I’m sure many of you have been watching or have now finished watching Dead Boy Detectives on Netflix, today I’m very pleased to bring you an exclusive interview with Murat Selcuk who has co-composed the music for the series.
First up if you’ve not seen or heard of the show, here’s the synopsis for the 8-episode series: Do you have a pesky ghost haunting you? Has a demon stolen your core memories? You may want to ring the Dead Boy Detectives.
Meet Edwin Payne (George Rexstrew) and Charles Rowland (Jayden Revri), “the brains” and “the brawn” behind the Dead Boy Detectives agency. Teenagers born decades apart who find each other only in death, Edwin and Charles are best friends and ghosts… who solve mysteries. They will do anything to stick together – including escaping evil witches, Hell and Death herself. With the help of a clairvoyant named Crystal (Kassius Nelson) and her friend Niko (Yuyu Kitamura), they are able to crack some of the mortal realm’s most mystifying paranormal cases.
As part of The Sandman Universe for Netflix and based on the beloved comic series from Neil Gaiman, DEAD BOY DETECTIVES was developed for television by Steve Yockey, who serves as co-showrunner alongside Beth Schwartz and is brought to you by Greg Berlanti. Jeremy Carver and Sarah Schechter also serve as executive producers. The series also stars Jenn Lyon, Briana Cuoco, Lukas Gage, David Iacono and Ruth Connell.
Can you tell our readers a little something about yourself?
I grew up in Istanbul Turkey. I’m the only musical member of my family. When I was in middle school I started playing the piano and the synthesizer. I’ve always been a film music fan and after my formal music education in classical clarinet performance I moved to France to study composition. In 2013 I moved to LA to pursue a career in film music. Graduated from USC Screen Scoring program in 2014 and started working in the industry.
What genre would you say your music falls under?
Film Music. Which is a very broad term on its own already. When you think about it, film music can be any music. I’m coming from a very orchestral background. I used to play classical clarinet in orchestras. In the same time I was producing electronic tracks at my home setup. Today I get to blend everything I like into film music. Depending on the project it could be purely electronic or orchestral or a combination of both. The picture determines the emotional content and the story line.
Who are some of your musical influences?
I love Stravinsky, Ravel, Debussy and Bach from the classical composers. Film scores of Jerry Goldsmith also had a significant impact on my musical taste. One of the first things I’ve ever played on the piano was the piano motif of First Blood. As a kid, I was an avid fan of Metallica. My middle school teacher used to let me play Master of Puppets in front of the class. Later on I discovered Depeche Mode. Spent so much time trying to reproduce those tracks on my own. I’ve learned so much about sound design and production this way.
What’s the story behind your work co-composing on Dead Boy Detectives, how did you develop the style for the soundtrack?
The offer to co-write the score for Dead Boy Detectives came from Blake Neely. We’ve been collaborating for a while. And one day he asked me if I’d be interested in taking a look at this new show called Dead Boy Detectives. I’ve watched the episode next day and I thought that the show had a very unique and modern look to it. I thought that it would really benefit from a synthesizer score. Pulled up some of my favorite synths and wrote 2 or 3 cues. We put them against the picture and it worked very nicely. Once we got good feedback from the show runners Steve Yockey and Beth Schwartz, we decided to continue on the dark synthy approach. It was a very pleasing discovery when we found out that the pipe organ sound that Blake has been developing blended in very nicely with the synthesizers. The show does a very good job at creating a dark-corky atmosphere which allows us to open up the musical palette and be creative.
What has been your most memorable moment when composing the music for Dead Boy Detectives?
I can’t single out a specific moment but the entire process was very pleasing. Discovering the musical language and developing the sound palette for some of the main characters was very satisfying for me as a composer. A lot of trial and error involved as well as lots of play time and happy accidents. Especially if you’re woking with synthesizers, most of the time you start with an intention and an idea in your mind. You start to patch things and start a sequence, tweak knobs and simultaneously listen and steer the wheel to where you wanna end up. Capture the results and take it form there…
Where do you draw inspiration for your music?
I love listening to new music, watching old European movies and visual arts as well. There’s so much to learn from the true classics. We have a friends group called LA Phillies. Every year we purchase a lot of concert tickets for LA Phil. I tend to go check out works that I haven’t heard before. I think it as a good opportunity to listen to some new music. It touches me very much when I can sense that an artist is being very sincere with their work. When I sense that, it inspires me to create more and be sincere with my music too. I love spending time in nature. I have a road bike that helps me to get away from everything and clear my mind.
How do you go about writing your compositions?
It usually starts with a tiny motif or a chord progression. Sometimes it could be a synthesizer sequence. I take that and start building around it and extend it. I have a folder on my computer with small ideas. They’re all unfinished musical snippets. If I need a B section or I’m feeling stuck, I go through my ideas folder and usually I find something from there. Most of my work is screen scoring work. Means it’s for a movie or a tv show. In that case the picture really tells me what it needs and I take it from there.
What do you have lined up next?
Always pitching for new projects. Right now I’m doing a short film called Vipers. It’s a dark comedy. Very funny movie. It’s directed by Kevin Clark-Ryan and produced by Greta Onieogou. In a couple of months you’ll be able to watch it in some of the festivals. Meanwhile I’m waiting for season 2 of Dead Boy Detectives will happen.
Dead Boy Detectives is showing on Netflix. Thank you to Murat Selcuk for the interview.
Karen Woodham is the founder and owner of the Blazing Minds. She is also a Cinema reviewer and works with RealD 3D reviewing the latest 3D releases and IMAX, she has also had several articles published in various publications including the first edition of SFW Magazine. In 2015 she became an Award Winning Blogger and also has her website listed as one of the UK’s Top 10 Film Blogs.
