By RACHEL REEVES
In the new film POSER, directors Noah Dixon and Ori Segev seek to capture the magic of creativity and a truly great live music experience. Told through the lens of a passionate new Columbus, Ohio-based podcaster named Lennon (Sylvie Mix), POSER effectively bottles that elusive, powerful energy. As Lennon dives into her local music scene to explore the seething waves of invention that fuel it, she becomes smitten with the effervescent (and real musician) Bobbi Kitten. Before too long, the lines between inspiration, mimicry and identity begin to blur for Lennon with dark and dangerous ramifications.
With music at the heart of POSER, the need for an effective and unique score was paramount. Working in conjunction with a variety of punk, electro-pop, folk, hip-hop and self-proclaimed queer death pop songs, the score needed to stand strong in both purpose and sound. Thankfully, composers Shawn Sutta and Adam Robl were ready and willing to tackle this particular musical challenge. By crafting a luxuriously elegant and reflexive score, Sutta and Robl help chart Lennon’s ever-shifting mental state while sonically telegraphing the romanticism of live music.
To learn a bit more about the music of POSER, Rue Morgue recently sat down with Sutta and Robl. Along the way, we discuss the idea of inspiration, old tech, collaboration and the unexpected intersection of T-Pain and Frideric Handel. Yep. You read that right.
How did you two first become involved with POSER?
Shawn Sutta: So I was the one that reached out. I do a bunch of just looking around for things that seem like something we would be good at and something that we would enjoy doing. I found that Noah and Ori were making this movie. I hadn’t seen any of it yet, but I’ve watched a bunch of older things that they have done, and I love their style. They’re really good at, well, they’re good at everything, but particularly, what I saw is that they’re good at shooting musicians, making documentaries on them and making stories around musicians.
So when I heard that they were making a feature that’s based in that world I thought, “These guys are gonna kill that.” I just sent an email out hoping that they would talk to us, and they did! By then, they already had a rough cut of the entire film. We talked to them and the vibe was just awesome right from the beginning. We hadn’t even seen the movie yet, but there was a really great chemistry between the four of us. And then, when they shared the rough cut, we were like, “Wow. This is awesome.” We were super psyched to get in there.
What were the initial conversations like regarding the musical direction for the score?
Adam Robl: The initial direction we all agreed on was more in the classical realm. We thought it really contrasted with all the other music you’re hearing throughout the film. So that was where we started. We made classical-based compositions first and from there, we added a female voice. My girlfriend, Gabriela Ferrer, is featured throughout the entire film, and she’s incredible. So we added her and it just took on a life of its own. It kind of gave it a more modern feel. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that she’s not really classically trained or anything like that. Her voice has more of an air to it that gives it more of a modern sound. It was really cool to just see where it went.
While developing these really beautiful, lyrical passages for her voice, did you develop that melody? Or did you simply trust her to improvise?
AR: A little bit of both. There were moments where we had her just kind of improvise. Based on that, she would maybe do a line that we liked, and there was this cool aesthetic to taking that line and processing it. We would duplicate it, like, multiple times, then process it and reharmonize it. It was kind of like – and not that she needed Auto-Tune at all because she’s incredible – but the Auto-Tune effect that we would use gave it almost this T-Pain-esque vibe to it, which was kind of cool. It added these interesting overtones and distortions. And, you would never do that in a classical setting, which was, I think, what we liked. We kind of turned it from Handel into a Handel meets T-Pain kind of vibe. [Laughs] A weird little combination, but you know, we all love T-Pain!
Working in tandem with the main character, Lennon, there is a big tonal shift that occurs in the latter half of the film. How did you approach that big tonal palette change and make sure it still worked within the larger picture?
SS: The shift in the music is really following what’s happening in the story. We’re getting our cues from what the scene is talking about. So at the beginning of the movie, the music throughout is actually a lot of Lennon’s inner monologue. It’s her world and expressing how much she idolizes these artists she’s watching and just how lofty it seems to her. That’s why the music is so elegant. Even though we’re in this underground club kind of scene, you’re seeing that she sees this as such a grandiose moment.
As we start to learn about her character and as she starts to unravel, the music retains some of that classical vibe, but we start moving the instrumentation into more analog synths. We get into the muck of her brain, and it shifts along with that. Some of the elegance goes away, and you just kind of dive into the darker parts of what she’s experiencing.
The ideas of sound and authenticity play such an important role in POSER and to Lennon. How did you integrate that concept into your music? Did you experiment with or use any particularly interesting instruments to achieve some unique sounds?
AR: There is a specific scene, almost right at the beginning, where Lennon is going through her [recording] process, which is interesting. She’s recording into her phone, recording back onto tape and then back to digital. It’s obviously meant to be funny, but it also has a thing to it that’s really, really cool. So we wanted to take that approach in a way with the music. We wanted to find strange sounds and things that reflect that process.
A clock was the first thing that came to mind. It worked well visually with the cuts and everything, and it made sense even with that Episode 1 dialogue that she’s doing. So we would use clocks affected with delays and all sorts of things to create a rhythmic bed. At first, we thought the clock was going to just be used in that one scene, but it ended up being something that recurred, and we really liked that.
We have a Mellotron here, which is awesome. That was another instrument that was used. We also have this weird instrument that’s based off of an Ondes Martenot which is one of the earliest electronic instruments. I think it was designed in the early 1900s, and it’s kind of similar to the Theremin. It has a string and a ring. You put your finger into a ring and it has a volume control, so you can get this really expressive sound. That was used more near the end of the film. We’re both big fans of older technology. We have old tape machines and old tube microphones and stuff like that. So that aspect was really exciting for us … to kind of take that and get rid of that high fidelity aspect to everything.
SS: The warmth of doing things directly to tape, using a human voice, using real instruments or just weird instruments like a pendulum clock and putting a microphone up to that – it all kind of goes with what her philosophy is. So in a way, it all kind of works together.
The film brings up some interesting issues surrounding inspiration and creative mimicry vs. outright theft. As music technology has developed specific patches and packages to perfectly replicate the sound of another band or artist, I find this discussion increasingly interesting. As working musicians, I’d love to hear your thoughts on this issue and if you ever find yourselves internally addressing it.
SS: That’s funny you bring that up. Yeah, there’s definitely a fine line between copying something and being inspired by it. And you can tread that line. Obviously, in the movie, [Lennon] is just not bringing anything. She’s word-for-word taking things. But then, you could take a sound like you’re talking about, and you could run with it in a whole different direction. Then you’re not copying; You’re being inspired. You’re taking something somebody created and adding your own thing to it.
We had an experience within the score that really treads this line where two of the cues are actually pieces by Frideric Handel. We actually just imported that in because it worked really well as temp music over. We then just started literally building on top of an orchestra playing a Handel piece and then, stripped away what was there before. So in a way, we’re kind of copying and doing exactly what Lennon’s doing.
AR: In that specific one, it’s the very first cue you hear with the vocal in the opening. It’s really elegant and has elegant strings playing that melody. There was originally not supposed to be any music in that opening scene, but we found this piece and were talking to Noah and Ori, and were like, “Hey guys. We should throw this in here. At least for temp, you know?” It just felt so right that we were like, “Let’s just see what happens if we replace all the strings with vocals.”
So we had the track in the session, and Gabby came in and just started kind of replacing parts within the strings. Then, we muted the original Handel track, and it just sounded so cool. That was kind of what really created the aesthetic of the film, I think. That initial feeling of just hearing the vocals stripped down and singing these elegant lines and melodies. And luckily, Handel is public domain, so the only thing we had to really worry about is whether we stole from the recording, which we didn’t because we muted it.
Obviously, all of the other music we wrote, but there was something about the idea of us trying to copy this piece. And it is its own thing, but it kind of just related. We always like to make the joke that we are “con-posers.” Really, it’s a bad joke, but we wanted to get into that world a little bit, and this was our little experience with it.
Composers Adam Robl and Shawn Sutta
How did you two initially connect? And once you did, what inspired you to collaborate on projects moving forward?
SS: We met at the University of Miami. We were studying studio music, performance, jazz, and we got thrown into an ensemble together our very first week there. We had to kind of make something out of nothing with a really rag-tag group of musicians. And that whole thing was just so much fun. We had a great time, and whatever came out felt really good. So we started off on this really great collaboration and became really good friends in college.
Then, a year after college, we ended up renting houses that were back-to-back and became neighbors. And totally by chance. I was living in one and he just happened to rent the other one. He was like, “I think it’s close to your house.” And then we went into the backyard like, “Oh shit! It’s right there!”
At that time, we were both getting our studios together, too. We both had been performing a bunch and kind of wondering about the future and what we wanted to do. We were both just having this conversation about what the ultimate thing in music was. Like, what would we really want to do? And, film was the thing. Film music was this big goal that we didn’t have any foot in. We didn’t know anybody doing this kind of work, but that’s really what we wanted to do. So we just decided to go for it.
With the early little projects that came, we were working together, and the vibe and the flow of it was just so natural. And being right next door to each other just made it really easy to work together. The team is stronger together. We’re able to divide things in a way and use both of our strengths in a way that really helps the process of each film and the process of just growing in being film composers.
AR: It was especially convenient during COVID. We scored this, like, right in COVID. Shawn could just walk over, and Gabby was already here. We were all in the bubble, and that was it. I mean, everything you’re hearing, for the most part (with the exception of one violin on the fish funeral), was all done here by us in-house. Very in-house. Literally. [Laughs]
What is it about the other person that makes them a great creative collaborator? Or is there something about the other person’s process that you really admire?
SS: Let’s compliment each other! I’ll go first. Adam is incredibly dedicated to the quality of sounds and incredibly creative. He’s able to just come up with all kinds of different things that are very original. I always enjoy just seeing where things go because he has no plan usually. He just comes in and starts experimenting, and crazy things come out. And he’s obsessive about it. He just keeps making it better. He keeps making new iterations of things and keeps improving all the instruments and all the gear around to make it get better and better. He’s never quite satisfied with how things sound. It’s great to collaborate, and he helps me get out of my little box of. like, “This is what I know and what works.”
AR: We kind of fit like a puzzle in that way He keeps me from going too far. He’s always the voice of reason. Shawn is always like, “I don’t know. I don’t know about that.” And he’s always right! He’s got such a good gauge of what really resonates, you know? And I respect that. He’s amazing at coming up with piano pieces. A lot of these things start out on a piano, and he would just kind of bring it over here, so I could just do whatever the hell I do. It ended up working out well like that. We’re also best friends in real life. We have that friendship dynamic where we’re able to be honest with each other.
Okay, last question. POSER does such a great job of capturing the magic of a fantastic live show. It’s a tricky thing, but this film does it so well. What is one of your favorite live music experiences?
AR: I’m obsessed with the band Sigur Rós. I’ve seen them a bunch of times, and literally every time, I walk away feeling like I’ve just entered some sacred universe of sound and emotion. There’s so many concert experiences like that, but that band in particular always resonates with me in that way. Every time.
SS: Yeah, I’m just filing through concerts and trying to pick the best one to talk about. The first one that comes to mind is seeing Radiohead on the In Rainbows tour. There was such magic coming out of that stage. Just the sounds of everything, you know? That was one that really uplifted me, and I can forever go back to the moment that I was there and feel that same way. It was definitely a turning point in my life. It was also my first date with my wife. So in that way, it has that magic to it too.
POSER is now playing in select theaters. For a full list of venues, check out the official website, here.
