George Nolfi’s Birth of the Dragon hit theaters this past weekend and presented moviegoers with a modern take on the classic movies that Bruce Lee was known for. The film was inspired from the epic and still controversial showdown between an up-and-coming Bruce Lee and kung fu master Wong Jack Man. Contributing to the modernization of the story was the film’s score by composers H. Scott Salinas and Reza Safinia, whom experimented with everything from rock & roll sounds to Chinese and western flutes. We decided to speak with Reza and Scott and hear a little more about their process for creating the film’s score.
Birth of the Dragon takes place in the 60s. Was there a conscious effort to match the time period with the sound of the score?
SCOTT: We started down that path in the beginning and realized it didn’t really make sense because there are several song placements from the period that give you that retro feel and we wanted this to read more as a fable than a serious biopic so to be period specific in the score felt like it hurt the tone of the film. So we approached the score in a more timeless and pure fun way to make room especially for the last third of the film which shifts almost into a buddy action movie type genre (SPOILER ALERT).
Bruce Lee has been in numerous films. Did you go back and watch any of these to get inspiration for your score?
SCOTT: Reza was a big fan of all the old Bruce movies and martial arts. He turned me onto them so early on we watched quite a few of them. But I didn’t really want to be too influenced musically since again the tone we were trying to strike was so specific and not your typical Bruce Lee film. I thought of it more like a superhero origin film and approached it from that perspective.
Photo Credit: Logan StahleyDo you have a favorite track from the film? If so, what makes it stand out to you?
SCOTT: My favorite track which is broken into several tracks on the album (tracks 15-18) is the warehouse fight sequence. It’s about 12 minutes of action music and it has to navigate all these ups and downs and become more and more supernatural as it goes. We started working on it on the very first day and were tweaking it the entire time. It took about 3 weeks to get that exactly right and even on the stage we made subtle changes during the dub. But we are both super proud of how that works in the film.
The film’s director George Nolfi used a lot of different frame rates and quick changing aperture effects in Birth of the Dragon. Did you all experiment with any new technology or techniques when creating the score?
REZA: Yes! We used this incredible piece of software that our friends over at Laboratory Audio created called “Strikeforce”. It’s a massive drum library that is so incredibly playable it’s almost a sin. It enabled us to create all these dynamic and intense sequences during the warehouse fight that we simply couldn’t not have done any other way. So if you are watching the film and wondering what those crazy drums and percussion are check out “Strikeforce”!
Did you use certain instruments to highlight certain cultures in this film? If so, can you explain what they were?
REZA: For Wong Jack Man’s theme we used Chinese flutes, western flutes, Chinese erhu, and cello. And we tried to use the western and eastern instruments interchangeably so we could tell his story of being a stranger in a strange land. So sometimes we would even in the same scene hand off from a Chinese flute to a western classical flute or cello to erhu etc.
Did George and the producers give you very specific instructions on how they wanted the film to sound or did they give you more creative freedom?
REZA: The kicker here is we had about 3 weeks to score the film. Luckily we had come on the job early as music consultants and we temped the film for George and during that process we made a lot of discoveries. “Temping” is a term for finding existing tracks either yours or out there in the world and cutting them into the film temporarily to give a sense of the flow of the edit and the possible palate of the eventual score.
Then we were off the film for some time and they hired a composer (not us). Then we came back on with 3 weeks left after it didn’t work out with the other composer and we sort of had to save the day. What ultimately got the job done was many many super late nights with Nolfi over at the studio until about 3 AM that really made the difference. We wrote Bruce’s theme on the piano with George in the room at about 2 in the morning. And also one of Nolfi’s favorite tracks called “Masters Make a Choice” Scott and I created and played all the parts in the room with George and he even played some piano on it. So we just made it work because we had to and sometimes that’s when the most magical things happen when there isn’t time for fear or doubts.
Birth of the Dragon opens in cinemas on September 1st, and the film’s soundtrack is now available on iTunes.
