Music plays a key part in In My Sleep, an intriguing directorial debut from filmmaker Allen Wolf that opens April 23 in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Sunset 5 and April 30 in New York at Quad Cinema.
The thriller stars Philip Winchester (the Jack of Hearts in SYFY channel's Alice and Robinson Crusoe in NBC's Crusoe) as a young man suffering from parasomnia, a rare sleep disorder that causes him to do things in his sleep that he can't remember upon waking. Heavily influenced by Hitchcock, the film has definite references to legendary Psycho composer Bernard Hermann in developing Winchester's lead character and increasing tension.
"I always loved movie soundtracks, and after seeing movies in the theater I'd go to the record store and buy them and listen to them over and over," says Wolf, who grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and wrote his first screenplay at age nine. "So music is very important to me in films, and it was very important that the In My Sleep soundtrack be a throwback to those old soundtracks where there were music themes for the different characters and plot developments."
Contemporary movie soundtracks, says Wolf, tend to be "more atonal or background music--and lack their own character." He wanted the soundtrack for In My Sleep to add to the storytelling elements of the film--particularly from the lead character's point of view.
The NYU film school graduate, who now lives in Los Angeles, was able to hire composer Conrad Pope, an in-demand arranger, orchestrator and conductor who has worked with the likes of John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner and Danny Elfman.
"His real passion is to compose, and he came up with the different themes and melodies," continues Wolf, who supplied Pope with recordings of Hermann scores as inspiration. "I have a music background, having played percussion and guitar and in high school band--so I could identify what instruments I wanted to hear in certain sections of the film, and Conrad was very accommodating."
Part of the soundtrack was recorded at the Eastwood Scoring Stage at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, where Wolf had toured while attending a media workshop in high school--and vowed to return and record his own movie music there.
"Because of Conrad's background we got topnotch players, and at one point during rehearsals, one of the horn players said the music was terrific and everyone applauded," he recalls. "It was a good sign that we were on the right track."
Wolf says that Pope pulled "unusual notes and sounds from the musicians and instruments to heighten the suspense and the tension" of the lead character.
"Music communicates his emotional development," he explains.
The soundtrack to In My Sleep is now set for release on CD by Movie Score Media on April 27.
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