to God.
How the music pertains to Joseph during his prayer is something that I really approached from a personal standpoint. I was struggling with this during the first night, until my wife (who was instrumental in the development of the piece, through support and creative spark) helped me to find a sense of peace in God. We prayed and let the moment arrive naturally the next day. Once I was able to get into the right emotional space, I started approaching the music from Joseph’s perspective…basically, I wanted the orchestra to move as Joseph did while singing. I found that Joseph, ever so humbly, just took a moment to call out to God, to release even. Joseph re-lived some of the pain — echoes of the past few weeks, and ultimately forged forward with total faith in God’s plan.
I tried to capture the quiet strength that Joseph had during this piece, with the romantic strings capturing his patient love, and the french horns representing strength and perseverance for the most part! The harp was utilized to showcase the Divine nature of it all…like God using a paint brush!
From our writer/director, Lindsey Bruno:
When developing the tone and design for this short, I wanted it to feel raw, gritty, haunting, and heroic. The background design for the desertscape had been inspired in some ways by the DreamWorks animated classic, The Prince of Egypt (if it ain't broke, don't fix it), but on a deeper level, the tone of the film was inspired by the stories of the Star Wars universe that took place on the desert planet of Tatooine. I had the great privilege of working on the Tatooine set on the Disney+ show The Book of Boba Fett, and still have sand in my boots to prove it! When approaching the music, I wanted to take that landscape with us.
In our story, when Joseph looks at out at the sea of sand between home and Egypt (the last place he'd like to go), I saw him in a similar moment to Luke Skywalker staring at the twin suns making the choice to leave home and answer the call to adventure. We took orchestral inspiration directly from that iconic scene, but leaned the melody in a more middle-eastern direction. I'd always been deeply moved by the haunting cry of Moses' mother in Prince of Egypt, her river lullaby served as a jumping point for the direction of this song as well. In my imagination, Mary would have privately shared the song she shared with her cousin during the Visitation with her husband and Baby Jesus, before it was widely published in St. Luke's gospel. The melody had to feel feminine, though Joseph would be singing it to console himself.
When casting the voice for Saint Joseph, I wanted someone with a deep bass resonance - someone that would sound like a dune itself if a dune could sing. We were so blessed to find Robert Bigley who brought a richness and rawness to the music that we never could have imagined. A musician and composer himself, he understood the piece and brought the grace and grit we were hoping for.
We hope you love the song which is deeply character driven. We imagine Joseph felt in his spirit the psalms of God's chosen people echoing in his beautiful and holy wife's prayer.
If you’d like to join us on the journey and support our Kickstarter for Joseph: Light of Patriarchs, head over to www.kickstarter.com/projects/catholicstories/saint-joseph-animation. Get a first listen at a segment of the music by the trailer on the landing page!