Listen: ‘Franny’ Theme from the Movie’s Score

Indiewire’s The Playlist recently chatted with composers Danny Bensi & Saunder Jurriaans, who were charged with working on the ‘Franny’ score, which is the latest Theo James film set to premiere this Friday 4/17 at the Tribeca Film Festival. They discuss what it was like working on ‘Franny’ along with other projects, the type of music they discussed with Director Andrew Renzi was the best match for the film, and who their inspiration was.

Listen to the “Franny Theme” track from the score HERE and read the answer to their interview questions below:

How did “Franny” cross your desk?

We have known Andrew Renzi since he produced the first film we ever scored, “Two Gates Of Sleep.” Since then we have been great friends and continued to work together scoring his other films “The Fort,” “Karaoke,” and “Fishtail.”

What did you and director Andrew Renzi discuss in terms of the musical approach?
Andrew really wanted a thematic, iconic score, with a more classical style of film composing. The beautiful, sweeping cinematography needed an equally sweeping orchestral and epic score without being too conventional and impersonal. We also wanted to compliment the many sides of Franny as a character, every cue has layers of strings that convey both his darkness and light.

When working on multiple projects at once, how do you make sure each film gets your full attention?
Well, it helps that there are two of us! The way we work is constantly evolving, we both thrive on being busy and under pressure. We tend to have short term, focused sessions on each film, often writing multiple cues in just a couple of days, then taking a step back for a few days and working on something else.

What inspirations did you bring to “Franny”?
We love Alexandre Desplat’s score for “Birth,” as did Andrew. Aside from incredible orchestration, it’s full of strong melodies which seem to tug you in all different directions at once. We also listened to the “Moneyball” soundtrack by Mychael Danna, which has such a perfectly simple, subtle, emotional landscape.

Was there anything that surprised you in the final music score?
“Franny” was a much more classic, melodic and lush score than usual for us. We had written for the orchestra a few times before but we’re still eagerly dipping our toes in that world. It’s pretty spectacular when things start coming together on this orchestral scale. We were very happy and quite surprised with how cohesive the score is — it sounds kind of like a suite of music as opposed to a bunch of film cues.