A great film score does more than just accompany the picture; it acts as the subconscious of the story, revealing what the characters can’t quite say out loud. For composer Grant Fonda, music is an act of translation—turning the invisible subtext of a script into a tangible, emotional landscape.
Whether he is weaving Jewish musical idioms into the magical realism of 31 Candles or navigating the synthetic-meets-organic duality of Broken Mary, Fonda approaches every project with the mindset of a musicologist and the heart of a storyteller.
We sat down with Fonda to discuss all this and more.
Let's dive in.
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NFS: How does the creative dialogue between you and Jonah (the director) usually begin, through script, theme, or emotional tone?
Grant Fonda: Jonah and I always have a conversation about a project in its earliest stages. Whether he’s the writer/director or just the director, we’ll have a call to talk about all parts of the story, even down to the shooting schedule and how it impacts his creative trajectory. Then, he’ll send me the script to read and digest. After sitting with the story, I’ll start sketching themes, usually just with a single sung melodic line or on the piano, away from picture. Once I’ve sketched initial ideas that are resonating with me emotionally, I’ll send them to Jonah, and we’ll start talking about what resonates with him, also without picture. On every project, there’s always at least one or two themes that live in the final film in their original form; we’ve always said that there’s something really strong in storytelling about trusting your initial instincts, and, four feature films later, it seems like audiences agree with us!
NFS: What’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learned about collaboration from your long partnership?
GF: People and relationships are more important than any creative idea. Trust your collaborators, and you’ll do great things together.
NFS: In 31 Candles, music seems to act almost like a narrator. How did you design the score to weave in Jewish musical idioms and magical realism without overpowering the story’s intimacy?
GF: I love hearing that, thank you! This is definitely our most intimate film and score to date, and Jonah and I agreed early on that the score needed to feel distinctly Jewish when telling Leo’s story, but also universally accessible because the film addresses themes of love, loss, and growing up: things that every person experiences at some point at least once in their life. The film has two distinct melodic themes (Leo’s Theme and the Hope theme), both of which are almost always presented on solo instruments: piano and flute, respectively. When it’s present, the orchestra pulls us into the world of magical realism, and the piano and flute ground us with our characters.
NFS: How do you approach research in your work so that the score feels authentic?
GF: I have a soft spot for musicology and ethnomusicology! One of my favorite parts of every project is taking time before I write anything to spend time listening to music that will inform where we’re heading in the score that’s ahead. I find that listening before experimenting allows me to pick up on things like subtle nuances in performance, that is, oral tradition, that you wouldn’t see in a score or perhaps hear after listening to a particular track or album a handful of times. At its core, music is grounded in human expression, so understanding what makes a genre, motif, gesture, or musical idiom come alive is really the way it's interpreted by both the person writing it and the person or people performing it. This is one of the reasons I always try to work with live musicians on every project; they not only add authenticity and sincerity to the notes on the page, but they also enrich the entire experience.
NFS: Both 31 Candles and Broken Mary explore identity and transformation. How does the music mirror those themes?
GF: The score for 31 Candles starts quite intimately in scope, and as the film progresses, it gradually gets larger and then recedes back again into more chamber writing until the final minutes of the film, where Leo’s reality and magical realism collide, and our various musical worlds intersect. The score mirrors Leo’s arrival at adulthood, helping us find joy in the mingling of our hopes, dreams, disappointments, joys, and losses as we grow up. Similarly, the musical worlds of Broken Mary (upbeat, high energy, and largely synthetic vs. warm, thoughtful, and hopeful) are distinctly separate until we see Kevin’s transformation culminate in him bringing his abilities and gifts as a speaker, which merge with his newfound hope and life of redemption.
Composer Grant FondaCredit: Lukas Van Dyke
NFS: How do you approach scoring characters versus scoring the overall world or tone of a film?
GF: For me, a character theme always needs to reflect the essence of the character on screen in 8 bars or less. Often, I find that this essence is what’s not seen overtly, but what’s in the subtext of their persona or their arc. Take Leo Kadner in 31 Candles, for example: on screen, he’s a fun-loving, high-energy, quirky, lovable personality who’s running through life trying to find love. His theme, however, is none of these things, but is instead the Leo who we see alone with his thoughts, afraid of dying alone, and unsure of what it means to grow up. It’s thoughtful, a bit wandering in nature, and somewhat melancholy, helping to ground him as a character in a way that felt real and balanced for the audience.
The overall tone and world of a film is always informed by the way a film is shot and will ultimately be color graded, both conversations which I have with the director before production begins, whenever possible. Character themes always need to feel like they belong in the overall tone and world of a film, either by contrast to everything else or like they’re immersed in it, whether through orchestration, harmony, or rhythmic motifs.
NFS: How do you think about the soundtrack’s life beyond the film? Are there hopes for a live performance of some sort?
GF: I believe the music for media always needs to first support the story it lives in, while always being able to stand alone apart from the picture. My hope for every project is that its music would be memorable on its own and that an album or live performance would bring back emotional memories from a viewer’s time with a film.
NFS: As filmmaking becomes more global and cross-genre, where do you see your music fitting into that landscape? Any specific genre you’d like to tackle next?
GF: As the industry changes, I think that filmmaking is starting to come back to its roots, where storytelling and not money-making is king. This gives scoring new opportunities to be more collaborative and function as a stronger character than in the years when it felt largely relegated to being largely unmemorable background textures and ostinatos. I’m a melodist at heart, and I’ve been lucky enough to be hired to create scores with strong and memorable themes, so I’m excited to keep contributing to that ever-expanding world. I’ve always wanted to score a feature-length noir thriller or drama!
NFS: What do you hope other filmmakers take away from your approach to music as a storytelling tool?
GF: I hope that filmmakers can see scoring as a truly collaborative opportunity in the score to enrich the story’s depth and scope. Music has immense power to transcend boundaries of language and demographics, and I look forward to building new relationships to tell more stories with, for, and about humans in an increasingly digitally distant age.
