We just put this piece of music over it and it just felt like we were inside her head so much
more it was like Emily had tapped into something that was going on internally with Enid and it was
incredible it just drew us in to the character even more.
A pivotal film for me in making Nasty was uh sorry in making Censor was Nasty um which is uh not exactly like uh you know it wasn't that
Censor was um you know Nasty turned into a feature film um it was more that the short film Nasty was
a way for me to explore the world of Censor and some of the themes um and ideas
um and also use the short as a calling card for the feature so that was you know a big part of
taking that step I think and I do think it's really important um you know as a director to
understand the other departments really to be able to communicate with those departments
um on a kind of more detailed level I guess and putting yourself in the shoes of those people is great.
I've realized like a few months ago actually that I've always loved soundtrack
but I never really like imagined myself as a film composer growing up it never really felt like this
is something I can do and it's when I moved to the UK to study at university and I did my BA at
Westminster where they have like a big campus and they have a film school and I came to study music
and then you meet people who make short films and they need music and they ask you if you'd
like to do the music and I just just got hooked because like I love making my own music and
it's very satisfying on many level but like when you're a cinema fan and you're a storytelling fan and then
you go into a room and you watch a project on which so many people have worked on and you
realize like you can add something and it's a really pleasing sensation to be part of this
multimedia the first seed of Censor was actually reading an article about the Hammer Horror era
which is obviously earlier than the Video Nasty era when it's set but I was reading
this article and there was a comment in there about how during the period there weren't many
guidelines for censors but one of the only rules they had was that the sight of blood on the breast
of a woman would be cut from films because they believed it would make men likely to commit rape
and this basically opened a wormhole in my brain because I was like well surely loads of
the film censors were men and if these violent images are supposed to make us commit these
violent acts what protects the censor from losing control and what if a censor believed so much
in censorship or in these ideas that they started to think that the films they were
watching at work were having an effect on them and I was like I want to explore a character who
is having a difficult time with their shadow self or their moral compass and they're in this role
and the more I thought about it the more I thought this is a really exciting way to explore
our relationship with the horror genre.
We didn't attach a composer until we'd shot the film
so we were in the really really early stages of the edit and Emilie and I spoke again
and I remember I think I was talking to you about like deep rumbles and things like that and like
going low and Enid's belly and stuff and then Emilie sent this mood reel which was based off reading the script and
those conversations and honestly it was incredible
like I know people might say these kinds of things but it really really was incredible
and there's moments when you're making a film
which will always stay with you that there's something kind of magical happening in that moment
and Emilie sent this reel which was maybe I don't know three or four minutes of music was it that
long yeah and you know obviously hadn't seen pictures so there was no
kind of this is going with this scene and um me and my editor Mark Towns were in the
edit and we just took a part of that music and we put it over the scene where Enid is
she's sitting in a it's one of the most vulnerable points of for her where she's sitting in a towel
in her house and she's just done something terrible um or had a very scary experience
and we just put this piece of music over it and it just felt like we were inside her head so much
more it was like Emilie had tapped into something that was going on internally with Enid and it was
incredible it just drew us in to the character even more.
In a sense again maybe because I knew that cleanup would do a great job
I didn't really focus on the period element first because I knew all the visuals would probably
do an amazing job at that yeah and I really wanted to
yeah to just tell her inner life because I felt like this would be the thing I could
really bring to the story
Were there reference points for the film for the score specifically?
um actually well one of the first we spoke about The Fog definitely because that was a
that was a score that I was listening to a lot while I was writing and I do tend to listen to
it a lot because it's got this eerie sort of almost at times ambient sound to it that you can
listen to while you're writing it's kind of not so intrusive but obviously the tone of that I think
that was a touch point for me and Emilie and then there were some Lucio Fulci and Argento films like
we obviously talked about Goblin um and House by the Cemetery and Deep Red
yeah so they were some of them
The start that Justin knocks there's like it was interesting for people to not know
if it was not in terms of coming from the speakers in the cinema but whether we were fully transported
into the dawn going the church whether that might be what's happening in that world and then you see like you start understanding
through the music also that you are with Enid's point of view you are inside her head rather than
in the film so it's this shift from a score that could be don't go into church but is slowly um
weaving with something that's very clearly Enid's inner life.
We have little um a Japanese instrument that I pluck most of the score but on this one I use the bow on it and it creates like
really harsh really high pitch really pure tone that really is also very unsettling I think and
I think it's another cue where what draws you in is is the kind of a less is more thing but all the
sounds are just a little bit strange so you kind of pay attention to them but we placed them very
carefully and just made sure to attract people's attention by being like what is this rather than
just bombarding them with lots of big sound
It is interesting because like when I get sent a piece of music
so when Emilie would send me something
at first I'd watch it with the picture and then I'd start to watch it just alone I'm sorry to listen to it alone and actually feel
emotionally how does this make me feel without the picture then watch it with picture and you're
working very like I say in quite a targeted way but then it's really important to watch
the film back on a run and that's when you start to go oh actually we can push this more or this
could be less so there might have been a cue that you know one of us felt that it should be stronger
in some way and actually watch it back on the run and think no that kind of needs to be quite subtle
and it's through that overarching view that you you start to get that feeling of what the music
might need to do more in different places
I think if you look on Google for university in your area that will have a music degree or
a master's degree that focuses on film music and you reach out you're very likely to find
people who are very very eager to score a short film
and then if you know if you like music that's more indie smaller bands if you're quite curious and
you know explore um smaller band in your area and everything like that
it might be worth if you really love what they're doing to just you know
drop them an email and see if they'd be up for it maybe listen to a music that really
makes you happy and really got you excited a long time ago and just
remind yourself that music is pleasurable and that you really enjoy it because I think sometimes what
gives us a block is all the kind of added layers of meaning that we put around writing and music
it's the pressure it's the kind of this has to have all this impact on my life and it's dwarfing
and just sometimes reconnecting with just the sheer joy of your favorite pop song from when
you were a kid might just be like actually this is supposed to be fun.
This is going to sound like really bad advice but one of the things that I find is stepping away
sometimes and that's mainly because when I'm having a block I'll be like I'm gonna solve it
I'm gonna solve it and then you step away and do something else and all the ideas start to come
so you know that doesn't always work but it has worked for me recently.
Don't remove the dialogue from your logic file or whatever you used to write
just make sure that very regularly you check your cue with the dialogue playing because
at the end of the day if you get in the way of the dialogue your queue is just going to be down in the mix so
don't just constantly listen to your music with the dialogue running
because it's probably more important than the music in your film in the film