Los Angeles-based composer Matt Orenstein has scored everything from trailers to features to branded content. In addition to projects for Mercedes-Benz, Square and DoorDash, his feature credits include Surfer’s Paradise, Earth Over Earth, Daddy and Silicon Beach.
Orenstein’s latest compositions can be heard in Level 33 Entertainment’s horror film Belle. Written and directed by Max Gold, Belle is a reimagining of the classic tale “Beauty and the Beast.” In the film, Belle works on the family farm and cares for her father after he falls severely ill. Desperate to save him, she journeys in search of a mythical rose believed to be a cure, but she must surrender herself as a prisoner to a vicious beast as payment for the rose.
Matt Orenstein
We spoke to Orenstein about everything from collaborating with Gold and the film’s editor to what technology makes his job easier.
Before you began work on Belle, what did you do? Meaning, did you create a sound palette you wanted to stick by, etc.?
Before I started writing, Max [Gold, Belle’s director] and I talked about overarching story themes, characters and moments in the script that stick out to us as being big music moments. We also talked filmic and sonic references for the tone of the score and of the film in general. Those ideas evolved quite a bit once we had a working cut. I’m always ready to let go of whatever sound palette ideas I may have or that we may have discussed. It’s not my job to dig my heels in. I just have to help lead the viewer to water, and the director knows where the water is.
What did the director want for the Belle score?
Our initial discussions were pretty open-ended. Max sent me Koji Kondo’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time score, and that was our starting point. But he trusted me to throw a lot of ideas against the wall to see what stuck. A lot of that trust comes from our long working relationship. Max and I go way back and have worked together on more projects than I can count, so we have an ever-deepening shorthand. He knows my only goal is to support the film through score, and I know he’ll be open to whatever musical ideas I have so long as they support the film. So our work together is truly collaborative. Max’s vision for Belle crystallized as he and Patrick Lawrence, the film’s editor, worked to shape the film into the one you see, and the score evolved with it.
What is your favorite part of being a composer?
Being a composer combines so many things that I love. I’m a music lifer… music was always in my house, my parents’ cars; it was everywhere when I was growing up outside Minneapolis. I’ve played music since I was 4 and had my first paid gig at 8. I’ve played bass in all kinds of bands and studied both jazz and classical music as part of my bachelor’s degree in bass performance. After college, I moved to Chicago and worked at a record store for a few years while continuing to play in bands and work as a bassist. I also love to read — right now I’m reading David Stubbs’ history of Krautrock, “Future Days,” and Shirley Jackson’s “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” — and I love movies, so getting to help tell stories is supercool.
Composing for film allows me to take what I love about being a bass player and put it into practice on a larger scale. As the bass, you’re the anchor of the harmony and the glue between that and the rhythm. I’ve played a lot of different genres, from jazz to classical to hip-hop to punk to noise, so I feel like I’ve spent a good amount of time living inside a lot of different music. Getting to create all different kinds of music from the inside out is a real joy.
There’s a collaborative aspect to both being a bassist and being a film composer, too. You’re a part of a team, and it’s your job to add some kind of shading to whatever’s going on, even if that means doing something simple. It’s not about flexing, it’s not about upstaging anyone or outsizing the moment. It’s about what you’re all making together and using everything at your disposal to help bring the vision to life. And I love that.
Walk us through your process. How do you begin? What inspires you?
I was inspired by the trip to Iceland, where this was shot. Max strongly recommended that I come to Iceland and visit during filming so I could get a sense of the country. It wasn’t an ethnomusicology mission; I just wanted to get an impression of the country to weave into the fantasy that we were creating.
I walked around Iceland with my eyes, ears and lungs open (coming from LA, the clean air was a real shock to my system). I had an idea that I’d record nature sounds and somehow work them into the score, but it turned out that most of the natural sounds were either wind or water. When I wasn’t recording or just listening to the soundscape, I was listening to music that the country was pulling for me. A lot of Bulgarian Women’s Choir, Bjork, Arvo Pärt, Meredith Monk, Johann Johannsson, stuff like that. I read Snorri’s “The Prose Edda” in an old Viking church and on the side of a big hill before I hiked all the way up as the sun beat down at 10pm. You could see clearly for miles at the top. Just like how in LA you can’t walk 10 feet without seeing something that’s been filmed, you can’t walk 10 feet in Iceland without seeing some unearthly and beautiful natural thing. The trip stayed with me as we worked on the score and helped me feel the picture more as I worked.
We did about three passes of the score. By the middle of the second one we found a good mix of all the elements we wanted that could best help us tell the story we wanted to tell, both in the romance moments and the horror moments.
What tools did you use to create the Belle score?
I programmed and tracked exclusively in Logic. I use Pro Tools so I can look at AAFs and see how to conform to new picture edits, but I prefer the way Logic handles MIDI, so that’s mostly where I live.
The sample instruments were either instances of Kontakt, the Logic Sampler (for the ones that I designed), the dedicated Spitfire plugin or the old EastWest Play player. Most of the reverbs were QL Spaces convolution, Eventide stereo verb or Softube Spring Reverb plugins.
I also love Waves’ H-Delay and CLA-2A compressor plugins. I can’t count how many instances of Slate Virtual Tape Machine I used, either for dimension or distortion. The LA-2A and the QL Spaces helped me create some sense of verisimilitude, even though I made the entire score in my living room.
Matt Orenstein in his home studio
Name three pieces (or more) of technology you use that make your job easier.
1) AKG K712 open-backed headphones: These are great for checking final mixes and making sure that everything sounds alive. I use studio monitors (Yamaha HS-7 pair) to get my mixes most of the way there, but the headphones are great for checking bass relationships, compression strength and reverb tails.
2) MOTU MIDI Express 128: I like to record MIDI, send it to my hard synths (I used an ARP Odyssey, Roland GAIA and Sequential Prophet Rev2) and then record the audio from there. So if I don’t like the patch, or a sound needs to be re-recorded for a new conform, I have the MIDI on hand and can record a new part quickly. It’s not quite as fast as having soft synths, but hard synths add dimension and color to any track if they’re used right, so it’s worth it. It’s also easier and more fun for me to dial in a sound from a flesh-and-blood instrument than it is to work with soft synths (which, don’t get me wrong, I love and use often).
3) Logic Pro X: It’s such a versatile and deep program… anything and everything I needed it to do, it could do. Once you’ve got the hotkeys memorized and your presets/templates in place, you can move extremely fast.
4) Universal Audio Devices Apollo: Great for audio monitoring, the preamps sound fantastic, so it’s easy to record audio cleanly, and it takes some of the load off my Mac’s DSP. Just a solid workhorse.
5) SSD drives: I run my sessions off of one and host sample instruments and video off of another. Again, it keeps my DSP pretty light and helps me stay organized.
What advice would you give to up-and-coming composers?
Well, I’m more or less up-and-coming too. The hustling and learning is continuous. The love is, too. If it weren’t, it would be hard to keep going with this work. So find something to love about whatever you’re working on. I don’t know if I’m qualified to give any advice, but I can tell you what’s worked for me. Play to your strengths. Learn how to best support your collaborators within your role. Show a willingness to develop your weaker areas (and follow through) and keep your eyes, ears and mind open.
Get familiar with the temp and what inspired those people to make the temp (i.e., if someone is temping your project with John Williams, who inspired John Williams to write that music?). That way, you can write something in dialogue with what the director likes (and/or editor, producer, whoever you need to impress the most). Your spin on it will naturally appear.
Make sure the production value of your music is very strong. The most cynical (and unfortunately, correct) advice I’ve ever gotten is more or less “Make your stuff sound expensive.” But please, for our sake and yours, make sure your writing is on point too. Listen to your editor. I’ve worked with Patrick on so many projects, including Belle, and I’ve learned more from him about writing music for picture than just about anybody. Listen to your director, and work to earn their trust. It’s their story; you’re just helping to tell it. And god damnit, you’ve got to be kind.
