Meet the Experts Composers roundtable: ‘Lord of the Rings,’ ‘Shrinking,’ ‘Ted Lasso,’ ‘Star Trek: Picard,’ ‘Still,’ ‘Tiny Beautiful Things’ [Exclusive Video Interview]

Rob Licuria
·5 min read
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A film or TV series is often most effective and potent as an artform when it makes us feel, so what are the best ways that good scores elicit an emotional response in the audience? Which film or TV scores and composers are you most fond of and why? These were some of the secrets revealed by five top composers when they joined Gold Derby’s special “Meet the Experts” Q&A event with 2023 Emmy Awards contenders: Bear McCreary (“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power”), Tom Howe (“Shrinking” and “Ted Lasso”), Stephen Barton (“Star Trek: Picard”), John Powell (“Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie”) and Ingrid Michaelson (“Tiny Beautiful Things”). Watch our fascinating full group roundtable panel above, and click on each name above to view each nominee’s individual interview.

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“There’s only one thing you ever need to ask a filmmaker,” McCreary says, recalling some of the best advice his mentor, the late Elmer Bernstein always told him. “What do you want the audience to feel? Don’t ask him about instruments. Don’t ask him about themes. Don’t ask him about the tempo. Just ask him that. I have found that that has bailed me out of a jam every time. Fundamentally, the job is answering that question. And, yes, we have various tools at our disposal, but even more fundamentally, we have to understand the task, the nuance of what you want the audience to feel,” he says. “I think one of the biggest challenges I think you have often have to find out is the simple art of knowing when to not play things,” Barton says, while Powell jokes, “if I’d known all this stuff when I started, I would’ve done a lot better!”

“When you mic a piano really well and it sounds really warm, it has a kind of depth and emotion,” Howe explains. “In the last couple of years I’ve got really into how I re-did my whole setup of how I had things so when I’ve got small sounds, to make sure that everything is always played in some way,” he says. “There’s something about having a familiar instrument that pops back up, pops back up, pops back up,” Michaelson adds, “that you as the viewer, the goal is not to be like, ‘hey, we’re using that guitar again,’ it’s more to elicit pinging in the brain of something familiar that I know that I’ve heard before, that I know that texture and it obviously is complimenting whatever is visually happening.”

“The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” (Amazon Prime) is set thousands of years before the events of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” trilogies, and follows an ensemble cast of characters, both familiar and new, as they confront the long-feared re-emergence of evil to Middle-earth. McCreary is an Emmy winner for “Da Vinci’s Demons” and was also nominated for “Human Target,” “Black Sails” and “Outlander.” In “Shrinking” (Apple TV+), a grieving therapist starts to tell his clients exactly what he thinks. Ignoring his training and ethics, he finds himself making huge changes to people’s lives, including his own. “Ted Lasso” (Apple TV+) follows American college football coach Ted Lasso, who has moved to London to manage AFC Richmond, an English Premier League football team. Howe is an Emmy nominee for “Ted Lasso,” with other projects including “Four in a Bed,” “The Great British Baking Show” and “Secrets of the Elephants.”

The third (and final) season of “Star Trek: Picard” (Paramount+) is the long-hoped-for follow-up series to “Star Trek: The Next Generation” that centers on Jean-Luc Picard in the next chapter of his life. Barton’s career has included “Line of Duty,” “12 Monkeys” and “Niko and the Sword of Light.” “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie” (Apple TV+) follows the life of beloved actor and advocate Michael J. Fox, exploring his personal and professional triumphs and travails, and what happens when an incurable optimist confronts an incurable disease. Powell is an Oscar nominee for “How to Train Your Dragon.” His career has included “Happy Feet,” “Shrek” and “Solo: A Star Wars Story.” In “Tiny Beautiful Things” (Hulu) a woman reluctantly becomes Dear Sugar; an anonymous and revered advice columnist, even when her own life is falling apart. Michaelson is an Emmy nominee for “Little Fires Everywhere.,” and her film and TV career has included “Trunk Show” and “Slumberkins.”

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