By Randi Altman

Composer Roger Neill has scored many film and television series over the years, including the features 20th Century Women, Don’t Think Twice and Beginners, and TV shows such as Amazon’s Mozart in the Jungle and the CBS sitcom Mom. In addition to being a musician and composer, Neill holds a PhD from Harvard in music and has created a large music catalog, including the scores to more than 20 feature films, hundreds of television episodes, video games, commercials and an opera.

One of his most recent projects is the HBO Max feature Unpregnant. Based on the novel of the same name, Unpregnant focuses on a pregnant teen and her former best friend as they head out on a road trip from Missouri to New Mexico. While a comedy, Unpregnant deals with some serious themes, and the score reflects that.

We reached out to Neill to hear more about his workflow on Unpregnant, working with the film’s writer/director Rachel Lee Goldenberg as well as his process.

You had to walk the line between comedy and drama for Unpregnant. What were some of those challenges?
That was the difficult part of scoring Unpregnant: the fact that the film straddles a line between being a buddy comedy and a drama with a serious subtext. But when you see the film, it maintains that balance quite beautifully and effortlessly.

Our heroine, Veronica, has a crisis, and she’s on a mission to solve this crisis. She enlists the help of a friend, Bailey, with whom our heroine has a troubled and complex relationship. But for various reasons, Bailey is the only candidate our heroine can depend on. So away they go on to their adventures and misadventures, until the conclusion of Veronica’s mission.

That’s a lot of boxes to check, and therein lies much of the fun for me as a composer. What can I do to help our heroine through each moment and each predicament that she finds herself in? There are a lot of mini episodes in the movie, like a comic subplot involving Veronica’s hunky but worthless boyfriend. Or when our girls are kidnapped by a cult-y family, and then they escape. Each little moment is an opportunity to make something fun and cool with the score.

Ultimately, the film is a road trip adventure with two friends. The journey becomes the story, and the journey is what dictates the music. It’s Huck and Jim on a raft rolling down the Mississippi. Except they’re in a Trans-Am, and they are going to Albuquerque to get an abortion.

What is your process for scoring, and how did you go about that on Unpregnant?
The trick is finding the right “voice” for a score. At the beginning, I tend to compose the music for the key scenes many times, over and over, until we get the tone just right. I’m not polishing; I’m writing a whole new piece with each rewrite.

The director, Rachel Lee Goldenberg, and I work really closely during this time, experimenting to find exactly the right music that expresses or enhances the story we’re trying to tell.

When did you start on Unpregnant?
I got the green light to start working on Unpregnant just before the pandemic shut everything down. But that kind of worked out, ironically. The push was full-on for three months working on the score. It takes a hell of a lot of man-hours to write and rewrite music for a movie, and since the work process takes place over a span of several months, it’s important to be consistent and disciplined so that you don’t burn yourself out.

Having everything shut down contributed to a peace and quiet that allowed me to really concentrate on the work at hand, with few distractions. Of course, now I’m done and there are no new movies to score. For the time being.

How would you describe the score? Upbeat? Serious?
Unpregnant is a comedy film, and so the score on the whole is appropriate for a comedy. But, for the most part, the most effective comedy scores are not themselves funny. The music plays it straight.

In Unpregnant, there are some very heartfelt moments between our two heroines, and the music plays a big role in providing the humanity to those scenes. For example, there’s a very emotionally intense flashback scene, wherein our protagonist, Veronica, is remembering when she and her friend Bailey were kids. It starts out with a certain nostalgic warmth, but then young Veronica overhears Bailey’s parents arguing, about Bailey, and it’s ugly. Quickly, young Veronica grabs Bailey and insists that they go on a bike ride “right now,” and off they go, soaring down the street on their bikes to safety and freedom. The music begins with a feeling of warmth and nostalgia, then evolves to darkness and concern with a tinge of menace, then onto youthful joy and exuberance, all in the span of about 90 seconds.

Can you talk about the instruments used?
As mentioned, the score was composed during the initial onset of the COVID pandemic, so a conventional recording session with an ensemble of musicians was going to be impractical. I am a multi-instrumentalist myself, so, as with all my scores, I played a slew of guitar parts, bass, keyboards, percussion … all in my home studio.

My outstanding assistant Alex Redfern did a bunch of programming and other duties. Dieter Hartmann played drums, bass and guitars on a bunch of cues. I have a violin session guy, Paul Cartwright, who laid down some beautiful string parts, playing violins and violas to create the sound of a big string section. His work can be heard on the cue “Trains Go Fast” — our heroines are rushing to hop onboard a freight train headed toward Albuquerque, hobo-style. The girls are unsuccessful. The music is effective, thanks in no small part to Paul’s string lines. In terms of a sound mix, it is very difficult for music to compete with the noise a train makes. Trains are loud. But we did our best.

When I start writing music for any film, I take a bit of exploration time to figure out what sound elements and what instruments to use, but once I narrow down the arsenal, it becomes easier to write the music because the score starts to develop a “sound personality.”

I relied heavily on two vintage synthesizers, a Roland Juno-106 (from the ’80s), which is on almost every cue, and a Roland XV-5080, an extremely powerful multi-timbral synth from the ‘90s. I decided to revive the sound of that Roland for this score just to give me something fresh to add to the stew. Any time I use the older instruments, I do significant sonic processing to give them new life and make them sound contemporary. Rachel, our director, told me I spent way more time tweaking sounds than any other composer she has worked with. I take that as a compliment. (I’m not sure it was, but I’m taking it that way anyway!)

There is one singular moment that gives me extra joy: it’s a cue called “Here’s The Plan.” Veronica is finally at the clinic in Albuquerque, and she is being counseled by a kindly and empathetic nurse. The music mostly consists of layered, clean tones from my Fender Stratocaster electric guitar (I’ve owned this guitar since I was 15). But toward the end of the cue, I sing a note. Just one note, softly and purely. It’s processed in a way that renders it kind of indistinguishable. But it’s there, and it just seemed like the right sound at that moment to give a little succor to our heroine. I don’t normally sing on my soundtracks. This time I sang one note.

Any mention of the score process requires a shout-out to my genius mix engineer, Jason La Rocca, who is a great mixer and artistic collaborator. And he’s an awesome hang. During the entire creation of the music for Unpregnant, pretty much the only people I actually saw in person and face to face were the director Rachel and my mixer Jason. Along the way, however, Jason introduced me to a software program called Audiomovers, which allows him to tie into my studio speakers and send me his mixes in real time, as he tweaks and polishes. That was a game-changer. Even though Jason’s studio is only a few miles away, it became clear that I could be working on these mixes with him from virtually anywhere in the world, in real time. I could be scoring from some isolated research station in the Antarctic. Maybe next time I will.

What is the specific set of skills needed to be a composer?
Being a composer for film, specifically, requires that you have mastery of a number of different skills. You are a creative artist; you are a small-business owner; you wear many hats. As creative artists, film composers need to possess the skills to produce music in a vast variety of styles and a multitude of voices.

Like being an actor, you can’t play the same role twice. Each role necessitates a new performance. The composer needs to bring something special and new to each production. You need to be able to create music in whatever style and genre is needed for a film, but ideally you do that in a unique way each time … something unlike anybody else.

That’s one of the hardest things to pull off: to develop the ability to create music in a nearly infinite variety of styles, but do it in such a way that your own voice is distinct and recognizable. Your unique voice is your selling point, and that’s what will make directors and filmmakers excited about working with you. Otherwise, they’ll just call Hans [Zimmer].

In addition, most of us composers maintain complex and sophisticated recording studios or writing studios, and we are deep into the technology, which is constantly evolving. Keeping on top of running a studio is time-consuming and expensive. The recording studio becomes our instrument. Film music is recorded music, and film composers are recording artists. The only thing that matters is what comes out of the loudspeaker. That is our medium. A film composer needs to be able to manage people and manage a business, keeping track of how money is spent and how resources are allocated, making sure that timetables are kept and those high standards of quality are maintained.

Ultimately a film composer is a collaborator; we’re not an island unto ourselves. By its very definition, film composition exists to be united with a larger work of art. How well you function as a part of a greater collaborative effort is crucial to your success as a film composer.

What is your favorite part of composing?
I love being a storyteller with music. Music has a communicative power that exists beyond the realms of words and visuals. To me, what music can add to a movie is kind of magical. A film composer learns how to harness the expressive power of music. It’s thrilling.

You mentioned you aren’t working on any films currently. What do you do when you don’t have a project?
I tend to use my downtime to re-introduce myself to my family and friends, because I pretty much disappear when I’m hard at work on something.

Sometimes the music I write “for myself” comes out of some score I’ve created. I might discover a certain voice or approach to a piece of music while scoring a film, something that I find exciting, and I continue on with that for my own pleasure.

If you weren’t a composer, what do you think you’d be doing?
Every day I am grateful that I have a career as a film composer. It’s a ridiculous thing to do, actually. I probably should have gone to law school, but I don’t have the aptitude for it. There was never really a plan B. It was always going to be film music.

Mozart in the Jungle

What are some of your favorite projects from the past?
Some stand-out projects include the Amazon TV series Mozart in the Jungle. That was especially fun because, along with being the composer for the series, I was a musical consultant as well. I was helping the writer with the scripts and trying to keep the storylines honest about the lives and culture of classical musicians, while at the same time making a series that was fun and compelling for a wide audience.

I was on the set in New York a lot for Mozart in the Jungle. There’s a speech in the pilot episode that Gael Garcia Bernal’s character says that I wrote the dialogue for. His character is describing a musical performance, and the task fell to me to create the words that made musical sense and had some sort of integrity. Hearing Gael perform my words on camera … that was a kick.

Other than Unpregnant, what are some more recent projects you’ve worked on?
I have a small handful of compositions that have been licensed repeatedly for commercials and other uses, particularly the scores from the films Beginners, 20th Century Women and Don’t Think Twice. Sometimes I will hear my music on the radio or playing on the sound system at some store or boutique.

Recently my wife and I were shopping at a gourmet food warehouse, and we heard some piano music playing and we were trying to figure out if I wrote it or not. It sure sounded like me, but from what? It took a while, but we finally figured out what I wrote it for.

A lot of my soundtrack music seems to find a home on NPR. For a long while I kept hearing my music on the public radio series, This American Life. Week after week, I repeatedly heard my music on their episodes. Finally, I wrote an email to the show’s website and suggested that since they seem to like my music so much, they should just hire me to write for them. So they did.

What project or projects are you most proud of?
Probably my two favorite films are the ones I scored for director Mike Mills. For Beginners, I collaborated with my musical colleagues Brian Reitzell and Dave Palmer. We all brought our individual talents to bear to create a really unique score. And then there’s 20th Century Women, perhaps my favorite score. I remember being at a screening at the historic Chinese Theater, part of the AFI Film Festival, and hearing my music being played over the loudspeakers before the film began. That was a big treat.

What are some pieces of technology or instruments you can’t live without?
I am a multi-instrumentalist, and I have a studio full of all sorts of instruments. Some are especially coveted. I have a 1977 Fender Stratocaster electric guitar that I bought new in 1977 with my paper-route money when I was a kid. I use that Strat all the time. (It’s the first sound you hear in the opening of 20th Century Women.)

Roger Neill

I have an Alvarez Kazuo Yairi acoustic guitar that I use on almost all my scores, whether the score needs it or not. I’ve had the Alvarez for about 20 years, and the longer I have it the better it sounds.

I recently completed music for an upcoming independent film, called Alex/October. For that score I explored the non-standard guitar tunings of Nick Drake using the Alvarez. That was a fun exploration, just finding new ways to make the familiar sound fresh. I like using old synthesizers. Years ago, I borrowed a Roland Juno-106 from a friend of mine, and I’ve used that synth on a lot of scores, including Unpregnant. It’s on every cue. I think my friend forgot he lent it to me. I hope he doesn’t read this article.

Finally, how do you de-stress from it all?
I enjoy doing long road trips on my bike. It helps me get out of my head after long stretches being cooped up in the studio. Also gardening. I grow vegetables, and I’m kind of obsessed with it. By the time you factor in the hours I spend cultivating my crops, those tomatoes of mine probably cost about $100 a piece.

Randi Altman is the founder and editor-in-chief of postPerspective. She has been covering production and post production for more than 20 years.