BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Australian composer Caitlin Yeo has been nominated for two 2021 APRA AGSC Screen Music Awards.
In Wakefield (Best Music for a Television Series), Caitlin co-composed the intensely personal journeys of the staff and patients in a Blue Mountains psychiatric hospital. In Playing with Sharks: The Valerie Taylor Story (Best Music for a Documentary), she scored the real-life adventure of a “legend and trailblazer”.
Both soundtracks tap into Caitlin’s ability to drift between what’s real and what’s not — the imagination we find on the screen, in our minds, and in life. Here, Caitlin talks about these two projects, and the way she brings all characters to life whether composing a fictional narrative or documentary.
The series Wakefield addresses the topic of mental ill health in a confronting way. How did you formulate your approach to the music, knowing you needed to be sensitive to such heavy subject matter?
The structure of the show was a big piece of the overall architecture of the music. Each episode reveals itself in character ‘silos’, where we see the same series of events from multiple characters perspectives. We created a number of musical themes to tie the silos together, and tailored the themes to each character’s personality to help bring us inside their heads and hearts, and also create a narrative link between the patients, the nurses, the psychiatrists and Nik.
Another layer to the music in Wakefield is the tap dancing. Nik was a tap dancer as a child, and every episode included a larger-than-life, jump-off-the-screen, throw-your-hands-in-the-air tap sequence. These moments in the series add an extraordinary emotive layer, and give the audience an opportunity to feel the characters journey through the joyous medium of dance.
How does your music reflect the powerful themes of mental ill health and psychiatric care?
Music has an extraordinary ability to illicit emotions, and how this music is understood by the viewer comes down to a listener’s individual interpretations. I think the mental health of all of us is not black and white, and where we cross the line between illness and health is blurred for many. We all have good days, and we all have bad days.
For this show, much of the way the music is perceived is inextricably linked to the extraordinary sound design of the show. It’s impossible to discuss the music of Wakefield without also acknowledging sound designers Sam Petty and Abigail Sie. […] The sound design and music are intimately fused, obscuring the definition between what is heard as music, and what is sound design. This nuance really helped us blur the lines between the characters’ reality and fantasy, and gave us the opportunity to magnify the deeper emotions of the characters, and give insight and nuance to the complexity of their stories.
Beyond the score, the song Come On Eileen plays an integral role in the series. How’d you work your music around this song?
One of the key musical ingredients for the show is the Dexy Midnight Runners song Come On Eileen. In episode 1, Nik Katira (played by Rudi Dharmalingam) hears Come On Eileen played in the hallways of Wakefield by patient Trevor on guitar — and instantly, the song wedges itself into his psyche and begins to unlock blocked memories from his past.
Come On Eileen becomes an earworm throughout the series, and is heard, transformed, contorted, and warped in both the sound design and music. We weaved subtle references to the song into the tapestry of the underscore to continuously bring us back to Nik’s mental state, and the mystery surrounding the memories he had blocked. It was like a mainline into Nik’s mind and inner world.
I was taken aback at some of the performances in this series, and the way these actors worked to portray such vulnerable human experiences. When your role was complete, what did you learn from working on this series – about characters and emotions; or even about the on-screen representation of mental ill health?
It’s always a thrill seeing a show go to air. As a creative, I find this is a time when I can take a step back and watch the show objectively.
The overall response to the show, and the music, has been heart-warming. I think the main thing this show has given me was seeing a bold, inventive, brave, and original story being embraced by Australians.
I hope we continue to have the opportunity to create such unique television in Australia, and give our audiences new and deeply enriching shows like Wakefield, so we can continue to push the boundaries of our storytelling, and keep taking risks as film makers.
You wrote, played, and helped mix this soundtrack. What did you get out of the ability to have such a huge level of input into the music and its ultimate presentation in this series?
The soundtrack for the series is really a testament to the amazing team that worked on the music. A big part of the score is the outstanding performances and recordings/mixes by Damian de Boos-Smith. Damian performed many of the instruments in the series, including the featured cello and viola parts, and also contributed additional music. His performance style is so unique, and very much the sound of Wakefield.
I learnt a lot working alongside Damian and Maria Alfonsine, and I’m grateful for the passion and expertise they both brought to the series. It was definitely a team effort!
Another signature performance in the score for the series is Rucha Lange’s Indian vocals. She is an extraordinary perfectionist when it comes to her singing, and her melismatic voice soars straight to the heart when it is heard.
What was it like to collaborate with Maria on the show?
It’s amazing to be nominated for the 2021 Screen Music Award alongside co-composer Maria for such a bold, brave, and ground-breaking show as Wakefield. Maria is an amazingly talented and dedicated composer. We both worked tirelessly through the pandemic to create the score for the series, and I think that is a big part of its undeniable strength, allure and fragility.
Much of the charm and appeal of Wakefield is that it deals with the subject of mental health with authenticity, humour, sensitivity, and compassion. The genius behind it all is showrunner and creator Kristen Dunphy, who brought her own past experiences as a patient to the show; along with showrunner Sam Meikle, Jungle Entertainment, and the directors Jocelyn Moorhouse and Kim Mordaunt.
Beyond Wakefield, you’re also being celebrated for your documentary work on Playing With Sharks: The Valerie Taylor Story. What’s it like to drift between the world of documentary and fictional narratives for screen?
I love working across both drama and documentary; it keeps my creative output dynamic, and continues to challenge and expand my compositional work every day.
The bedrock of my career has been built on working on Australian documentaries, and in many ways, the craft of underscoring documentary has informed and influenced how I treat drama today.
Playing With Sharks was a very inspiring documentary to work on. Director Sally Aitken and I have worked on multiple documentaries together for the past 12 years, and she always brings out the cheekiest and boldest scores in me.
Whilst the technical process of scoring to documentary is broadly the same as drama, the way I treat music can often differ greatly. This is due to the fact that documentaries deal with real-life characters, archive, cutaways, and interviews — all of which require a different sensibility to bring the story to life, and connect the narrative arc and structure of the film.
On Playing With Sharks, the remarkable underwater archival footage came from Ron and Valerie Taylor’s vast and prolific bank of films. This extraordinary footage was impeccably intercut by editor Adrian Rostirolla, with present-day interviews of Valerie Taylor and contemporary footage, where scenes from the past were mirrored by scenes in the present. The music had to provide narrative glue between these past and the present moments, and play from Val’s point of view as she described her awe and fascination with sharks, whilst also heightening the adventure and her pioneering journey.
How do you use music to depict a high-profile person like Valerie Taylor?
Valerie is a true icon — a legend and a trailblazer — and I wanted to give her life story the full vigour it deserved.
Finding the right notes to compliment Valerie’s story took me some time to discover. The music could never be tame or subtle, and my first pass of music for the film was too smooth and delicate. Instead, the music had to be sassy, unusually bold and brave, and pack a punch in synchronicity with the emotional twists and turns in the narrative. I needed to find a multi-layered approach, that allowed the audience to feel awe, wonder, danger, and fear all at the same time.
It wasn’t until I clued into Val’s love of spaghetti westerns that I cracked the true essence of the score. I added tubular bells, and retro western guitars — played exquisitely by Sean Carey — which instantly transformed the music to give it the brazen fun, determination, and drive required for the ‘lady slayer’ herself.
I also had to write music that took us from Val’s early career as a spearfisher right through to her life as a marine conservationist, culminating in a present-day underwater sequence where Val dives in Fiji. For this, I housed the underscore in a rich and immersive orchestral palette, and fused it with synths from the time to subtly tie each cue into specific eras whilst playing the broader narrative.
Before you go, what’s your advice to those looking to break into the industry? Is it all about networking and who you know, or is it welcoming to newcomers — and how can they begin?
At the end of the day, everyone finds a different path to breaking in. For those wanting to break in to screen composition, join the Australian Guild of Screen Composers, make sure you are an APRA member, get a film education, find your tribe, and start making film music now.
Make sustainable business choices, always charge for what you do, and advocate for your interests and those around you. Retain your rights, and read your contracts! If you don’t understand a point in a contract, pick up the phone and ask a colleague, or the guild. It’s not just enough to get the gig, you then need to ensure you negotiate a fair deal, with a feasible schedule and enough money to be able to produce quality music. The budget should be enough to cover your time, your work, and expertise, as well as your business costs such as rent, gear, software, hardware.
Surround yourself with other film makers, and join your local film composer networks as they provide invaluable support. Create a website and get an online presence. It’s important to be findable.
Finally, if you want to break into the Australian industry, you have to get to love and know Australian film and TV, both drama and documentary. So, my advice: watch as much as you can! There are so many brilliant Aussie screen productions out there.
Check out the full list of APRA AGSC Screen Music Award nominees.
Image supplied. Credit: Stuart Spence.
