BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
A couple of years ago, actors Jessica Biel and Bill Pullman burst onto our screens for the first season of The Sinner – a deeply unsettling series about crime and memory. Shortly after, a second season aired in which Pullman continued his initial role of Detective Ambrose, tasked with resolving another morally complex crime.
Gripping psychological narrative aside, much of what gives this Golden Globe-nominated series a distinctly chilling atmosphere is its aesthetic — and Ronit Kirchman is the composer responsible for generating the show’s disturbing soundworld.
Ronit, who is a Los Angeles-based composer and multi-instrumentalist, talks us through her work across The Sinner. We hone in on her representation of Detective Ambrose’s evolving character, the metronome plot device in season 2, and how sound can make us feel as viewers.
Ronit, thanks for chatting with us about your score for The Sinner. Why did you want to be part of the show, and what about the narrative appealed to you?
My pleasure to chat! I was thrilled to be asked to score The Sinner because of its outstanding creative team, fantastic cast, and engaging story line. The aesthetic approach was also very cinematic, and called for music to play an important role in shaping the drama.
There are many aspects of the story that appealed to me. For one thing, it goes into a great deal of psychological depth with subtlety. For a composer, this presents wonderful challenges and opportunities for sonic creativity.
I also enjoyed its shifting landscape of perspectives, memories, and states of mind. I felt music could contribute a sense of immersion in those experiences.
How tightly did you weave your dark and powerful soundscapes with the vision of the show? Even when listening to the soundtrack on its own, it still sounds so unsettling.
In my mind, the music really has to integrate completely with the other elements of the show. As a composer for a narrative project, it’s my job to create music that expresses the story. At the same time, I am really glad to hear the music does give a full experience on its own!
There can be a very dynamic relationship among the different design elements and story elements. In other words, I don’t feel that music should always have a ‘one-to-one’ relationship with the visuals or with specific events or characters, but it does always relate to them in a meaningful way, as an interwoven thread in the same fabric.
Part of what creates interest in a project like this is the dynamic interplay of the different aesthetic components which bring the story to life.
How did you incorporate – or stray from – season 1 of The Sinner? Did this narrative affect your decisions for season 2, and did you build on or avoid any of your musical ideas?
This is a great question. The Sinner is structured in an interesting way. I think of it as anthology with continuity. Thematically speaking, the music for season 2 is almost completely new music – new themes, and many new instruments (harmonium, hammered dulcimer, ritual drums, processed voice). However, as you point out, the character of Ambrose represents a primary evolving thread that connects the whole journey. So my palette of instruments keeps certain sounds from season 1, especially the ones that relate to Ambrose.
I also developed and recontextualised a couple of the ‘Ambrosian’ motifs. Since Harry’s character discovers and reveals previously unknown memories from his own past, the music of Ambrose itself needs to grow, change, and add new thematic material, in season 2.
Overall, some of the feeling of connectedness from season to season comes from a unified approach in how the score functions in the show.
I understand you worked closely with showrunner Derek Simonds to create the perfect sound for the metronome in the show. How did you know when you found the right sound, and did you do any research into hypnotic textures to align it with the narrative?
Derek really was going for a certain sound, so I believe it was a more intuitive process rather than one based in research. I ended up making a big menu of options – I think at some point it was 17 different sounds – and from there, he was able to pick out the frontrunner.
He really had a specific idea in his mind for the metronome, and it was my task to concretise that.
Were you responsible for other sound effects? Why was the metronome specifically, though core to the story, treated as ‘music’?
There are a lot of aspects of my score that incorporate sound design techniques, but obviously there is a totally different department that is in charge of sound effects editing.
The metronome was treated as a musical element primarily because of its symbolic content, I think. It bridges categories, because it’s not simply diegetic [on-screen] sound. It comes in and out in a more impressionistic way, sometimes. Since it is being used as an instrument of hypnotic practice, its presence warps the perception of time and space, which is interesting since essentially it’s a time-keeping machine.
Having the metronome be considered a musical element allowed me to have more creative choice concerning parameters like tempo and sound, which was useful because it often interacted with other score elements.
Ronit, you also perform in this soundtrack. Still, the music sounds anything but acoustic; it has an electronic and heavily produced feel. And in the track Two Deaths, the dissonance is overwhelming.
When I create a score, I’m really looking to embody the inner and outer worlds being represented on screen.
*SPOILER ALERT!* Two Deaths is the cue that accompanies the opening murder scene, where Julian witnesses the deaths of the people he has poisoned. It’s a great shock to him, and very intense physically for all the characters. It’s one of those moments where the score needs to match and even amplify the intensity and the dissonance of the events taking place, so that the scene imprints on the audience on a visceral level.
In this specific scene, I felt that opening with ‘cleaner’ threads of acoustic sound – which then have to struggle through big waves of less easily identifiable sonic movement, combined with a distinct, developing rhythm of building percussion – would communicate that feeling to a contemporary audience.
Why do you think music can make such an impact on the psychological state of the viewer, creating sensations such as tension, dread, and curiosity?
It’s our wiring as human beings. We are instruments of perception, too, and as humans we have evolved to be very sensitive to certain kinds of patterns and sounds and vibrations. That relationship between the music and the audience continues to evolve as we continue to make music for stories and observe the responses of listeners. There’s more consciousness being brought into this relationship than ever before and, in some ways, film and television scores are at the forefront of the exploration.
There are some kinds of impact that seem almost universal, but there are also a lot of variations in how individuals subjectively respond to music, based on culture, temperament, and many other factors. It’s part of what keeps my job interesting!
To young composers who may one day grow up to score television series, what advice would you offer?
I think it’s a good idea to get all the musical training you can, and develop your interests as a composer so that when you start scoring for narrative, you have a more developed sense of your voice.
That said, you can expect to keep learning on the job as well, and keep evolving your toolkit as you go.
I also think it’s a great idea to watch a lot of movies and shows, as well as all sorts of performances, to become an astute observer of all the different ways that music can work within a narrative framework, and to experience life fully.
You need to love storytelling to do this work, and your emotional IQ will be essential in helping you to communicate the ideas, emotions, and energy of whatever show you are working on.
Listen to Ronit’s composition when you watch The Sinner, available on Netflix.
Shout the writer a coffee?
If you like, you can give thanks to Stephanie for volunteering her time to bring you this story. No amount too much or little 🙂
Images supplied. Pay securely via PayPal. We protect your personal information.
