We chatted with film/TV/video game composer and songwriter Daniel Dombrowsky about his score for the dark comedy thriller The Estate. The film was released in North America, the U.K., and Ireland on October 22 from Vertical Entertainment.

Daniel discusses how he got into scoring music, creating the score for The Estate, and tons more. Check it out below.

How did you get into scoring music?

DD: Frustration. My whole path into film scoring was born out of frustration. I grew up playing rock, wanting to perform and produce records, but I listened to everyone else around me and took the “safe” path.  That “safe” path took me from playing and working at recording studios to sitting behind a desk at a record label for about 10 years. One day, I just kind of looked up and realized I’d had enough. 

Don’t get me wrong, it was fun working at a label and everyone was amazing, but it was still just a job to me. I was just tired of doing stuff for other people’s music and not feeling like I was contributing anything of my own.  So, I quit, packed my bags and moved from New York to Los Angeles without any prospect of work. When I got out here I quickly realized that I had no experience in film scoring and didn’t have any of the technical or musical skills required to be a composer’s assistant. I had to figure out how to earn a living, create a career and how to compose all on my own. I’m not going to lie…I was 100% convinced I was going to fall flat on my face, have to pack it up and go back to my job but 10 years later here I am in the studio making music and working with amazing people every single day.

What was it like working on The Estate?

DD: Working on The Estate was a blast! From beginning to end it was an amazing experience getting to work with James (the director),Chris (the writer / star) and Adam (the producer). The Estate is about the spoiled son and young wife of a billionaire who, in their quest for wealth and recognition, plot to murder him. They hire a hit man and form this psycho-sexual bond with him as they go around killing people. Because of this crazy story with all of its twists and turns it gave me a lot of different directions to go with the music. It was an adventure for sure.

What was your mindset when you signed on for this film?

DD: When we set out trying to come up with the sound of this movie we really wanted to highlight the opulence and wealth, but also play on the white privilege and twisted, dark nature of George and Lux (the main characters). This gave us a lot of runway to head in different directions and to try different textures and colors. In the score we move from this dark, brooding synth sound to these big, grand orchestral pieces that are a nod to “Old Hollywood” and then into these kind of quirky, bouncy cues. So, it was it was both challenging and amazing to have the opportunity to wind these different types of music into this big cohesive thing.

What is something about composing music for a film that you can share with us that people might not know?

DD: It seems every time I read or hear an interview with a composer they talk about how solitary and isolated the composer’s job is. A lot of times that’s true, but to me, when you get on a project, be it a movie or a TV show, it ends up becoming this amazing team sport where you get to collaborate and dig into these different challenges with a really diverse group of people. You’re jumping into a project that’s been going on for a year, a year and a half and dozens (if not hundreds) of people have had their hands in it and you become part of this big team all putting your touch on this huge piece of art. Then on a more micro level, when the music is written you bring in the rest of your team. You start working with orchestrators, musicians and mixers to create this final product that isn’t just yours, but now has all of their fingerprints on it as well. It’s really just this amazing, huge, beautiful team effort.

What were specific goals you had in mind with this score?

DD: Because the score for The Estate winds through all these different textures, sounds and vibes, I wanted to find an “anchor”. Something that, regardless of the style of music we were using, would have this sound, this gesture that brought everything together. For this, I wanted to incorporate human voice elements into the score.  We have the orchestra, we have the synths, we have all the stuff going on but I wanted to use human voices. But I really wanted them to be lifeless. I wanted to make it soulless. I wanted to strip the “human” out of the voice to relay the sociopathy, the lack of empathy, that is core to the actions of George and Lux (our main characters). 

What we did was we took a solo singer, sampled, manipulated and stretched out her voice to create these different otherworldly sounds that don’t really sound like voices. Then we added a big choir sound and every time we hear that it speaks to the opulence surrounding our characters but we made sure the choir performance had this flatness, a deadness to it that, to me, was a metaphor for what I felt was a kind of deadness in our main characters. We would use these voice elements as a backbone throughout the score regardless of what was going on stylistically in the other instruments. It really helped to build cohesion into the overall score.

Did you always know that music was something you wanted to pursue?

DD: Honestly, I didn’t pick up an instrument until I was about 12 or 13. So, until that point I had no idea I wanted to pursue music, but once I started I was hooked and knew it was something I HAD to do. My mom used to wake up at 4 o’clock every morning and sometimes work until 10 o’clock at night. She did that 6 or 7 days a week. When I saw her working that hard I vowed that I would only do something I truly loved. I bounced around all of these different facets of music until I landed on composing. The beauty about writing music for film, TV and video games is that it takes elements from all of the different things I had done in the industry: performing, recording, producing and even the logistical parts of the corporate world and smashes it all together. I take the strengths from each of those different areas and use it to help me every single day.

What advice would you give to aspiring musicians?

That’s a hard one. There’s so much advice to give but here are a few things that I found helpful:

Your career is not going look like anybody else’s. So, never try to compare yourself to them. There is no set or tidy career path in music.

Go for it. Don’t take the “safe” route. You can fail just as much doing something “safe” that you don’t like. So, why not swing for the fences? 

Speak up. If you want to shoot for an opportunity, reach out to everyone you can and try to connect with it. That is how I have gotten almost every project I have been involved with.

And get ready to hear A LOT of “no”, but don’t let that deter you from pursuing this as a career.

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