The latest episode of Disney’s For Scores podcast delves into the score of the Disney+ original film Safety. Host John Burlinggame chats with composer Marcus Miller about his friendship with director Reginald Hudlin, how he unintentionally became a film composer, and the unique challenges that came with scoring Safety during a pandemic.
Marcus Miller’s career objective was playing and writing jazz music, a dream that came true in his early twenties when he joined the band of Miles Davis. The jazz legend soon learned that Miller had been writing hit songs for other artists and by the time he was just twenty-six, he was in the producer chair.
The filmmakers of the 1987 film Siesta had been using temp tracks in their editing process of Miles Davis’ album Sketches of Spain. When they asked him to update it for the film, he looped Marcus Miller in, who thought they were just contemporizing two songs for the film. He soon found himself locked in an L.A. recording studio with a two-week deadline to score the entire film, thrown into the deep end.
Despite having a feature film in his rearview mirror, Marcus Miller wasn’t seeking out other film scoring projects at the time. One day he got a call from a recent Harvard graduate named Reginald Hudlin who’s thesis short film House Party was picked up by New Line Cinema as a feature film. The idea for the film came from a song Miller co-wrote with Luther Vandross called “Bad Boy/Having a Party” and the new director insisted that Miller score his film. It’s a working relationship that has endured through additional films including Boomerang, Marshall and now Safety.
Marcus Miller recalls the day when Reginald Hudlin called him from the set of Safety, preparing for the big crowd football shots, and asked him to start thinking about the score and giving him the instruction to make it sound big. While some may view Safety as a sports movie, Miller’s main goal for the score was to musically create the brotherly relationship between Ray and Fahmarr. He knew that it was a period piece and he would be incorporating contemporary flavors from the early 2000’s, but also didn’t want to make the score sound dated. Combining contemporary flavors with a drumline percussion was his approach, a tricky concept but one that paid off.
Starting the process in February 2020, Miller typically has Reginald Hudlin with him throughout the writing and scoring process. The pandemic interrupted their usual flow and also made it challenging to pull off a big drumline sound. After creating digital samples, Miller found soloists with in-home recording studios and had them overdub their parts to make it sound like more instruments were participating.
Marcus Miller also talked about a personal project as a UNESCO Artist for Piece, which led to his album Afrodeezia. To close out the conversation, John Burlinggame asked his opinion on the future of moviegoing experiences with so many films now going directly to streaming. Marcus likened it to the way Napster shook up the music industry and changed it forever. Because movies are such a social experience and an easy date night idea, he thinks moviegoing has a place in the future, but that it will never be like it was before.
If you enjoyed this recap, be sure to listen to the full episode on your favorite podcast app.