"Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead" is a reimagining of a cult classic. How did you approach creating a soundtrack that honors the original while bringing something fresh and new to this version?
Something about the spirit of the original 1991 film just felt fresh in today's world. It cuts against a trend toward edgy realism you see in a lot of teen-focused entertainment these days (think: "Euphoria"). But the original "Don't Tell Mom" is really quite innocent in its mischief, and that was a key ingredient we wanted to capture and recontextualize for today. It was more about inhabiting that 90s headspace and letting the music emerge from there vs. trying to make it sound like the original. That approach helped us stay true to the tone of the original while leaving enough room to explore and do our own thing.
The director Wade Allain-Marcus and I grew up together, went to high school and college together, and have been close friends and collaborators for 20+ years. We are products of the 80s and 90s, so that time is inherently nostalgic for us. We would get hooked on certain movies from that era and watch them over and over again. We wanted to make something that connected in the same way with kids growing up now. It was a joy to lean into that spirit, and we definitely drew on our shared memories of younger times.
Can you describe your initial creative discussions with Wade Allain-Marcus? What were some of the key themes or emotions he wanted the music to evoke?
Wade and I talked early on about making the movie feel like a ride. We wanted it to propel from start to finish with the exuberance and wonder of unsupervised kids on summer break. To make that work, we felt that the score needed to have some big, orchestral moments that felt like a classic Hollywood film score.
The fact that the movie centers around four black siblings made the classic film score aesthetic all the more exciting and novel. None of us had really seen that treatment before…black kids being kids, first and foremost. Just fun, silly, age-appropriate hijinks. At one point, Wade gave me the direction "Black John Williams." And I thought...hmm, I'm not black and I'm not John Williams, so this should be interesting. But I knew what he meant. We needed some of that sweeping fantasy/adventure quality to invite the audience to suspend their disbelief and enjoy the ride.
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Was there a particular scene or moment in the film where you felt the music was especially crucial in conveying the narrative? How did you approach scoring that scene?
Probably when the babysitter dies. Everyone knows it’s going to happen. It’s in the title of the movie. So the challenge was somehow making that moment poke through and still be fun and unexpected. The babysitter Ms. Sturak is played masterfully by June Squibb as an unabashedly racist (toward everyone), bible-thumping curmudgeon. On her first night, the kids throw a party, and she steps out of her room to see a pan-racial, pan-sexual scene with teens drinking, smoking weed, twerking, etc., and she is utterly horrified.
In the original, Ms. Sturak dies unexpectedly in her sleep. In our version, we thought it’d be funny if she died in direct response to this party. June Squibb's facial expressions of shock and horror gave us a lot to work with, and we decided to score the scene from her perspective. I had an idea to gather sounds of ominous chanting and people speaking in tongues, which I combined with dissonant choirs and thunderous drums. I even used a pungi (snake charmer instrument). Totally over the top. But that was the point. For Ms. Sturak, the party feels like an evil pagan ritual designed to destroy her. And sure enough, it does.
How did you and Wade ensure that the music would enhance the film's pacing and comedic timing?
The score was mostly about punctuation. We had 40+ cues in the movie, many of them as short as 15-30 seconds, but they interact with the scene in an overt, intentional way. A good example is Kenny’s iconic line, “the dishes are done, man.” The scene starts with Kenny (Donielle Hainsley Jr.) lounging by the pool, oversized sunglasses blotting out the world, half-smoked blunt in the ashtray next to him. The music starts with soft pizzicato strings, celesta, and flutes. It’s tranquil, almost angelic - a reflection of Kenny’s inner state as he tries to ignore his sister’s pleas to clean up. The music stops abruptly when Tanya yells, “do a goddamn dish, man!” as if he’s shaken out of his reverie. Then it comes back strongly with the downbeat on a hard cut to Kenny swinging a baseball bat, using the dishes for batting practice, shattering one after another. Now we get the full orchestra, heavy on the brass, swelling like a fanfare for unruly adolescents and falling away just in time to set up the famous line.
The film blends different genres, including comedy and drama. How did you balance these tones musically?
I like juxtaposition in music and really do not like music that’s too on-the-nose. I try to avoid sentimental strings under a sentimental monologue, for example. Wade’s allergic to that too. So, whenever possible, we had the music play against the action on screen. There were a few moments where we started to feel like we were trying too hard for a laugh or to pull on the heartstrings, and we ended up taking music out and letting the scene play dry. Strategic use of silence is also a great way to keep balance.
Were there any specific instruments or sounds that you felt were essential in capturing the spirit of the film?
Wade was reading about John Hughes at the time, and he told me about this philosophy Hughes had about portraying kids as normal and relatable while making adults seem like the unsteady, off-kilter ones. I loved that idea of delineating between ‘kid world’ and ‘adult world’ and underscoring the conflict that arises when they collide. What it translated to musically was, whenever we were with the kids alone at the house, the score was orchestral - that classic film score sound - at times grand and magical. We wanted to take the kids seriously and make what they were doing feel important.
But in the adult world, like when the protagonist Tanya (Simone Joy Jones) fakes her way into a job at a fashion company, the score shifts away from classical to jazz (which is what I imagine kids think all adults listen to) and conspicuous percussion like woodblock. It creates this sense of awkwardness and being out of place. Like a flamingo at a business conference.
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The original movie has a certain '90s vibe. Did you incorporate any musical elements or motifs from that era into your score?
That was one of the early ideas we kicked around (a synth-driven 90s-style score like the original), but we decided against that. With one exception. At the end of the movie, just before the credits, we use a little bit of the original score by David Newman. It’s a piece of music a lot of fans of the original instantly recognize, so it’s a nostalgic crowd-pleaser, but it also works really well emotionally in the moment. And in keeping with our whole approach to the movie, which Wade described as more of a “remix” than a remake, I made a hip-hop beat by sampling that original cue, and that’s what plays when the end credits roll.
Working with Susan Jacobs and Paul Cantelon early in your career must have been formative. Did any lessons from those experiences come into play while working on "Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead"?
It was absolutely formative. Sue is a legend, and she taught me so much. For example, in searching for songs to place in scenes, she encouraged me to consider the music away from picture and sound. That forces you to think more in terms of how music speaks to the meaning of the scene vs. exactly how it sits functionally in the scene. The latter is super important obviously, but it's a different part of the process. Thinking about music away from picture broadens your aperture, lets you explore and try things you might not have thought of if you didn't let your mind go in that free-associative way.
Working with and observing Paul was also such a privilege. He showed me the kind of work ethic and sustained effort required to do this at the professional level. When he was working on “The Other Boleyn Girl,” he'd be there at the office writing 12+ hours per day. Sometimes in his slippers. Endless cups of tea. He worked like hell but never lost his good humor.
If there's anything that up-and-coming filmmakers struggle with more than anything else, it's lighting. Even though most of us can pull off a basic three-point lighting setup with a key, fill, and backlight, dramatic narrative lighting is often far more complex and multi-faceted than any simple setup can provide. Unfortunately, we all don't have the budget for highly complex lighting setups with a multitude of lights and modifiers. Most of us are stuck with a few lights (at best) and a few small or DIY modifiers. Luckily, this is 2014, and literally anything can be learned on YouTube, even dramatic lighting for narrative films with a minimal budget. Neil Oseman, who shot a fantasy/action feature in 2005 called Soul Searcher, recently uploaded a 10-minute masterclass on how he lit the film, and it is delectably educational.
Jonathan Scott Friedman
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