Chad Rehmann: Composing for Christmas Movies

By Randi Altman

Many of us would acknowledge that the holiday season tugs at certain heartstrings. Some of those heartstrings might lead us to watch films like It’s a Wonderful Life or make us seek out sappy romance in the form of holiday movies offered up by Lifetime or the Hallmark Channel. If you are one of those who enjoy watching two opposites meeting during the holidays, then it’s likely you’ve heard the work of composer Chad Rehmann.

Chad Rehmann

While Rehmann scores all sorts of projects, holiday films have become his specialty of sorts with 15 in total, and three this season — Paramount Network’s Dashing in December and Lifetime’s Christmas on the Menu and A Very Charming Christmas Town.

Rehmann started playing the piano when he was around five years old, but unlike the majority of us, he took to it easily. “As my lessons progressed, I remember wanting to change the songs that I was supposed to be practicing and experiment with other ways that they could be played,” he explains. “As you can imagine, my piano teachers did not appreciate this. In high school I had an orchestra teacher who was also a composer, and he encouraged me to explore writing, even having the high school orchestra play a piece that I wrote while still in school. That was a pivotal moment for me.”

Though he loved music, he wasn’t convinced he could make a living as a composer, so he attended Michigan State University with the intent of getting a music education degree and becoming a high school band director. “I quickly found that I was not cut out for that kind of work. I still enjoyed dabbling in writing music, but being from a small, rural farming community I had never actually met anyone who made a living as a composer. I took a leap of faith, however, and during my sophomore year changed my major to composition. Three months after graduating college, I left for Los Angeles.”

Let’s find out more about Rehmann’s path to composing and how he ended up being the go-to guy for holiday films, among many other genres.

You compose for many different types of projects, such as films, TV, spots. Do you prefer one over the other and how is your role different for each?
My commercial and ad work has mostly been licensing deals through music libraries, and I haven’t yet had the opportunity to score a video game. Films and TV remain a majority, if not all of my workload.

The one difference in scoring for television is tailoring the score depending on which network is distributing the content. Some networks are open to experimentation with the music, while other networks have a very defined brand to which a composer should stay pretty true.

In addition, because of commercial breaks, for those films not going directly to streaming, one can expect to almost always be asked to create music that takes the viewer to or from an act break. Other than that, it’s about story and characters. The mediums for content now a days are continuing to merge and blur, so for me there hasn’t been a huge difference in how I score the productions.

One of your specialties is holiday films. Can you talk about what draws you to these types of films?
Especially with the state of the world today, I love being a part of something that brings people momentary joy amidst the chaos. I have been fortunate in my career to work on so many different types of projects but have found that the demand for Christmas content has increased in general.

Even just looking at Hallmark and Lifetime, between the two networks they have close to 100 new holiday films coming out this year. Not to mention all the new streaming services that are beginning to explore delivering this content to their audience. There is a lot of demand for this genre, so many composers are getting a few more calls for Christmas scores than they have in the past.

You’ve done a lot of these. How do you continually make it fresh?
Numerous Christmas films in one year can present a challenge creatively. For me, I try to focus on what makes the film stand apart from the others and accentuate that. Locations are a good place to start. Is it in the country? The city? A coffee shop? Antique store? All of these locations can suggest a different approach to the story.

Another way to differentiate the score is by focusing on the backgrounds of the characters. Are any of them from the city? Small, rural town? Ranch? Far off location? This helps in examining what musical language to use. If a character is from a small town, maybe they deserve a melody that is simpler and more folksy. If a character works in business or technology, maybe there is a digital component to the orchestration. If a character is free spirited she/he may have a melody that enhances that aspect of her/his personality. There is always something unique about every project that I feel I can latch onto and use as I develop the film’s musical world.

What is your process for a project like this? What inspires you in your writing?
Over the years, I have found that much of my creative process takes place when I’m away from my computer. So much so I purposefully step away from the film after watching it for the first time in order to collect my thoughts on how I want to approach the film. A majority of the melodies and themes that end up on the show come from me humming in the shower, a thought that I had while taking a walk or an idea that pops in my head as I play with my kids.

My inspiration for each film almost always comes from either the location of the film or the characters. I also am a little more old-school as compared to other composers, as I always start with pencil and paper. Most of my themes, colors and general tone of the film is down on paper before going to the computer to work on the mockups. It takes a little longer in the beginning, but I find myself able to work faster if I’ve already struggled through some of the creative choices before matching it to picture.

Are there instruments that are holiday-specific?
Woodwinds, celesta and sleigh bells are common “go-to” choices for Christmas scores, and I try to give the audience what they expect and want from these films. Unfortunately, these instruments have been pigeonholed in a sense that people associate their sound with the holiday season. It makes it difficult to use these instruments in other scores that aren’t during the holidays, as the audience might wonder why there are “Christmas sounds” in a non-Christmas film.

Dashing in December

Composers can, and should, always push the audience to step outside the preconceived notions that they have about certain instruments. That being said, sleigh bells are probably the only instrument that I’ve reserved just for Christmas scores.

Can you describe the music for each of the latest films?
The outlier of the three films (and my favorite one this season) is Dashing in December. The director Jake Helgren and I approached this film a little differently than the others we’ve worked on together. We decided early on to score this film more as a romantic drama that happens to take place during Christmas as opposed to a “Christmas film.”

There are still a lot of Christmas songs present, but that’s accomplished through some fantastic source music used throughout the film. The score for this production has a more intimate character than others I’ve written — only using a string orchestra (recorded in Budapest), acoustic guitar, a tiny bit of piano and the occasional solo violin. However, in some ways having a simpler-sounding score was more difficult. It’s easy for a composer to hide behind a large orchestra, but purposefully limiting one’s resources and using the resources sparingly can bring about its own challenges.

The other two films I scored in a more traditional sense, but each has its own unique quality. Christmas on the Menu is a more rhythmic, dance like score underlying the push and pull of the two main characters as their relationship evolves.

A Very Charming Christmas Town

A Very Charming Christmas Town is more centered on the location of Solvang and the peppering of classic Christmas motifs throughout the score. I wanted to musically immerse the audience in the town of Solvang, and to do that, I wrote a lot of new instrumental arrangements of popular Christmas tunes to use throughout. If you listen closely, you can hear fragments of recognizable songs such as “Joy to the World” or “Silent Night” peppered everywhere. It was fun to figure out how to incorporate tiny, familiar motifs into the larger score. Everywhere the characters went in this town, classic Christmas melodies would follow

How did you work with the director on each, and what’s your favorite way to get notes?
All three films were directed by Jake Helgren — Dashing in December is our 18 film together — and to say that we have a shorthand by now is an understatement. Because Jake and I have worked on so many films together, notes at this point tend to be pretty minimal. He and I always seem to be on the same page musically, and he’s open to me pushing the envelope a little bit and trying out new ideas.

Chad Rehmann

Email notes are always best for me, as I can continue to reference them throughout the scoring process and not have to rely on my scribbles during a phone conversation. Jake’s producing partner, Autumn Federici (The Ninth House), and Off Camera Entertainment producers Margret Huddleston and Stephanie Slack were also involved in the creative process. I felt lucky to have worked with all three on prior productions, which instills a sense of trust and respect during the creative process.

What instruments do you play, and which one do you typically use to start off the writing process? During the writing process I’m at a keyboard 99% of the time. I joke that I can play enough chords on a guitar to get through a campfire sing-a-long, but that’s about it. In addition to piano, my main instrument in college was percussion and I loved studying and performing with various ensembles. I learned early on, however, that performing was not something that I wanted to pursue. The process of writing, orchestrating and then rehearsing or recording music is where I get my energy — not in front of a crowd of people.

Any tips for those looking to write music for picture?
Start small and expect it to take a long time. I have found that there tends to be three options available when looking to get into the film music world. The first is to intern or assist a composer that is working at a level above where you are. This can be an invaluable experience, as you will learn the ins and outs of the business in real time as part of a composing team.

The second is to enroll in a graduate or certificate program at a college known for its film scoring program. From what I’ve heard, some of the colleges offer great networking opportunities that composers can take advantage of while pursuing their degree.

Lastly, and this is the path that I followed, you can just jump right into the pool and see if you can swim. When I arrived in Los Angeles, I bussed tables and worked a lot of odd jobs while writing music at night. I composed music for many student films and short independent projects, which was an education in itself. Looking back, I’m not sure it was the wisest decision that I ever made, but it seemed to work out. Find your voice and cultivate it. Identify your weaknesses and work on them. Watch what is happening to the industry and make yourself immune to the changes ahead. Find clues as to where the industry is heading and anticipate how you can fit into that picture. And, most importantly, surround yourself with good people that support you. They will be your rock when things don’t go your way, and they will be there to celebrate with you when the time comes for celebration.