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No Film School: Can you share a bit about your journey into composing for film and TV? What inspired you to start working in this field?
Jens Bjornkjaer: I have been playing music since I was a child, starting my musical career at four years old on violin, then a number of years as a saxophone player, and now on numerous instruments. I started scoring films in Denmark in the '00s and have worked on many films, both feature and documentary films, as a composer, arranger, and multi-instrumentalist.
At my graduation at the Copenhagen Music Conservatory, I made a 20-minute electronic piece of music and a film to accompany it. So, I always loved working with films since it, in one perspective, is the ultimate art form, utilizing all the arts into one expression. In order for a film project to be great and successful every department has to deliver top quality work which makes it an enormous challenge to actually have it all come together to create a higher level of meaning.
NFS: Tell Them You Love Me is a documentary with a significant emotional range. How did you approach composing music that would enhance the emotional impact of the film?
Bjornkjaer: It took me quite a while to compose this score since we, the director Nick August Perna, the editor Seth Bomse and I. Agreed that the score could play a significant role in distinguishing the different emotional journeys depicted as the story unfolds. Every piece of music for every scene was minutely composed to elevate the emotional state of the character at each point in the story. We would go back and forth with several different pieces on each cue to find the exact state we were looking for in the scene. I probably made music for around three scores for the film altogether.
NFS: You played multiple instruments for the score. Can you talk about how each instrument contributed to the overall sound and emotional tone of the film?
Bjornkjaer: I played all the instruments for the film myself, which is not something I always do but in this case it felt quite natural to do so. Since we wanted a very organic and handheld approach to the score I experimented with several instruments and settled on a lot of arpeggiated violins, emotional horns and organically played pianos.
The story of the film is very serious but also in a way surreal so it felt like I could sometimes emphasize the surreality of the story by playing something very sweet and beautiful and other times more sinister with dark cellos, basses, horns, etc.
NFS: You mentioned creating several versions of the end theme. What was your process for refining this score, and what led you to the final version?
Bjornkjaer: The process was, as mentioned, discussing the intentions of each scene with Nick and Seth and then, composing some pieces for a scene which then would be attempted to be placed on the agreed cue. Sometimes though, the editing that was going on at the same time as I was composing was changing, and intentions would be changing and the pieces didn't work or we also sometimes used pieces in different places in the film. It was a very exploratory, organic, and searching process composing the score and finding the final form of the music for the film at the same time as the film itself was finding its final form.
NFS: With so many interviews in the documentary, how did you work to keep the music fresh and avoid monotony throughout the film?
Bjornkjaer: Because the nature of the film was being driven by interviews we were keen to make every piece of music unique in its own way to elevate and distinguish every scene from the one before and after. That was done by composing a lot of different actual themes and melodies so the underlying music to the interview could have its own personality and vibe without interfering with the dialogue, but perhaps commenting on it in its own subtle unconscious way driving the story forward.
NFS: How do you see the role of music evolving in documentary filmmaking, especially with your experiences in this film?
Bjornkjaer: Because of technology I see the role of music in filmmaking generally being able to be done by more and more people. But at the same time, if your goal is to make something with a very high artistic quality it will demand the same thing as all art creation always had. A level of commitment and exploration of the material as well as an exploration of your inner self as a person and a creator.
This is really the interesting part of this work, that it demands your full attention and creativity, but then you also perhaps gain a new insight or perspective on yourself and the world we live in.
NFS: What projects are you working on next, and are there any new directions or innovations you're excited to explore in your music?
Bjornkjaer: Currently, as I am doing this interview, I am staying in Oslo, Norway working on music and sound design for a new groundbreaking theatrical production of the play The Elephant Man by director and writer Sargun Oshana. I am very excited for this project since everything about it is new explorations and my work combines music and sound design into a new kind of music that comes out of the sound design. Also my wife Katherine Mills Rymer, whom I work with in our band and art collective O FUTURE, creates 3D animated handmade videos for the show.
I am also currently working on scoring a new documentary for Danish documentary legend director Andreas Johnsen. It’s titled Cosmic Balance and follows the Indonesian Reak culture, which is about people being possessed by ancestral spirits. In this project I get to make explorations in mixing Sundanese Reak music with western-y classical stuff.
NFS: How do you balance working on different types of projects, such as film scores, theater scores, and digital art, within your collective O FUTURE?
Bjornkjaer: I generally find every project I do to be the same whether it be film-music, music-music, visual art, sound design or anything else in terms of the seriousness and effort I put into it. If I agree to do a project I will go all in and will not stop until I, and everybody else involved, are fully satisfied and ecstatic about what we have achieved together. It is the only way to work for me and a way of working that is extremely satisfying during the process and when you finish a project.
The process of making this documentary was like that from everybody involved. And the fact that it turned out so well and not only won a bunch of festivals, but also became hugely successful on Netflix is enormously gratifying.
