BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Tessa and Hardin’s passionate love story has taken the world by storm. The relationship between these characters is woven through After –– a cinematic franchise based on the New York Times best-selling books of Anna Todd. Now, their love evolves through the trilogy’s new instalment After We Fell.
Jerry Goldsmith Award-winning composer George Kallis was tasked with crafting the score to this hugely successful romantic drama. He worked with director Castille Landon to come up with a sound palette and original song that would respect the depth and intimacy of the narrative on screen.
In this interview, we chat with the Los Angeles-based film and television composer about writing the soundtrack to After We Fell.
Hi George, it’s great to chat about your music. Now, as popular as this film franchise may be, you have also achieved a bit of a cult following. Word is that fans have bombarded you with social media messages about your beautiful music. How does it feel to have connected so intimately with viewers of After We Fell?
The fans have been absolutely wonderful, and they have embraced wholeheartedly both the film and the music.
I think for any artist, the ultimate reward is to receive positive feedback and for the audience to connect with your music. I grew up at a time when my favorite artists and composers were unreachable, due to lack of online accessibility. Nowadays, anyone can directly message you via social media.
It’s really fun hearing the various reactions to their favourite cues!
Why do you think your score has resonated so deeply with its audience, anyway?
I think there was a lot of thought and consideration that went into it from the very beginning, about the fans’ point of view in particular. Director Castille Landon and the production team wanted to serve the story as it was written in Anna Todd’s book, and visually transfer it to the screen. I took the same approach with the music.
My aim was to musically embed the viewers into the story, and keep connecting them through the emotional growth and hurdles Tessa and Hardin are experiencing.
Castille tasked you with writing a score that captured the depth of these characters. How do you even begin to compose young love?
In After We Fell, the couple is being pushed to the edge, and the irresistible young love that was sprouting in the first two films is now being interrupted with more grown-up situations and serious circumstances. Tessa finds out about her health issues, the appearance of Robert brings a new cycle of jealousy and questions their relationship, and we are introduced to Tessa’s estranged father who comes into their home with his own addictive troubles.
I felt that the music had to reflect these new state of affairs, and the solution was to look for a new thematic language. I wrote a delicate love theme, which usually is at a deeper musical register and alternates between minor and major keys. We found that this warmer tone can address joyous or melancholic situations accordingly, fitting well with their more developed relationship.
What was your experience with studying these characters so you could portray this intensity of their relationships?
Castille called me a couple of months prior to shooting the film, without mentioning the franchise at the time. She explained the story and the challenging relationship of the protagonists. I was asked to send some of my previous music that could be pertinent to her description, so the producers could have a listen.
I was so inspired by Castille’s description that I decided to specifically compose something fresh with a contemporary colour to it. I spent the rest of the day composing two pieces of music. A few months went by, and I got the call that the production team really liked the demos and wanted to work with me.
My first port of call was going back to the first two films so I could understand where the protagonists were coming from, and to also get to know the supporting characters.
The demo melody I created ended up being Tessa and Hardin’s secondary theme, as it fits so wonderfully under a couple of scenes. It’s pretty much the first half of Stop Keeping Secrets on the soundtrack. From then on, it was simply resculpting and developing the melody to finalise the love theme that can be heard in its full form on the boat scene.
This is one of the most intimate and key moments in the book, and sets up the score’s signature for the rest of the film.
How much of your own understanding of love has found its way into your musical voice?
My family and I used to watch a lot of epic films from the ’50s and ’60s while I was growing up, and I distinctly remember that the love themes from those soundtracks were some of the most beautiful melodies heard in cinema. Studying those scores enabled me to appreciate the craftsmanship of those composers, and how they musically connected the protagonists through the musical motives.
I started my career as a songwriter, so naturally the main focus was to create melodic tunes. Therefore, transitioning into scoring, and particularly composing melodic love themes, evolved quite organically for me.
You’ve used piano, orchestra, and electronic instruments in your tunes. How do you combine these to create your own soundworld for this franchise?
I wanted to make sure that even though we were giving audiences new themes, we were also being true to the tonal reference that was already established in the first two films.
The first decision was to keep the piano as the core instrument of the love theme, and enrich it with all other colors circulating around it. The ambient electronics and pads are used for adding brightness to positive moments, or imply a haunting sound — particularly useful when performing the theme for Tessa’s father Richard.
In scenes that portray deeper issues, I added more presence with a string orchestra — for example, in the scene where Hardin shockingly finds out about the relationship between his mother and Vance. A solo cello here plays a vital role in underscoring Hardin’s overwhelming feeling of psychological trauma, and you could say that the instrument reflects the inner turmoil that he is feeling in this specific moment.
So what was the most emotionally complex scene to compose? And how’d you go about it?
I would say the phone sex scene was challenging. The other love-making scenes featured licensed songs, but Castille required an instrumental to drive this scene forward. At the same time, we did not want the music here to sound like it was scored.
This sequence is mostly about Tessa and Hardin’s irrepressible passion for each other rather than their soulful connection. So my task was to materialise a track that is sultry and edgy, working seamlessly under the images from both a visual and a music production perspective.
I dug into my electronic sounds and used a lot of synths and plugins to sculpture a lo-fi track, adding some vocalised ideas in the background that also help build the eroticism of the scene.
Tell us about the film’s song After Our Dawn. This song was your creation. Why did you think it would be an epic idea to create a ballad for the movie?
I always enjoyed an interconnection of the title song to the main theme of the score, and have done with past films such as Highlander The Source and Cliffs of Freedom. Having written a song with Castille before, I reached out to her with this idea.
Once we had something very rough in place, we pitched it to the producers. They gave us the green light and prompted me to connect with Taylor Conrod, who was part of the production team since After We Collided.
Taylor introduced me to her writing partner Ryan Steffes. Together, with my producers Nico and George, we all focused on getting a song that spoke to the fans, ensuring the lyrics, melody, and arrangement were all true to the franchise.
What words of advice would you offer to film composers who are also looking to create the feeling of love on the screen?
I think inspiration comes out from a story’s arc and the character development. As composers, we don’t just focus on the individual moments or scenes. It’s about where the protagonists are coming from, and where they are headed.
Following this approach creates tonal memorability, and urges the audience have an audible connection with the protagonists.
Listen to George Kallis’ score to After We Fell on Spotify.
Images supplied.
