For Kris Bowers, the composer for DreamWorks/Universal’s The Wild Robot, the film’s principal themes emerged from reflection on a few different musical threads. One key facet of the story that he needed to capture sonically was the feel of the wilderness that served as its setting.
In conversation with writer-director Chris Sanders on The Process, Bowers recalls, “the wilderness was inspired a lot by this percussion ensemble that I had found, Sandbox Percussion. I talked to you about how they approach things in a way that [feels] a bit more like foley, and I was really excited to have that part of the score be almost an extension of the diegetic sound of all the animals scurrying through the forest.”
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In addition to the wilderness and “the warmth of family,” Bowers found himself thinking about futuristic sounds — the sounds of modern household devices, “EPCOT,” and “these pieces of music that have a certain aesthetic to them.”
This was all to get at the sound of Roz (Lupita Nyong’o), the service robot who finds herself at the heart of the story when she’s shipwrecked on an uninhabited island. While struggling to adapt to the wilderness, Roz forms unlikely bonds with the local animals and takes on the role of adoptive mother to an orphaned baby goose named Brightbill (Kit Connor).
If there was one cue for Bowers on The Wild Robot that served as a sonic touchstone, informing the overall character of his score, it was “I Could Use a Boost,” a piece you can hear in the second clip below that plays as Roz prepares Brightbill to fly away amid the winter migration, after developing a close bond with the little one.
In his first approach to the scene, Bowers tried “something that emotionally wasn’t really right,” which felt “endearing and sweet, but a little too soft for the complexity of the moment.”
After stepping back and discussing the scene with Sanders, he says, he was “reminded…of the complexities of this story, and what’s being talked about, and how it’s handling things in a very grounded way, these conversations that sometimes we’re afraid to have around children.”
For Bowers, it was critical to remember what was at stake in the scene — the reality that after sending Brightbill on his way, Roz could only expect never to see him again. With all this in mind, the composer removed the “kid gloves” and took a less “light and fun” approach, in favor of one that was “a bit more muscular.”
Sanders found that the final cue reflected a consistent strength of Bowers’ work across projects — “this gentle power” he brings to his music, which is “very restrained,” but always “incredibly memorable.”
An Oscar winner known for his work on titles like Green Book, King Richard, and Bridgerton, Bowers had never taken on a fully animated project prior to The Wild Robot. He delighted in a process unique to the medium — the fact that the basic structure of the story was in place more than a year before the project was completed — because he was able to write to picture in a way that’s not always possible in live-action, enjoying “much more of an intimate relationship with every sound” he brought to the table.
Based on the 2016 novel by Peter Brown, The Wild Robot was a critical and commercial success, grossing over $318M worldwide after premiering at TIFF. For more from Bowers’ conversation with Sanders — a three-time Oscar nominee behind films like The Croods and How to Train Your Dragon — click above. Sample scenes from The Wild Robot below.
This is the first of five installments of The Process to come ahead of the announcement of this year’s Oscar nominations. For a conversation on Sony’s Saturday Night, check back next week.