Belgian composer Peter Baert had never worked on feature film scoring until a chance encounter with actor and filmmaker David Oyelowo changed that. The two first met when Oyelowo was in Brussels sh…
The two first met when Oyelowo was in Brussels shooting “Les Miserables” and needed a studio to record a voiceover narration for Penguin Books’ “Spot the Dog.” Oyelowo recorded at Baert’s studio. “Between takes, we talked about the film and his producing work,” Baert says.
The story of a boy in search of eternal life struck Baert for personal reasons — he lost his mother in 2008 to pancreatic cancer. “That really resonated with me,” he says. “I asked him if I could pitch the script and he sent it to me. I took my time and I wrote music for it. I sent it to him and he told me he couldn’t stop listening to it.”
Once Baert was on board, he understood there needed to two elements to the score; one where it was adventurous to reflect Gunner’s adventure, and another aspect that needed to tap into the emotional aspect of the film. As Oyelowo tells it: “I wanted sounds that were evocative of my experience: African sounds. I didn’t want bongos like the classic ‘Lion King,’ African jungle type sound. I said to Peter, ‘Use instruments that are not all classical. My Nigerian heritage had to be in there. You see it in the costumes, the production design and it had to be in the music. I like to think that ‘The Water Manp has a homemade feel to it; it’s very evocative of my home and my experience.
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