{"id":16548,"date":"2018-02-16T13:20:38","date_gmt":"2018-02-16T21:20:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/?post_type=blog&p=16548"},"modified":"2023-09-29T11:03:01","modified_gmt":"2023-09-29T18:03:01","slug":"10-questions-with-rat-film-composer-dan-deacon","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/dipsy.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/10-questions-with-rat-film-composer-dan-deacon\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Questions with “Rat Film” Composer Dan Deacon: On Baltimore, Rats, Player Pianos and Theremins"},"content":{"rendered":"

Baltimore-based composer\/musician Dan Deacon<\/strong> did the music for Theo Anthony’s Rat Film<\/a><\/em>. The film, which uses the urban rat as a way to explore a deeper story of urbanization and segregation, is a unique blend of history, science and sci-fi, poetry and portraiture. And Deacon’s music, also \"Dana unique blend of styles, genres and instruments is the perfect match for what Anthony was doing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In a Pitchfor<\/em>k review of Deacon’s album America<\/em>, Jess Harvell wrote, “As carefully constructed as the work of any highbrow electronic savant you’d care to name, Deacon’s\u00a0music<\/em>\u00a0alone should clearly paint him as a smart dude, a thinker, and a craftsman.” Deacon’s Spiderman of the Rings<\/em>\u00a0was named one of the best records of 2007 by CMJ New Music Monthly<\/em> and Pitchfork.<\/em><\/p>\n

We chatted by phone about the wholly unique collaboration between Deacon and Anthony for this film, Deacon’s unusual choice of instruments, another film he did the score for, the Baltimore music scene, and the magic of theremins. Oh, and about rats, of course.<\/p>\n

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So how did you come to do the music score for a film about rats?<\/b><\/p>\n

I’ve known Theo for a long time. Just from around town, in the community of Baltimore. He was going on a long trip and I gave him an unreleased CD, something I was working on that wasn’t out yet. When he came back he said he’d like to work together. At the time he was making more shorts, more journalistic pieces, but when he started on this project, it was more experimental than what you see in the film. And he didn’t know where it was gonna go from there.<\/span><\/p>\n

Then it kept building and my role in the collaboration kept growing, and eventually he’s making a feature about rats. I didn’t know where it was gonna go. Because it was about rats but it’s also not about rats at all. And every week I’d talk to him he’d have this energy about him, about a new exciting facet of the story.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was pretty unfamiliar with the term “essay film” but it just clicked. It’s a project that I’m really glad to be a part of.<\/span><\/p>\n

So what <\/b>was<\/b> that collaboration process with Theo Anthony like?<\/b><\/p>\n

I was setting up a new studio in my apartment and set it up so each of us could have our own screen, so there’d be four screens total including our laptops. We could each have what section of the film that we’d be working on. So he’d be editing and I’d be coming up with music for a different section of the film and kind of watching what he was doing. We’d be looking up at each other’s work. He’d be like, “Oooh, let’s move that music to here.” Cutting to what he was working on. <\/span><\/p>\n

When we first started I’d be watching clips that he’d give me, I’d just write to those and send him the music and not really tell him where I thought it should go. Just developing a common language of what he was going for since it was such an abstract at that point. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That really opened things up, as he was playing music in spots I never would’ve chosen. And from there we could really start digging in and mixing things up. A lot of major choices were made right up until the very last moment. Everything was malleable. Some of the pieces we liked the best ended up on the floor because they just didn’t fit.<\/span><\/p>\n

You composed music for video and film before, right? So what was different about this one for you?<\/b><\/p>\n

This was the first feature that I scored by myself. I scored an earlier one for Francis Ford Coppola<\/strong>, with someone else [for Coppola’s indie film <\/span>Twixt<\/span><\/i>] whom I think I had one phone call with. Budget was very different, Coppola is obviously a legendary icon of the game, and he, too, is very into experimenting and trying new things, but also had a large team around him. When we were in the recording, in the beginning of the process it was cool, there was a lot of riffing back and forth. <\/span><\/p>\n

But then when it came to the actual work I started working less with Francis and more with his team, and the idea sort of fell apart. Like the idea of me getting [co-composer] Osvaldo [Golijov]’s orchestral stems and making new music out of those\u2026 there seemed to be a break in the line somewhere. I shouldn’t be talking shit about other projects [laughs]\u2014this is why I should drink coffee before an interview.<\/span><\/p>\n