Norwegian-born film composer Johannes Ringen is known for his eclectic approach to music. His recent work includes an action-packed score for Netflix’s original film Troll, dark ominous music for the disaster movie The Quake and a symphonic score for the quirky Viking comedy show Norsemen on Netflix.
Johannes Ringen
Since making the move to Los Angeles, Ringen has worked on a number of major film franchises, contributing music and/or arrangements to Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, Furious 7 and The Fate of the Furious, as well as TV shows such as MacGyver and Hawaii Five-0.
He is a graduate of the film scoring program at the University of Southern California. He says that being a film composer is all about serving the movie by telling stories through music. “I talk to the director about what we are trying to achieve scene by scene, as well as for the movie as a whole. The score can have quite a few functions, and you’d be surprised how little time we spend on discussing the music itself compared to moods, atmospheres and characters. It’s all about storytelling.”
We reached out to Ringen to talk about his process and creating music for Troll — one of Netflix’s most popular non-English films of all time. It’s a story about an explosion in the Norwegian mountains that awakens an ancient troll, and officials appoint a paleontologist to stop it from wreaking deadly havoc.
What is your process? How do you begin on a project?
I begin with finding the right ingredients for the project. Sometimes it’s very obvious — like when an orchestral score is called for. Other times, figuring out the instrumentation and style is half the job. I love to tinker with sounds, and that’s the part of the process I find the most inspiring and fun. I always try to incorporate some unusual instruments to give the score some sort of edge and uniqueness.
What about for Troll?
On Troll, we recorded Hardanger fiddle, nyckelharpa, langeleik — all traditional Nordic instruments to give the score some Nordic color.
Can you walk us through your workflow?
My preferred way is to start early and get as many ideas out as possible. Film is a collaborative process, and it doesn’t matter how good you think your ideas are if no one else on the team agrees. So I spend time making sure that I’m on the right track by reading the script and discussing and testing material with the director.
I try to be ahead of the game by making a bank of solid material that the director is on board with and that I feed the picture editors while they are cutting. Once they put temp music (placeholder music) in, there is no way back — it will color the final product. Therefore, it’s a huge advantage if they have a decent amount of original music from me to work with. I find that half the battle is won right there. After that, the hard work begins — solving all the puzzles.
How would you describe the sound of the Troll soundtrack?
I would describe it as a modern, orchestral, adventurous action score with Scandinavian colors!
What direction were you given on the score for Troll?
The film’s director, Roar Uthaug, wanted a big, modern orchestral score at the core. So the challenge was finding out how we could give it some Scandinavian colors. We recorded quite a few Nordic instruments (Hardanger fiddle, nyckelharpa, langeleik, as I mentioned earlier).
We also thought it would be fun to do a little twist on “In the Hall of the Mountain King” by Edvard Grieg. The Mountain King is a troll king in Henrik Ibsen’s play “Peer Gynt.” We thought it would be fun to tap into this historical piece of music that everyone knows, but do it without being too “on the nose.” There are quite a few bits and pieces and hints to that piece throughout the movie, but it’s quite subtle before it reveals itself in all its glory toward the end of the film.
Troll is one of Netflix’s most popular non-English films of all time. What was it about the project that made it so appealing to audiences?
It’s fair to say that Troll’s success went beyond everyone’s expectations. I’ve always been surprised that so many people around the world are familiar with trolls from Scandinavian folklore, so I was not surprised that there would be people watching. But reaching the most popular non-English film of all time on Netflix — that’s much more than anyone can hope for.
Now for some more general questions…
Do you write based on project – spot, game, film, TV — or do you just write?
I approach it the same way, basically, but every medium has some specific considerations I factor in. For instance, I’m always careful on relying too much on deep bass sounds when writing for TV, since the vast majority of the audience will be watching on TVs that don’t reproduce bass frequencies that well.
For games, a lot of the music is delivered in layers and arranged on the spot by the game engine based on the action on the screen. That means I don’t have to tailor the music to the picture as closely as, for instance, an action movie. On the other hand, all the layers have to work when played in isolation — something I don’t even think about when scoring a movie.
If you weren’t doing this, what would you be doing instead?
I honestly find it hard to imagine doing anything else. I come from a family with several generations of teachers on both sides, so I did consider being a teacher at some point, though.
So your family wasn’t musical?
We had a piano at home, but no one in my family is a professional musician. I took piano lessons, and I remember very vividly playing piano with my grandad. I still remember those pieces to this day.
