Growing adept at meeting the unreasonably short deadlines of Indian filmmakers, Four More Shots Please musician Mikey McCleary on following first instinct
Mikey McCleary
Do you have a working method to arrive at the score for a show that heavily depends on the character of the city that it is set in?
I may not be among those who go for walks [around the city] in search of inspiration. What has particularly worked for Four More Shots Please is collaborations. These have made this an album that I am truly proud of. I am also grateful for the work ethic I've developed in India. Here, things need to be done in limited time, and hence, I have become instinctive. With the amount of work that must be put into a web series, that too in less time, the trick I have is to panic. [I constantly remind myself that] I don't have time, and I have a lot of work to do. That is exciting.
Four More Shots Please
How is approaching a second edition different from working on an individual project?
The first season establishes the music of the world. One thing that works is the creation of bit-sized songs. I used to create a lot of jingles, so I enjoyed making them. These 30 to 45-second numbers that were used in season one warranted an extension [into fully fledged songs] for the second season. This brings about continuity, and gives the audience a sense of familiarity. The same process has been employed for season three as well.
Were these numbers originally created with the idea of extending them later, in case the opportunity arose?
No, they were created organically. I didn't think of them that way initially, but realised that the songs [could be applied] to other situations. I've worked with scores in a similar fashion too.
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