A Christmas Dance Reunion made its debut on Lifetime this holiday season, and ComingSoon spoke with its two composers, Meiro Stamm and Antonio Naranjo.
Meiro Stamm has scored numerous film, television, stage, and digital productions. His scores often fuse classical, contemporary and world elements into striking and memorable music. Notable projects include Xavier Riddle & The Secret Museum the score for which was nominated for a 2021 Canadian Screen Award, Super Science Friends which won “Best Soundtrack” at the 2017 Festival Brasil de Cinema Internacional, Princess Sparkly Butt & The Hot Dog Kid which won “Outstanding Achievement in Music” at the 2017 New York City Web Fest, and the short film Bread & Kisses the score for which was nominated for a Remi Award at the 2011 WorldFest in Houston, Texas. Meiro was commissioned in 2015 by R.H Thomson and the National Arts Centre Orchestra to compose a piece for choir and orchestra entitled “Song of the Mothers” commemorating the centennial of WWI as part of Thomson’s The World Remembers project.
Antonio Naranjo is a Canadian Screen Award-winning Toronto-based composer, songwriter, and music producer. A Banff Centre for the Arts alumnus and former resident at the prestigious Slaight Family Music Lab at the CFC, Antonio has contributed music to a wide range of film, television, and commercial productions. Most notably, his credits include two seasons of the Canadian Screen Award-winning kid’s show Detention Adventure (HBO Max, CBC), the animated children’s series Glowbies (CBC), Volcano (TIFF 2019), Twinkle All the Way (Lifetime) as well as commercial music for brands such as Chevrolet, Samsung, Molson Canadian and Patron Tequila.
Jeff Ames: What led you to become composers?
Antonio Naranjo: I saw Batman Returns as a kid and had my mind blown by Danny Elfman’s score. I was so captivated by how dark and obtuse it was—though I definitely couldn’t articulate that then. I knew that I always wanted to do something creative and thought I wanted to be a filmmaker. Went to film school and decided there that I wanted to be a musician. Joined a band and did the touring, recording band thing for years. Eventually, it all came full circle as I had friends who started making short films and I just offered to do music for them. I just kept doing them, and we built a community that collectively grew together. It felt very organic. Also – I should mention the Canadian Film Centre as being the place that made me realize I could do this for a living. It’s a film incubator of sorts founded by Norman Jewison that has helped the careers of so many Canadian directors, writers, composers, and actors.
Meiro Stamm: I first became truly aware of music in film in the summer of 1977 when like so many of my generation I was glued to my seat as a Star Destroyer flew over my head accompanied by some of the greatest music I’d heard. The idea of a career in music came a few years later when I discovered the music of Jimi Hendrix. Specifically the song “Little Wing” was the light bulb moment for me. It was absolutely magical and within a few seconds, I knew I wanted to somehow, hopefully, create the same kind of magic. Almost forty years later I can’t say I’ve even come close but it’s been a great journey! I had already been playing guitar for a few years but once I heard Hendrix I got serious about not just the guitar but also studying music. I took a deep dive and studied classical counterpoint, Indian tabla drums, jazz, and Javanese gamelan music. It took a few more years for me to figure that scoring film and TV was the career for me.
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What was it about A Christmas Dance Reunion that made you want to work on it?
Meiro: Being part of a project that has a fanbase is a great thing so knowing that Corbin Bleu and Monique Coleman from High School Musical were the stars was a big plus. We’d already worked with director Brian Herzlinger and the production company, Brain Power Studios, before so we were very fortunate that the film actually came to us.
Antonio: As Meiro said, we’ve worked with Brian before and have developed a strong working relationship, so it was exciting to jump on another project with him. And of course, the High School Musical connection was very exciting. To be a part of an onscreen “reunion” between two actors whose on-screen history has touched so many people is a great motivator. It’s art imitating life.
What was the most challenging aspect of the A Christmas Dance Reunion and how did you overcome that?
Antonio: One of the challenges of composing to picture is that you’re often not working with the final visual product. It may be that the edit is constantly changing and being refined, or it may be that you’re composing to actors in front of a green screen as the visual effects have yet to be put in. Christmas movies are often shot in the summer months and so in the case of A Christmas Dance Reunion, we found ourselves having to develop the Christmas magic musically overtop a scene where the visual magic had yet to be added. We were fortunate to have some great conversations with the director who helped us see the magic that was envisioned for particular scenes. Film is such a collaborative medium, so it’s always nice to have people to call on to discuss ideas and keep the creative energy flowing.
Do you have any fun, behind-the-scenes stories about the making of A Christmas Dance Reunion?
Meiro: I heard from the sound effects editor and the foley artist that the tap dance routine was a real challenge. Unfortunately, some of the on-set audio wasn’t usable so they had to recreate the tapping of the feet which is really difficult to do. It’s not like you can just put on a pair of tap shoes and fake it! I think it took them something like three days to get it done. A few weeks later there was a small picture change that threw everything off just enough that they had to do it again.
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What were some of the things you learned from A Christmas Dance Reunion that you’re excited to apply to future endeavors?
Antonio: As collaborators, I think Meiro and I really found our groove working on this film. We both come from band/rock and roll backgrounds and thrive off collaboration. And so we’ve developed a system where we trade thematic material back and forth and we can make variations here and there to match picture. Scoring can feel very isolated, but working this way feels more like a jam and we manage to make two distinct musical voices feel like one.
Meiro: That’s very true. A Christmas Dance Reunion was our fifth film score together and I think part of the groove Antonio refers to is a mutual understanding of how we can share the workload efficiently and so keep the creative freshness going and quality high. Film and TV scoring is obviously done under tight deadlines so a lot of music needs to be composed and produced in a single day. Having the creative back and forth is fantastic but only half the job. The other half is being very practical and critical in deciding what to do with the fruits of our thematic jamming. I think we’re now very good at quickly deciding “these are the main musical themes and we’ll use them here, here, and here”.
Do you have any other projects coming up that you can share with us?
Antonio: I’m currently working on the third season of a young adult show called Detention Adventure that can be found on HBO Max in America. A portion of this latest season is a musical, and so I was tasked with writing a number of original songs and then working with actors to bring them to life on screen. Very much in the vein of High School Musical!
Meiro: I’m currently scoring a murder mystery that’ll be on Lifetime in 2022. There are also a couple of new animated series I’m working on for Skyship Entertainment coming out in spring. I can’t say much but one of them is an action-adventure offshoot of one of their most popular current series. The score has a lot of high-energy rock which is great because I get to play lots of guitar. The other series has a jazz-based score and I’m very fortunate to be able to use some live players which is really not that common in short-form animation. Plus Antonio and I have a few collaborations coming up in mid-2022 so there’s a lot to look forward to!
