Exploring the music of Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast - an interview with Music Supervisor Brett Swain and Musician Bleu

As I mentioned in my review of the Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast yesterday, one of the very first things I noticed during the screening of this film was the music. It was different, and just something about it drew me in. During my recent press trip with Disney for the release of Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast, we had the unique opportunity to hear from Music Supervisor Brett Swain and musician Bleu (who produced the songs for the film and wrote some of them as well).

In our interview with Director Steve Loter, we asked him what he was listening to while working on this film and if that impacted the production at all. He told us that on his 1.5+ hour commute to the studio, he was listening to Bleu pretty often and ended up approaching him after one of his shows to recruit him to work on the film. As Bleu told us in his interview, he'd never worked on a film before and this was incredibly exciting for him.

When we walked into the theater to interview Brett Swain and Bleu, I immediately noticed that we wouldn't be sitting around a table, just chatting. There were all kinds of instruments set up and I couldn't wait to see what was in store for us.

Bleu told us that [Director] Steve Loter really wanted something unique for this film - not only within the fairy franchise, but just in general. Bleu said,
"[Steve] really wanted new sounds. And obviously there's this huge looming figure in this film, the Neverbeast and his world of the forest and the cave, and he wanted to make sure that this was something that you hadn't experienced before. So, the big challenge for me was to come up with this unique sound color palette for him and all the other characters in the film."

Brett Swain told us that one of the first things they start discussing as far as music goes, is whether or not they're going to have themes for each character. For most films, when they discuss themes it's usually melodic, but for this movie they wanted it to be more about sounds and not so much about melody. They wanted something that was "sonically different" so that the minute you hear that sound, you would know that it’s associated with that character. That would explain a lot of the apparatus that was in the room.

Bleu then discussed some of the "instruments" they used in making the film. For Gruff, they actually used planters from a home improvement store. He showed us how the the holes in the bottom of the pots made them ideal for placing on cymbal stands, and he demonstrated the perfect earthy, primitive sounds they emitted. They got dozens of different pots and he played some of the sounds from the movie, and Gruff came rushing to my mind. Funny how that works!

Brett Swain told us it was a bit of a challenge to mix the establish melodies and sounds from the earlier fairy movies with the new and unique sounds that would be incorporated with "Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast." It was fascinating to hear the layering of musical melodies and new sounds when they played clips of the film for us.

As they were describing the methods they used for creating the sounds and music for this film it just sounded so fun. I could imagine them going to the hardware store and rolling around metal trash cans and testing out flower pots. As you can imagine, things got quite creative as they used empty hallways to amplify sounds and reverberate the sounds louder and louder. They utilized any and everything that would give them the sounds they were looking for - even cheap children's toys like the "Whirly Tube". Bleu said they were looking for a very specific sound for the storm (which plays a large part in the film) and the Whirly Tube proved to be a perfect fit.

Here's a video of Bleu demonstrating the Whirly Tube and a clip of the film:

Another thing you hear in the beginning of the film is the music made specifically for Fawn, the film's primary fairy character. Bleu told us, "I wanted to use acoustic stringed instruments on the film because I have a big background in that and alternate tunings and low strung guitars and high-strung guitars and all these sorts of different things. But I didn't want it to be an acoustic guitar score, because again that has a specific connotation of folk music or country music or the west... So, I was looking for new ways to play acoustic instruments.What we ended up coming up with is this idea..."

Check out this clip to hear more about this innovative technique and to see how it worked in the film.

Of this beautiful instrumental sound, Bleu said, "We call it the dulcetar; [it] was what we used to describe Fawn’s character because it’s beautiful. It’s really versatile and bright. She has a lot of different types of scenes. Obviously it’s her emotions that carry us through the whole film. So, we were able to do sad things and upbeat things and more moving action scary things - all sorts of things - because it’s quite versatile."

Bleu said he worked on the music for the film for about a year and a half. He said, "It was a slow process because originally I was only hired to work on one song, to produce and write the opening credit song. But then they asked me to work on another song. And then they asked me to work on the score. And then they asked me to do another song and another song and so on and so forth. So it was kind of a slow process. It wasn’t necessarily every day until about the last eight months."  The score for the film is amazing. He and Brett Swain did an incredible job and it was so cool to see how the sound and melodies came together.

Tinker Bell and the Legend of the NeverBeast is available on Blu-ray and DVD now!
Here's a trailer for you to watch:

Disclosure: I participated in this interview on a press trip sponsored by Disney and ABC. All opinions are my own.