No one can deny the attraction of “entertainment” wrestling. From WWE to NXT to AEW, there is no shortage of muscular people holding other muscular people above their heads and dropping them to the ground. And there is no shortage of interest in the wrestlers and their journeys to the big leagues.
Zach Robinson
That is just one aspect of Netflix’s docuseries Wrestlers, directed by Greg Whiteley, which follows former WWE wrestler Al Snow as he tries to keep the pro wrestling league Ohio Valley Wrestling (OVW) going while fighting off mounting debt and dealing with new ownership. It also provides a behind-the-scenes look at these athletes’ lives outside of the ring.
For the series’ score, Whiteley called on composer Zach Robinson to give the show its sound. “Wrestlers was a dream come true,” says Robinson. “Coming into the project, I was such a huge fan of Greg Whiteley’s work, from Last Chance U to Cheer. On top of that, I grew up on WWE, so it was so much fun to work with this specific group of people on a subject that I really loved.”
Let’s find out more from Robinson, whose other recent projects include Twisted Metal and Florida Man (along with Leo Birenberg) and the animated horror show Fright Krewe…
What was the direction you were given for the score?
I originally thought that Greg and the rest of the team wanted something similar to what I do on Cobra Kai, but after watching the first couple of episodes and having a few discussions with the team, we wanted to have music that served as a juxtaposition to the burly, muscular, sometimes brutal imagery you were seeing on screen.
Greg wanted something dramatic and beautiful and almost ballet-like. The music ends up working beautifully with the imagery and really complements the sleek cinematography. Like Greg’s other projects, this is a character drama with an amazing group of characters, and we needed the music to support their stories without making fun of them.
What is your process? Is there a particular instrument you start on, or is it dependent on the project?
It often starts with a theme and a palette decision. Simply, what are the notes I’m writing and what are the instruments playing those notes? I generally like to start by writing a few larger pieces to cover a lot of groups and see what gauges the client’s interest.
In the case of Wrestlers, I presented three pieces (not to picture) and shared them with Greg and the team. Luckily for me, those three pieces were very much in the ballpark of what they were looking for, and I think all three made it into the first episode.
Can you walk us through your workflow on Wrestlers?
Sometimes, working on non-fiction can be a lot different than working on a scripted TV show. We would have spotting sessions (meetings where we watch down the episode and discuss the ins and outs of where the score lives), but as the episodes progressed, I ended up creating more of a library for the editors to grab cues from. That became very helpful for me because the turnaround on these episodes from a scoring standpoint was very, very fast.
However, every episode did have large chunks that needed to be scored to picture. I’m thinking of a lot of the fights, which I really had to score as if I was scoring any type of fight in a scripted show. It took a lot of effort and a lot of direction from the creative team to score those bouts, and finding the right tone was always a challenge.
How would you describe the score? What instruments were used? Was there an orchestra, or were you creating it all?
As I mentioned earlier, the score is very light, almost like a ballet. It’s inspired by a lot of Americana music, like from Aaron Copland, but also, I was very inspired by the “vagabond” stylings of someone like Tom Waits, so you’ll hear a lot of trombone, trumpet, bass, flute and drums.
Imagine seeing a small band performing on the street; that’s kind of what was inspiring to me. This is a traveling troupe of performers, and Greg even referred to them as “the Muppets” during one of our first meetings. We also had a lot of heightened moments that used a large, epic orchestra. I’m thinking especially about the last 30 minutes of the season finale, which is incredibly triumphant and epic in scope.
How did you work with the director in terms of feedback? Any examples of notes or direction given?
Greg and producer Adam Leibowitz were dream collaborators and always had incredibly thoughtful notes and gave great direction. I think the feedback I got most frequently was about being careful not to dip into melodrama through the music. The team is very tasteful with how they portray dramatic moments in their projects, and Wrestlers was no exception.
There were a few times I went a bit too far and big in the music, and Greg would tell me to take a step back and let the drama from the reality of the situation speak for itself. This all made a lot of sense to me, especially because I understood that, coming from scoring mostly scripted programming, I would tend to go harder and bigger on my first pass, which wasn’t always appropriate.
More generally, do you write based on project – spot, game, film, TV — or do you just write?
I enjoy writing music mostly to picture, whether that’s a movie or TV or videogame. I enjoy it much more than writing a piece of music not connected to anything, and I find that when I have to do the latter, it’s incredibly difficult for me.
How did you get into composing? Did you come from a musical family?
I don’t come from a musical family, but I come from a very creative and encouraging family. I knew I wanted to start composing from a very young age, and I was incredibly fortunate to have a family that supported me every step of the way. I studied music in high school and then into college, and then I immediately got a job apprenticing for a composer right after college. I worked my way up and through a lot of odd jobs, and now I’m here.
Any tips for those just starting out?
My biggest piece of advice is to simply be yourself. I know it sounds trite, but don’t try to mold your voice into what you think people want to hear. I’m still learning that even with my 10 years in the business, people want to hear unique voices, and there are always great opportunities to try something different.
Are you very involved in that? 
We agreed that we didn’t know specifically how we would do it, telling the story of the atrocities through sound. We knew that he was going to go and shoot the film, and in a year, he would return to begin post production. Over that time I needed to become an expert on what Auschwitz sounded like in 1943 — the motorbikes that passed by the road outside the camp, the nationalities of the prisoners and so on — and learn the detail of the events that took place there, which led to murder and mass murder on a daily basis.
Film 1 is a family drama — an exceedingly immersive journey into a family and its house in 1943. It was filmed with many scenes taking place simultaneously thanks to hidden cameras (the director rigged multiple cameras around the house, allowing the actors to improvise and were often unaware the cameras were even rolling]. Some takes were an hour long so that the actors could just “be.” We can observe and keep our critical distance, which really allows us to ponder how like us they are.
On the most basic level, they all block out the thing that allows them to be there — the sound that comes over the garden wall of the daily murder by gassing, the occasional gunshot and the torture of the prisoners. As viewers, we hear this. We know that you can block your eyes, but you cannot block your ears, so we wonder why they don’t react. But it is their choice, on some level, to do so.
Migration opens with a birder watcher raising binoculars to his eyes. “Beautiful, isn’t it,” he says softly as an orchestral score from music studio Walker rises in the background and we hear the far-off cawing of the flying gridsters. “Each year they must follow the path of migration, but never fear, they’ll be back,” he says as we see the players swooping in to grab a fish from a lake or alighting gently just outside a cabin.
For its part, Zoic used a broad spectrum of software and tools but mainly relied on SideFX Houdini, Autodesk Maya and Foundry Nuke to achieve the majority of the VFX lift.
When it came to sound design, “The call was for futuristic sci-fi characters in an Old West environment,” says Dusty Albertz of Howdy Sound. “I think we succeeded in crafting a soundscape that is both believable and fun.”
The software’s new stereo input feature expands this concept to stereo tracks, allowing for direct access to the stereo width and making the spatializer plugin well-suited for stem productions. “Recording audio with stereo miking techniques is still common practice, even for the creation of advanced three-dimensional experiences,” says Dear Reality’s Felix Lau. “dearVR Pro 2 helps the engineer to effortlessly position stereo recordings of instruments and ambiance in a spatial sound field.”
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