Working on the weekly NPR show, “Snap Judgment,†gave composer Alex Mandel the skills he needed to handle the music for “The Inventor.â€
“I was the musical director and I’d have to get on stage with 10 storytellers and write an hour of music in a week,†he explains. “When you’re really under the gun, muscle memory kicks in and you don’t even know where it comes from. You’ve got a problem and you’ve got to solve it.â€
On “The Inventor,†the story of Leonardo Da Vinci during his experimental years, Mandel had to write songs “pretty fast.†Many of the nine in the film were composed as Director Jim Capobianco saw a need.
“These songs are helping tell this story,†Mandel says. “So, we’d write to fit the story.â€
Daisy Ridley, as a result, got a song that explained her character, Princess Marguerite. Marion Cotillard, who voices Louise De Savoy, got one, too.
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Then, however, Mandel faced a challenge with Stephen Fry, who voices Leonardo.
“I’m really not comfortable singing,†the actor told Mandel. So, the composer crafted a song that was almost a rap. “And he did a great job,†Mandel says.
Invention, you might say, came out of necessity.
While Capobianco had studied Leonardo for years, Mandel had to play catch up and often relied on the expert for background. Instead of composing music that sounded of the period, he embraced creativity.
“Leonard da Vinci was ahead of his time. He was designing flying machines 500 years or 400 years before the Wright Brothers created an airplane,†Mandel says. “So that gave us some leeway. The music becomes a kind of metaphor for the mindset of that character. So, with Leonardo and Marguerite, some of their music sounds like it’s 150 years ahead of its time. The music becomes more modern to reflect their thinking.â€
To test early songs -- ones that took much longer than 45 minutes to write -- Mandel had his 10-year-old daughter, Sequoia, record a version. “It was cute†and it worked. She did a version at age 12, as well, and recorded another at 15. “It fits the theme of the movie, which is about family,†dad says.
From the film’s workshop to its completed form, Sequoia helped out in other ways -- informing Mandel about his actors’ vocal abilities and contributing to a song with four-part harmony. “She’s an aspiring actress but, as far as I’m concerned, she did me a huge favor.â€
Because “The Inventor†had a long gestation from workshop to production, “we had time to iterate on some of these songs. After we sat on that workshop song for a year, we were able to come back to it. The new version was a lot better,†Mandel says. “So sometimes it’s nice to have the time. Sometimes, you just don’t have a choice and then you do the best you can.â€
While Mandel worked on “Brave†and other animated films, “The Inventor†offered a different challenge. It was a marriage of stop-motion and 2D animation.
Now working on a live-action film, he realizes music plays different roles in the tapestry of a production. “In live-action, the music is there to gently support the visuals and the storytelling,†he says. “In animation, it’s a character. I love animation for that reason.â€