Konsonant Music–founded by composers/creative directors Andrew Gross and Gil Talmi–has worked on four original, new projects which will debut during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.
The four new Sundance projects are:
- The Great Hack: This documentary from Netflix takes a look at how data has surpassed oil as the world’s most valuable asset, and how that data is being weaponized to wage cultural and political wars. Academy Award-nominated directors Karim Amer and Jehane Noujaim return to the Sundance Film Festival with this deeply layered, ethically complex, disturbing, and riveting new film. For this project, Talmi provided the original music. He said, “Scoring The Great Hack has been a tremendous opportunity, allowing me to blend many of my musical influences into a brand new sonic palette for this important film. The Great Hack deals extensively with larger questions, such as the contrast between light and darkness, technology vs. humanity, and the interplay between those elements. I approached the human aspect of the story using more orchestral instruments, with a heavy emphasis on intimate piano for the internal worlds. I used the magical world of modular synthesizers to convey the various data streams and technological manipulation that are at play throughout the film. These sonic explorations were a culmination of an in-depth collaboration with the filmmakers, with great attention to detail. Every byte counts!”
- The Dress Up Gang: This new episodic sitcom presents the “insanely funny and surrealistic” comedy trio The Dress Up Gang, as they expand upon their cult-hit web series. The sitcom, which will air on TBS, was produced by Abso Lutely Productions (Nathan For You, Tim And Eric Awesome Show). For this project, Konsonant’s Gross served as the show’s composer (including the theme) and executive music supervisor. The theme was recorded with a live orchestra at Nashville’s historic Ocean Way Studios, and features the exquisite vocal performance of Ty Taylor (Vintage Trouble). Of the collaboration, Gross said, The Dress up Gang creative team had a very strong vision of how they wanted music to function in their show’s world. It’s a modern comedy that uses performances, dialog and music from the 1940s and ‘50s. So we would license music from that bygone era, and I would also write music that sounded like it came from that period. To get the most material out of our live session in Nashville, I recorded the orchestra in sections, and even wrote alternate arrangements for each section. This allowed me and the editors to have many stems to play with, since we also used the theme to underscore various scenes (in different ways) throughout the season.”
- The Edge of Democracy: With remarkably intimate access, this documentary from Netflix follows Brazil’s embattled leaders as they grapple with a scandal born out of their country’s fascist past and inflamed by a furious and ideologically divided nation. Director Petra Costa’s film carries a potent warning: Brazil’s crisis is one that is shared–and fomented–by Western superpowers run by equally treacherous political forces. The Edge of Democracy won the 2016 Tribeca Film Institute/Konsonant Music/TFI Network Film Scoring Package. As part of the package, Talmi consulted with the filmmakers over the past two years–the film features Talmi’s music licensed from the Konsonant Music catalog.
- It’s Not About Jimmy Keene: Set in Los Angeles in 2015, the audience is introduced to the storyline through Bukka La Rocke, a neighbor, poet and sage, who calls forth to the chorus of assorted gatherers, imparting the sage of Jimmy Keene. In so doing, La Rocke focuses on a young, bi-racial teen named Ivan Roistacher–a youngster in search of his own voice–who appears to be lost. For It’s Not About Jimmy Keene, Gross served as music supervisor. He said, “This project occupies a special place in my heart, since I’ve known Caleb Jaffe (director/writer/actor) since he was five years old. When it came to postproduction on Jimmy Keene, I helped with music supervision and also supervising the scoring process with Caleb and Sofia Frohna, his composer. They were so committed to the story and tone, I just wanted to do whatever they needed to help bring their vision to life–this even included conducting at the scoring session, so Caleb and Sofia could be in the booth and focus on their creative collaboration.”
