VENICE BEACH, CA. (Top40 Charts/ Mophonics) - British-born Stephan Altman had been composing music for his music production collective Mophonics for several years when he was given a one-time opportunity to create the feature-length score for what was to become the award-winning film Bella, Alejandro Monteverde's powerful, passionate, yet unpredictable tale of self discovery shot on the streets of New York.
Having won the 2006 Toronto Film Festival's "People's Choice Award", there is speculation that Bella might do what another heart-warming film did 25-years ago. Chariots of Fire, the little-known independent British film, also by a first-time director and featuring unknown actors, surprised everyone by winning Toronto and then winning the Oscar for best picture.
Bella's emotional music score is a key driver that helps to propel this touching drama forward. "Fernando Villena, an editor I greatly admire, was cutting the movie. We had worked together in commercials and shorter form stuff, and he recommended me to work on Bella. I scored a test scene for the director, and he decided to take a chance on me," states Altman.
Altman went on to live and breathe this extraordinary film for months, and considering this was his first foray into feature film composition, he was intimidated by the experience. "I'd never done anything this long before so initially it was terrifying. I would try hard to contain the panic whenever I thought of the scale of what I had to accomplish, while at the same time knowing that I needed more inspiration than ever before. That panic never went away, but controlling it made it morph into a kind of positive source of adrenalin, which I think sustained me throughout the rest of the process."
An unexpected twist would come in the moviemaking experience when Altman tapped his own Mophonics collaborator, recording artist and singer/songwriter Joey Ryan to provide music for the film. "The guys were stuck looking for the right song for a tricky scene. I played Alejandro No One Else Like You, we dropped it in and it just worked beautifully." Monteverde was so taken by Ryan's tone that he would later request a second song from the artist. "The second time, I called Joey at 8:30a.m. and told him Alejandro wanted another song, and by 11a.m., he had written Light On inspired by the movie. It was gratifying to be able to get our artist involved with the project."
The score for the film is an eclectic culmination of diverse influences, with relatively sparse instrumentation, mostly played by Altman himself. Stephan worked closely with the director to maintain a theme of consistency throughout Bella. "Steph is someone who understands the vision of a director and brings it to life, but more than that, he has an instinctive understanding of how the music will help tell the story,", states Alejandro
A phrase that Alejandro Monteverde kept saying that he wanted to capture with the score and movie itself was 'magical realism'. It was an evocative term, and also a great anchor for Stephan to be able to refer back to. Altman says that with the movie's rise from inauspicious indie flick to festival winner it has felt somewhat of a magical whirlwind: "I am proud of my score, but also I'm proud of the movie. It took a lot of courage for Alejandro to take a chance on me - later he said he thought I might bring an unconventional approach to scoring film, since I'd not done it before - but that faith itself was really inspiring: he had a lot at stake, so his beliefs inspired me to dig deep. Alejandro's so visually sophisticated and passionate. He is a true artist."
This experience of composing the score for Bella has set the wheels in motion for Stephan Altman. Looking forward to doing more feature film work in the future, he continues overseeing the scoring of commercial work at Mophonics, and is putting the finishing touches on the album he is producing for rising star Joey Ryan. Reflecting on Bella's chances at the 2008 Academy Award, Altman admits, "I've already written the first 14 pages of my acceptance speech." Now we wait and see what happens at this years Oscars. Maybe we will get to feel a bit more of that "magical realism!"
