As a lead up to the 2026 Canadian Screen Awards, Core is shining the spotlight on some of our nominated composers with a series we call, "THE ART OF FILM SCORING”, where we interview, probe and prompt composers to talk about their process. 

Martin Mull once said, “Talking about music is like dancing about architecture”. So hard is it to talk about music in words, and yet composer and filmmaker must use their words to find the inner essence of the story in music. In the coming weeks, we’ll be talking about talking about music - starting with composer STEPH COPELAND and her CSA nominated score for IT FEEDS.

A. Hi Steph, congrats on your CSA nomination. Can you talk a bit about your relationship with director Chad Archibald?

S. Creating the score for It Feeds was part of a long collaborative relationship between Chad and I. Over the years, we've worked on eleven Black Fawn productions together, five of those with Chad Archibald directing, so we really have a shorthand. There’s a lot of trust, and we can move pretty intuitively. A big part of our creative collaboration for It Feeds was finding ways to pay homage to classic horror while building an otherworldly sonic identity, especially when we delve into uncharted metaphysical realms in the story. 

We approached the score as three distinct worlds, each with its own palette, with the goal of balancing the weight of trauma and grief with the language of classic horror.

A. What were those 3 worlds, and how would you describe them?

S. Chad and I broke it down like this…

Under Hypnosis: When Cynthia puts her patients into a hypnotic state to reveal their hidden trauma, we added heavy atmosphere meant to feel like a thick fog in the patients minds, weighing them down. I had the pleasure of working with the incredible Will Lamoureux who provided ultra processed electric violin for sweeps and bends as signals that emerge from the "fog". As Cynthia traverses the minds of her patients using her clairvoyant ability, we hear ethereal voices meant to symbolize her guiding presence, leading the patient to safety. Here’s an example:

https://on.soundcloud.com/GYil82NWSIOHjYNU9d

The Real World: Here we used acoustic instruments to anchor us to a feeling of home and safety, then pulling the rug out from underneath that feeling. Violin, bass and piano along with wooden instrument textures, percussive hits and noisy acoustic pulses in combo with clustered brass swells and more traditional orchestra for classic horror. It’s in the real world where the threat comes to exist...

https://on.soundcloud.com/HPfrN4EQ301MaWaygU

The Entities Mind: We wanted to create a world that felt organic yet foreign, and hollow but also claustrophobic, so we used the Lyra 8 (organismic drone synth) because what else would you use for the sound inside of a demon’s mind? Combined with bending processed brass and distorted traditional percussion to give the feeling that this entity is both timeless and ancient:

https://on.soundcloud.com/tTu85kMeTGwWjOQvXI

A. How do you know when you’ve found the central theme to the story in music? How do you know when that magic has been unlocked?

S. I think a good sign is when you can carry the main melody over other pivotal moments in the film and you're still feeling connected to the character's journey. Sometimes I aim my main theme at some hidden subtext in the story that might not be evident on the surface. If the music can carry a bit of that undercurrent, that usually signals I've found something special to run with.

A. A lot of weight is put on the idea of musical “themes” but themes and motives aren’t always just a catchy melody are they?

S. That’s right, a musical theme or “motif” can be a sequence of intervals, or it can be a rhythm, a texture, an harmonic progression, or even just a single percussive sound. A motif can be any element (subtle or overt) that attaches itself to a particular idea in the narrative.

A. What’s your favourite part of the process? Is it when you sit down and find the first golden nuggets of the score, or is it in the development and recording, or is it when it’s all over and you see everything synced to picture, properly mixed with all of the other sound elements?

S. A little bit of each, for sure. Getting started is incredibly satisfying because you have a blank canvas with a focussed mission, but you get to dig around in the crate for sounds and melodies. The first spark of an idea always gives a dose of instant gratification. Once we get further into the themes and ideas have had a chance to soak in for a while, bringing in session players to put that top layer sheen on the cue, breathes new life and jump starts the whole scoring process. That's when things get really exciting and momentum builds. When it all comes together in the final mix and you can stand back and appreciate the story as one ubiquitous form, it's incredibly rewarding.

It’s been a full decade since Jesse Zubot first made a mark in the world of film scoring. After beginning on short films, the B.C.-based composer/musician/producer collaborated with good friend Dan Mangan in arranging and creating the score for the 2014 feature film Hector And The Search For Happiness, and there’s been no looking back.

“I’ve done multiple films every year since then,” he explains. “Through Hector, I met film producer Christine Haebler, of Screen Siren Pictures, and she helped me get other work.”

Notable entries on his filmography include Indian Horse, Monkey Beach, and Two Lovers And A Bear, and acclaimed feature Bones of Crows,  co-composed with Wayne Lavallee, which earned a 2023 Canadian Screen Music Award, further boosting Zubot’s profile.

He’s now one of Canada’s most prolific movie composers, and 2024 will see the release of no less than five films he’s scored. The feature film Inedia, and documentaries Curl Power and  Resident Orca, are jointly scored by Jesse and brother Josh Zubot; Red Fever is a collaboration with Indigenous blues singer Pura Fe; and another documentary, Nechako, will feature a solo Jesse Zubot score.

“I’m really excited about Inedia, as it has a unique score,” says Zubot. “It’s not quite horror, but a dark and intense psychological drama. It explores the darkness of how it really is, as opposed to being a way over-the-top horror film.”

His current workload is so full that Zubot has enlisted two collaborators for a new venture: “I’ve formed a film scoring team, along with my brother Josh and Jason Sharp [who earned a 2023 SOCAN Award for International TV Music]. Our first score as a team is an upcoming documentary about renowned Canadian architect Arthur Erickson.

“I’ve become so busy, I felt I needed help,” says Zubot. “Josh is naturally talented with composition, and as brothers we just understand each other telepathically. I’ll come up with a bunch of material, then I ask him to send me things. Usually, it’s, like, ‘Whoa, I’d never have thought of that,’ and I find this is elevating our scores.”

Both Zubot brothers are recognized as virtuoso violinists, and the instrument plays a crucial role in Jesse’s film work. “Perhaps 60 percent of all my scoring stems from violin,” he says. “Sometimes it may not sound like it, as the way I play, and use the instrument can be very abstract and unique. Often, I’ll start composing for a film with just violin through a mic, using different kinds of delays and reverbs to create atmospheres, from the get-go. I like to compose through my initial reaction to what I’m feeling. I’ll just lay down improvised ideas, then start editing and constructing.

“As I’m classically trained, I know how to write and arrange music in the traditional sense. With film scoring, strings are pretty huge. I’ll often create 80 per cent of score alone, and then get my string player friends to come and create larger more orchestral beds on top of that.”

Zubot brings a formidable arsenal of skills to his film career. He’s won three JUNO Awards as a member of roots duo Zubot & Dawson, and as part of the adventurous ensembles Great Uncles of the Revolution and Fond of Tigers. He’s also contributed string arrangements to such artists as Hawksley Workman, Stars, Old Man Luedecke, and Dan Mangan.

Perhaps most notably, he produced Tanya Tagaq’s 2014 Polaris Prize- and JUNO-winning album Animism, and its follow-up, Retribution, and has toured extensively with her.

Despite his in-demand status as a film composer, Zubot continues to fill other musical roles, including international live dates this year accompanying FYEAR (a project led by Jason Sharp), and U.S. saxophonist/composer Darius Jones.

“Film is now my main thing, but it’ll never be just that,” he says. “I’ve been a musician my whole life, and I’ll always need to play concerts, create albums, and do other work.”

https://www.socanmagazine.ca/features/jesse-zubot-cant-stop-scoring/

Infinity Post & VFX’s Gary Shaw, Core Music Agency’s Ari Wise, and Maverick Post’s Gregor Phillips reflect on the year that was, and share their plans for 2024

by Sabrina Rani Furming

There is an art to film scoring, and Core Music Agency’s company philosophy is to support the artists who practice this art, says Ari Wise, the agency’s founder and director. And in 2023, Core’s artists worked their magic on a whopping 181 productions. Although Wise describes the number as “a lot of projects,” he notes that Core wasn’t immune from the Hollywood strikes. “We had to hustle a little harder last year, and we did see a drop in business from 2022, but overall, we faired pretty well,” says Wise. 

coremusicagency.com

“It’s a testament to the hard work that our agents do, and it’s a bigger testament to the work that our composers do. We’re nothing without our talent. We’re nothing without our composers.”

These composers include Mark Korven (whose credits include The Lighthouse, The Witch, and Night Swim, the last of which opened in early January), Jesse Zubot, Red Heartbreaker, Graeme Coleman, Matthew Rogers, Terry Frewer, Wayne Lavallee, and dozens more. Their work is heard in a variety of projects, including features and short films, documentaries, television series, animated projects, video games, and more.

“We have a diverse roster [of composers] with different skills and backgrounds of expertise,” says Wise, who started the company 17 years ago after scoring projects for many years. “We don’t pigeon-hole composers. 

Most of our composers are very good at doing many different kinds of things. Our goal is to make sure they keep seeing some kind of success. We work on a wide range of different things. I like to think that we have somebody for everybody.”

Core’s trajectory was set a few years ago, says Wise, and the agency’s goal for 2024 is to keep pushing that agenda along. “Our goal for 2024 is to continue to seek more challenging work for our composers,” says Wise. “We’re making bigger inroads into foreign markets and we want to push that more. That’s something we did in 2023, and we want to do more of that. We’re signing some international composers, some European composers, and some American composers. We are a Canadian company, and our mandate is to serve Canadian composers, and if I want to make some over-reaching goal statement, we want to make Canada a destination for scoring for the world. We want the world to come to Canada to score here.” 

One characteristic that makes Canadian composers so appealing is the fact that they don’t stick to one distinctive style, says Wise. “If you look at Icelandic composers, they’re notorious for having a certain kind of style, and I don’t see that in Canada,” he says. “Canada has such a wide variety of people, and a practice of respecting different cultures. A lot of our composers have studied overseas, and they’re bringing that world knowledge back here, so you can get anything you want in Canada. There’s no Canadian style, but I do see a Canadian work ethic. I see a Canadian character that should be very appealing to the world in how hard we work, how we do things, how collaborative we are, and how much we respect the filmmaker and the process. That’s what I see from Canada in terms of a Canadian composer national identity. We’re humble. We’re collaborative workers. We’re not insane artists who demand attention.”

And one thing Wise is not worried about in 2024 is AI. “Every film festival I go to and every conference I go to, there’s always a panel on AI, and so far, every panel I’ve gone to has a part where they go, ’Here’s how AI scored this scene,’ and they use different AI platforms, and in every case, the audience erupts in laughter because it’s so ridiculously bad,” says Wise. “Everyone is worried about how AI will change the industry, and composers are maybe worried the most. But, in the end, we’re confident that if humans are still making movies, they’ll want humans to score them.”

ARI WISE ON THE VALUE OF THE VPA: “Composers who are moving here, they reach out to me, and I can’t represent everybody, but if I recognize talent and I can see that they’re highly qualified or they just have some sort of promise or spark, I say, The first thing you should do is join the Screen Composers Guild, and then join the VPA. That’s how you’re going to get to network, how you’re going to get to know the people who may bring you to the table. The bottom line is people don’t work with companies. People work with people, even if they’re working for companies, so you have to meet those people, and you have to like those people. You should like the people you work with, and the best way to do that is engaging in community activities and meeting them and talking to them and working with them, and the VPA provides that milieu. I can’t say enough good things about it.”