The quirks in 'Juno's' score ... with audio

Much has been written about the eccentric characters of “Juno,” both those in front of and behind the camera.

Actress Ellen Page has won rave reviews for her portrayal of the title character, a sharp-tongued teenager who masks the emotional trials of a teen pregnancy with her quick wit and sarcastic one-liners. And the press can’t get enough of Diablo Cody, who penned the “Ghost World”-inspired story. The stripper-turned-author-turned-screenwriter just published her first EW column.

But the man who scored the Jason Reitman-directed film, Mateo Messina (right), might be even more unconventional. In composing the film, Messina turned an apple into a rhythmic instrument and experimented with the sound of water -- all this for a movie that demanded a seemingly simple indie-pop sound.

Messina, who also worked on Reitman's "Thank You for Smoking," had the difficult task of creating a score that would seamlessly coexist with “Juno’s” heavy reliance on pop music, noticeably the sweetly melancholic acoustic-strummed tunes of singer/songwriter Kimya Dawson, known primarily for her work with indie outfit the Moldy Peaches.

It’s Dawson’s semi-ironic/semi-cute songs that help define the character of Juno, with Page and actor Michael Cera (Paulie Bleeker) even performing one of Dawson’s songs in the film ("Anyone Else But You," which appeared on the Moldy Peaches' 2001 self-titled album). 

Messina’s compositions manage to reflect Dawson’s work while also echoing the film’s characters. Juno may get illustrated with charmingly bouncy acoustic guitars, but other characters -- such as hipster-turned-square Mark Loring (Jason Bateman), who is set to adopt Juno’s child -- don’t get such flattering compositions.

With “Juno” on target to be the indie hit of the fall -- on just 40 screens, the Fox Searchlight film finished just outside the box office top 10 at No. 11 -- Messina took the time to share his thoughts on scoring the film. Read on, or just listen to the music.

This is such a music-heavy film, with Sonic Youth, the Kinks and Belle & Sebastian all being heard throughout. But it seems like your score really plays off Dawson’s work.

You know what’s interesting? Reitman was interested in the Moldy Peaches and Kimya Dawson after a suggestion from Ellen Page. So he and I flew up and recorded her for two days while she was on tour. He was temping her songs into some of the film, and he was realizing that when music with lyrics was going into the dialogue, it just wasn’t working.

So we ended up recording her just humming a lot of her songs.

After spending a couple days with her, and seeing her style of recording, and getting her sensibility, that was definitely a strong influence when I was writing the score. I was trying to capture the Kimya Dawson vibe.

Click here to listen if the below link does not show up

How did she change what you had been writing?

Well, we went up and recorded Kimya before I really started writing the score. It wasn’t that I changed so much -- it was more about instrumentation.

She’s all about acoustic guitars, and my main instrument is the piano and I work with orchestras and everything. But for this it was quite obviously the acoustic guitar. You want to give it your own feel, no matter what, and I still had to write it in my own style, but I chose the same instrumentation as Kimya so the score would flow better.

And if she influenced me in any way, it was in the best way possible, which was simplicity.

This is such a character-driven film, were you thinking of different themes/melodies per character?

Yeah, but a lot of it is so subtle you probably won’t notice in the film. There’s a scene where Juno goes to visit the Lorings, and the Lorings definitely have their own theme. It’s kind of a bossa nova, and it’s almost kind of Muzak-like. It’s real vanilla.

But at one part in the cue, where we see Juno come onto screen in a van with her dad, I added some of the guitars associated with Juno. So all of a sudden you have this beautiful bossa nova with this acoustic guitar that we’ve been hearing throughout the whole movie.

I definitely go from character to character in this film. You always have to the play the scene and the emotion of the scene, but musically you’re subtly hinting at things that people will probably not notice. One of my goals is to write scores in which you don’t necessarily want the audience to hear it, but you do want the audience to feel it.

Click here to listen if the below link does not show up

And what about the music for the character of Juno?

With Juno, she had so many dimensions to her in that she was this young, confident girl who’s rough around the ages. But she’s also a very vulnerable 16-year-old girl. So we had to find a sound for her with these jangly acoustic guitars that were filled with confidence, but also had a sweet side to them.

Click here to listen if the below link does not show up

There’s also a bit of detachment, like the score never really dictates an emotion.

In this case, the story was so incredibly strong, so while we were adding some emotion and adding some color, we were never holding the viewer’s hand. You never had to. There was no scene we were trying to punch up. We didn’t want to lead the audience anywhere.

You mentioned Dawson inspired you to be simple. Was that a challenge for you? Did you find yourself having to pull back?

I love anything that feels organic, and I love to experiment with sounds. I like to use something that feels familiar to us, but isn’t traditional.

For instance, on some of the rhythms on this, there was one point where I was playing the grate of a fan. Then I would play a zipper at other parts in the percussion.

At one point I even played an apple. I would take water from a glass and pour it into a big giant bowl, and compare how it sounded in there versus a bucket. Then I would use that as part of the percussion.

People aren’t going to notice that it’s so different, since it sounds rhythmic and it works, but it still has such an unorthodox sound. So even though I was doing simple acoustic guitar stuff, I was still doing stuff that was out-there and wacky, especially when I was playing the apple with brushes and drumsticks.

(Audio and "Juno" pic courtesy Fox Searchlight)

Comments

[CVOS]

Congratulations Matt, great work!

[David]

I hated the score for Juno. I felt it kept taking me out of the movie. It was too over the top and too in your face with the whole "cute, indie vibe".

[Randy Lewis]

I'm puzzled by the negative comment posted here. I saw Juno twice, and such nice music is certainly welcome "in my face" all day long. Anyone who thinks Kimya Dawson's acoustics is "in their face" should try turning on a radio lately. After 10 minutes of suffering through the raucous, literally deafening noise of ads for upcoming movies, this soundtrack was just what the doctor ordered.

[JHC]

I liked the music, especially the song choices (as opposed to the score, which you barely notice, but that's a good thing). However, the indie-pop vibe didn't seem to be consistent with a character who listed her three favorite musicians as Iggy Pop, the Ramones, and Patti Smith. I didn't have a problem with it, but it seemed unlikely to me that she'd be singing a Moldy Peaches song at the end . . .wouldn't the Pixies be more likely? Or some underground punk band that I'm not smart enough to identify?