Jingle Bells and Jazz Notes: Meet P. Andrew Willis, the Composer Behind The Soundtrack of Uncle Nick, a Dark Holiday Comedy
I had the opportunity to sit down with multi-talented composer-producer-musician, P. Andrew Willis, who built the soundtrack behind the raunchy holiday comedy, Uncle Nick. The film follows a disruptive, sloven Uncle who proceeds to ruin his family’s conventional Christmas. With the storyline being filled with dark comedic allure, the soundtrack had to be equally as jarring. Willis proved his expertise in his craft by building a unique soundtrack that perfectly supported the vulgarity and humor of the film. Willis has showcased his talent throughout numerous projects, including American Oz and 29 Needles. Today we had the chance to talk about his musical career journey, unique challenges faced during the project, and a look at the future of entertainment.
Tell us a bit about your background.
I’m originally from Louisville, Ky where I studied guitar and recorded and toured with bands. I moved to Boston to attend Berklee, where I was prepared to study film scoring and Electronic Production and Design. After being there a year, I ended up meeting a working composer in Boston and we hit it off. I didn’t go back to Berklee because I was starting to work in the industry with him and thought it was as good or better experience than music school would be at that point.
How did you get involved with Uncle Nick?
I got involved with Uncle Nick through my association with director Errol Morris’ projects. Uncle Nick’s director, Chris Kasick had worked with Errol on his show First Person and many of his commercials from that period, many of which I also happened to work on. Chris and I hit it off when talking about the Uncle Nick film project and how he envisioned the music would work and he asked me to take a shot at a couple of cues. He loved what I did, so things moved forward from there. Since Errol came onboard UN as an executive producer, all the connections made sense.
Can you walk us through the needs of the project?
It’s a dark holiday comedy, so the range of music had to be fairly broad. There were comedic cues that centered around the dialog and on screen actions — hitting the jokes etc, but it had to go in a pretty dark direction as the story unfolds and the characters start coming unglued — verging on horror film scoring in spots. I had just seen Goblin perform the original Suspiria score live, so that was definitely in the back on my mind on a few cues that were trending towards the horror.
What gear did you use?
I used MOTU Digital Performer as my DAW. I had a Yamaha digital console (01v96i) and an API A2D preamp/convertor that I used for recording and mixing. I was trying to get a sort of classic Nino Rota-esque sound quality on some of the cues, so we used a 70s Oktava ribbon mic for most of the instrumentalist recordings. I used a 12 Gauge condenser mic on my vocals — these mics are made in Vermont out of shotgun shells. I also had to do a couple of jazzy x-mas vocal arrangements and used an AKG 414 on the singer for those. I performed most of the percussion myself and have a few funky antique instruments that I used throughout — glockenspeil, 1920s bass drum, snare, tambourines, bells, as well as beating on the steam radiators in my house with mallets. I also used the Universal Audio plugin platform and interface as well as sample libraries/synths from Spitfire Audio, Sonic Couture, LASS, and Spectrasonics.
What were some of the interesting or unique challenges you faced on the Project?
Chris and editor Kimberley Hassett had much of the film scored with temp music that they had been cutting to by the time I got involved, so replacing music that’s been in place and the filmmakers are used to, without sounding like the temp is always a challenge — not unique, but worth a mention. Also, I was in a transitional work space while I was having my current studio built out, so I was setting up to record in my living room and having to add ad-hoc treatments, gobos etc to get decent sounding recordings of the clarinets, flute and strings. Again, the range of cues was also a challenge as the film went from irreverent comedy to dark and tragic by the end. I was also tasked with creating a couple of moody vocal arrangements of holiday songs and brought in a jazz vocalist for those, though they didn’t make it to the soundtrack release because of the way they’d been edited for the scenes.
What do you see happening in your segment of the market (original music) in the year ahead?
It’s an exciting time in that there’s more entertainment being created than ever with great writing and visuals, and seemingly lots of room for interesting, unique, and creative music and sound design that pushes the boundaries of what we’re used to hearing in a “tv show” or movie. I don’t see why these opportunities for composers and noisemakers to seek out new sounds for pictures won’t continue in the year ahead.
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Learn more about P. Andrew Willis, and his work and career on his Website and IMBD. Connect further on Instagram and Twitter.
