Exclusive Interview: Composer Jason Soudah Discusses the Music of FOLLOWED
Josh Millican
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*Editor’s Note: Jason Soudah will be participating in tomorrow’s “Dissecting Horror” Virtual Q&A featuring the talented creatives behind Followed. The event takes place July 8th, 2020, at 6 PM (PST). Read about the panel and find out where to stream, HERE.
Horror has been at the top of the box office the last few months thanks to titles such as The Wretched, Becky, and Unsubscribe. Now Global View Entertainment’s Followed is dominating that list, currently terrifying audiences at drive-ins and select open theaters.
Synopsis:
When aspiring social media influencer “DropTheMike” is offered a lucrative sponsorship to grow his channel, he’s joined by his video crew on a visit to one of the most haunted hotels in America, where he’ll give his audience a horrific night of thrill-seeking the likes of which they have never seen before. What begins as a fun investigative challenge including the infamous Elevator Ritual quickly descends into a personal hell of true evil, begging the timely question: how far would you go to pursue internet fame?
Followed is directed by Antoine Le from a screenplay penned by Todd Klick; the film stars Matthew Solomon, John Savage, Sam Valentine, Tim Drier, Caitlin Grace, Kelsey Griswold, and Christopher Ross Martin.
Related Article: Check Out Our Exclusive (Disgusting!) Clip from Based-On-True-Story FOLLOWED in Theaters & Drive-Ins 6/19
To get some insight on how Followed was made, we decided to speak with one of the film’s creatives, composer Jason Soudah. Below we talked to Jason about working alongside director Antoine Le, how he approached the jump scenes, and much more.
Jason’s score for Followed is available on all digital sites now, it was released by Derby Zero Six Productions.
Dread Central: There are many different subgenres of horror: Slasher, supernatural, psychological, and found footage to name a few. Do you think that each of these subgenres has a distinct musical sound?
Jason Soudah: I think there are definitely a lot of ways to score the subgenres of horror movies, but I am not sure that I would say slasher movies have one style of music, while psychological thrillers have another, but rather I think that any horror film could have a score that is any genre that the composer and the filmmakers feel works for that individual film and its potential fans/audience. There are the more orchestral scores, such as those for Nightmare On Elm Street, Hellraiser, Psycho, and so on, albeit to varying degrees of atonality; there are the modern (or modern at their time) electronic/sound-design scores, and of course mixtures of the two, such as Hans Zimmer’s scores to The Ring/The Ring 2 and Benjamin Wallfisch’s scores to IT/IT: Chapter Two.
DC: Did you go back and watch any horror films to get inspiration for Followed? If so, which ones?
JS: Maybe I should have! I didn’t, to be honest. For some reason, I knew I wanted the sound world for Followed to be deep and dark, with rumbling, growly synths, and intensity to build through these sounds opening up and getting more glitchy. I just went with what felt right to me sonically and musically, and then ran my ideas by Antoine Le (Director) and Matthew Ryan Brewbaker (Producer/Editor). They also wanted the music to be physically felt (often more than heard), which I am always on board with as I love a deep, body-shaking low-end!
I have watched many horror films over the years, and have (in real life…) had a few experiences where I saw things that startled me in the middle of the night (perhaps ghosts/demons, perhaps sleep- apnea-induced hallucinations!) and so, of course, I would have been inspired subconsciously by experience, channeling the terrors of my horror/thriller movie/life memories.
DC: How does your score progress from the beginning of the film to the end scene?
JS: The music I wrote for the opening features a driving bass line that grows in intensity, as the viewer is given an overview of some of the horrible murders and unexplained deaths we are about to learn more about. The main musical theme is played on a solo cello surrounded by dark, weighty synths, and building aggression in the soundscape overall. Then we jump into a series of vlogs which are scored primarily with pop-songs, hip-hop tracks, break-beats, and so on – less “underscore” and more just music that the vlogger and his team could have chosen and obtained cheaply or for free. As we continue through the movie, there are a few more emotional moments, both joyous and desolate. I would say the score becomes less and less about music and more and more about the building tension and dismantling of interpersonal and intrapersonal bonds, which I relied on my sound-design for. I don’t want to give anything away about the story for those of you who have yet to see Followed, but let’s just say the music brings you to the brink, and then once the movie is over, you are hit hard with a banging Hip-Hop/Rock track (“Problems feat. Kingidiom”) which should make you feel bad-ass!
DC: Did you give any of the characters in Followed specific themes? If so, which character was your favorite to score for?
JS: I didn’t have themes for particular characters, but I did have two main themes which were used for specific purposes. The main theme was based on an idea I had to translate what is known in the movie as The Korean Elevator Ritual (apparently a real and terrifying thing!) into a melody. The ritual involves you ascending and descending in an elevator through a specific sequence of floors, and I turned those floor numbers into the melody – I can’t remember the exact code I used, but it was something like Level 1 was C and each floor either went up in a step or half step. The melody I ended up with was pretty unusual. I presented this as part of my initial ideas suite to Antoine, Matthew, and Todd (Klick, Writer) when we first met to discuss me potentially coming on board, and thankfully they were really into both the idea and the music!
The other melodic theme, which I called “Come Home,” centers around “DropTheMike” and his partner Jess’s relationship, as well as the relationship between the friends who are the center of the story. I reversed the main theme’s melody since in the Korean Elevator Ritual you are supposed to reverse the order of floors you visit in order to get back to our world, as a symbol of when people are trying to get out of this darkness that we end up in as the movie unfolds.
DC: How closely did you work with the film’s sound designers? With a vlog type found footage film there are a lot of computer type sounds.
JS: The film sound designers were so awesome! Pyata G. Penedo and his right-hand person Christopher J. Thomas (figure8sound) were really into creating a uniquely unsettling sonic world for Followed – they did the sound design as well as the final sound mix – and were extremely passionate about making the movie as immersive as possible, enhanced by the sounds they made and how they used them, where they placed them in the surround-sound experience, and how they balanced these sounds with my music so that there was good interplay. With the computer sounds and so on, I aimed to make sure that my music had a gap in the midrange frequencies to give those sounds space.
One of the main scenes where I was challenged in particular by the sound designers (in a good way) is what I would say is the main chase sequence (“Who’s Following Us?”). It is an anxiety-driven, “what the hell is going on?!” kind of scene, full of sound effects (running on different floor surfaces in echoic hallways and stairwells, skidding, elevators, etc), scares, sudden changes of direction, moments of full-on panic! Before figure8sound got involved on the project, we were all happy with the music I had written for this section of the movie, but once Pyata and Christopher were doing their thing, it was clear to them that this scene would be better served if I went back to the drawing board. Christopher made suggestions to me for the new version, and I am so glad I took another stab at this cue, because the new version is definitely a whole lot better! Thankfully, Antoine and Matthew agreed as well, and this version is what is in the final cut.
DC: Mike’s Halloween recreation vlog uses music that sounds just like the original Halloween film theme, was that the actual theme from the movie or did you give that theme a new take yourself? If the latter, how was it recreating one of the most memorable themes in cinematic history?
JS: This is such an awesome question, and I am sorry to have to disappoint you with a bit of a rubbish answer! The Halloween recreation vlog was a scene that I actually didn’t write the music for! I would have loved to do my own version of something like the original Halloween film’s music, but in this case, we were all really happy with what Matthew (Producer/Editor) had put into this scene already, and it kind of added to the vlog nature of the scene that it was an existing track from a music library. I do love my 80s music!
DC: There are a lot of jump-scares in Followed. How do you decide when “less is more” during these sequences?
JS: Of course there were some subsonic booms and big bangs, but the jump scares in Followed had a lot of startling sound effects that were “in the scene,” so I tried to either reinforce or stay out of the way of those. I hope I got the balance right! We never wanted to make the scares have less impact by having too many of them, or making them all massive, so some are bigger than others. There are plenty of terrifying moments in this movie that are scary in and of themselves without me also putting a hat on a hat (to quote one of my composer idols, Henry Jackman).
DC: What was the first horror film you remember seeing? Why did it have an impact on you?
JS: The first image that comes to mind (and still freaks me out!) when you ask me that question is Freddy Krueger! I am not sure which of the A Nightmare On Elm Street movies that I saw way too young (I think I was around 9 years old, back in 1989)! I think it had such a huge impact because of his association with nightmares and night-time in general is scary enough as a young child. Even now, Freddy lives on in my vivid imagination!! To be honest, I haven’t dared actually watch one of his movies since!
Have you seen Followed yet? Will you be tuning in for our Followed virtual Q&A tomorrow at 6 PM (PST)? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram! You can also carry on the convo with me personally on Twitter @josh_millican.
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