Now available on Digital is the gorgeously animated, funny, and heartstrings pulling, The Wild Robot. I recently had the chance to sit down with composer Kris Bowers to hear what inspired his work on this beautiful film.
Composer Kris Bowers Interview: Scoring The Wild Robot
I remember during the press conference, before the film came out, you mentioned that you became a father during the process of creating the score. And as a parent myself, I just would love to hear how you took all of those emotions, because there’s so many when they hand that baby to you for the first time, and channeled that into the film.
As you know, I feel like those experiences and feelings are so difficult to articulate in words. I actually feel like that’s the beauty of art…it captures these things that we can’t really say in words, but somehow translates a feeling that people can feel. And so that’s, in a lot of ways, why I’m even a musician. I relied on the piano to express and work through emotions and discover emotions.
In terms of finding it, it’s honestly just a lot of watching this beautiful film. After I read the book, I [was] thinking about the story and the themes that are there, and it already sparks so many involuntary emotions and so many things that are coming up for me in those early days of being a parent, that I often would just go to the piano and just think about those things and just improvise until I happened upon something that felt like it struck a chord emotionally. Then it was trusting that process where I would find that involuntary visceral reaction, build on that, then put it up against the picture, and see how that felt.
This film really resonates with me because it seems it’s about the people that encourage us to be our most authentic selves and to go out and dream big and to pursue our goals. Who are those people for you?
I mean, when I was a kid, my parents. Anything I was interested in, whether it was cartooning or music, they did whatever possible geographically to put me in situations to succeed. They did whatever they possibly could financially, even when it was very difficult for them to put me in places where if I want to achieve something, all I have to do is just work as hard as possible.
Somebody else that really did for me is actually Kobe Bryant, because he was all about obsessing about your craft. He encouraged me to look at John Williams, the way that he did Michael Jordan and kind of charged me with wanting to be as great as possible. I also think about my other mentors like Ava DuVernay and Jim Lang. And lastly, I’d say my wife. The fact that she’s just making it possible for me to do the things that I do and making sure that we have a solid base as a family while I’m traveling or writing or working and all that stuff. So having that stability in our home, I think is something I wouldn’t be able to do these things without.
Watch the Kris Bowers Interview
The Wild Robot
Roz (Lupita Nyong’o), a helper robot, has been shipwrecked on an island instead of being delivered to her new home. She has been programmed to complete any task a human being could think of but here, where there are no people, what is a robot to do? In this case, Roz adapts, taking time to learn new language modules in order to communicate with the animals around her. The animals are wary of her but some see how she can be helpful. After an unforeseen accident, Roz becomes the adoptive mother of an orphaned gosling, Brightbill (Kit Connor). Raising him to adulthood becomes her main objective and thanks to some help from her new friends Pinktail (Catherine O’Hara) and Fink (Pedro Pascal), she just might succeed in this important parental task.
The Wild Robot is now available on Digital.
*this interview has been edited for length and clarity
