Composers
WAMG Talks To TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS Composer Jongnic Bontemps
The highly anticipated addition to the action sci-fi franchise TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS opened in theaters on June 9. According to Deadline, “the movie has pounced on a $110M opening weekend. Combined with domestic, that gives the Autobots and Maximals a global debut of $170.5M, coming in ahead of projections. The Steven Caple Jr-directed franchise reboot was No. 1 worldwide and at the international box office for the frame.” The film’s exciting score is from Jongnic “JB” Bontemps.
Bontemps is a uniquely modern film composer, harmonizing a classical education with his rich tech background. As a maestro of Silicon Valley he wrote everything from The CW sci-fi series 4400, the Netflix docuseries WE ARE: THE BROOKLYN SAINTS, DANCE DREAMS: HOT CHOCOLATE NUTCRACKER, the Netflix and Shondaland-produced documentary about the Debbie Allen Dance Company’s award-winning production of THE NUTCRACKER, and the Netflix documentary MURDER TO MERCY: THE CYNTOIA BROWN STORY. He was recently nominated for a Critics’ Choice Award for his work in the 2021 Sundance documentary selection MY NAME IS PAULO MURRAY directed by Julie Cohen and Betsey West. He is known for his hip-hop infused score for the Tribeca-favorite documentary UNITED SKATES, to rousing additional music for the acclaimed film CREED II directed by Steven Caple Jr. He became the go-to composer for Caple Jr. while scoring his coming-of-age drama THE LAND, for which he also orchestrated the song “This Bitter Land” performed by Nas and Erykah Badu. JB’s other recent work includes the CNN special THE PEOPLE VS. THE KLAN, the dramatic feature LAST NIGHT IN ROZZIE directed by Sean Gannet, the CNN Films documentary CITIZEN ASHE that premiered at the Telluride Film Festival and the Netflix film WEDDING SEASON. Up next for JB is the Arkane Studios video game REDFALL.
JB has scored dozens of features, series and video games in all genres, fusing a contemporary sound with timeless emotion. His other recent projects include original scores for the Lifetime biopic CLARKE SISTERS: THE FIRST LADIES OF GOSPEL, the Toni Braxton-led drama, FAITH UNDER FIRE, the Sundance selection LEIMERT PARK produced by Charles King (Mudbound), and additional music for the Epix series GODFATHER OF HARLEM starring Forest Whitaker. JB’s scores have echoed at Cannes, the Warsaw Film Festival, Pan African Film Festival, and the American Black Film Festival, as well as at home on Netflix, CNN, HBO, BET, Lifetime, NBC, Showtime, Netflix, PBS and Disney XD.
Brooklyn born, JB learned the piano and soaked up his gospel and jazz surroundings. He studied music at Yale and later found himself at the heart of the tech industry as a software developer and entrepreneur after selling his startup to HP. He thrived there for several years, but eventually decided to pursue his deeper passion and jumped head-first into the film scoring program at USC and the Sundance Film Music Lab. He apprenticed as a programmer for numerous A-list Hollywood composers before breaking out on his own.
JB spoke with me prior to the film opening.
Jongnic had the task of creating a new sound to the franchise while honoring the musical language of the past films. He accomplished this by re-imagining the score from the past to help re-introduce the characters in a new setting and time while also paying homage to all who worked on the franchise before.
With the movie taking place in multiple countries and cities, and Jongnic being a Brooklyn native, he integrated classic 90s hip-hop into the score and was inspired by Afro-Peruvian music. He also added slight easter eggs that fans are sure to notice which makes the score encompass the meaning of ‘More than meets the eye’.
Milan Records has released TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS (ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK) by composer JONGNIC BONTEMPS on June 9th. Available everywhere now, the album features music written by Bontemps for the seventh live-action installment in the blockbuster film franchise. https://soundtracks.lnk.to/riseofthebeasts
During our phone conversation, JB and I talked about how he became a film composer, his advice for new composers, the passing of the musical baton by TRANSFORMERS composer Steve Jablonsky and “The Jablonsky Rules”.
WAMG: Hey, JB, it’s Michelle from We Are Movie Geeks.
JB: Michelle, how are you doing today?
WAMG: I’m doing well. I loved the film. Fans are really excited for another TRANSFORMERS film. How did you land the gig? I mean, you’ve worked with Steven before on Creed Two, but when you get that phone call and what goes through your mind like, I’m going to do a Transformers movie.
JB: Well, let me tell you, it was a little further back than CREED II.
We met when he was in grad school. We were both at USC together, and we’ve been working together ever since. So it was short films, USC series eventually first feature, THE LAND, and then we go to CREED II.
I was the secondary composer to the great Ludwig Goransson. And finally, when Steven was tapped to do TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS, he put my name in the hat. And the studio called inquiring, who is this, JB? Because obviously I hadn’t done a major motion picture like this before, so they were curious. And my agent and I discussed it, and we’re like, you know what, we have to do something to knock their socks off on this first interaction. So we conspired and I wrote ten minutes of music based off of my love of the Transformers universe, listening to Steve Jablonsky’s cinematic scores for the movies, and also my discussion with Steven about where he wanted the story to go for this next chapter. Put that together into a suite, about ten minutes of music.
Got it recorded here in LA. With LA musicians. Hired a cinematographer to record a videotape thing and editor edit together with my voiceover, explaining why I should be considered for the job, as well as my love for Transformers. We put that all together into a four minute sizzle reel, sent it to the studio. (pauses)
And then there was crickets. (laughs)
WAMG: Oh my (laughs)
JB: It took a while. Then they gave me a call. I had a great meeting with Randy Spendlove (President of Motion Picture Music at Paramount Pictures). Then after that meeting, there were crickets for about six months.
And then finally, when they wrapped production, Steven called me and said, “hey, we’re about to go into this post-production meeting. This is coming up. Let’s make sure that everybody has the reel you put together.” And they did. And a few days later, they called and said, we are offering you the job. So I did the demo in March of 2021. I was not hired until December of 2021. (laugh)
WAMG: Wow (laughs)
JB: There was a lot of: Am I going to get this gig? Am I not going to get this gig? A lot of giving up, saying, okay, I guess it was good shot and I have some music for my demo. It was definitely a journey. I was overwhelmed. I was really overwhelmed that they called and offered it to me, so much so that I literally cried. It was a culmination of so many leaps of faith just to come and do this.
WAMG: That is so amazing. My next question was going to be had they started shooting any of the movie? Had you seen any of the movie before you really started composing the score, because it’s a nice combination of your score and all these terrific 90’s songs.
JB: When I first did the demo, obviously they had just started production. So the demo was based off of just my understanding and pouring my knowledge of the Transformers universe into some music and what would I want to hear as an Autobots theme? I did that standalone. Then when I was hired in December, they were just starting post-production, so there was like an assembly of the movie.
I believe it was something like wow, 4 hours.
WAMG: I love it. (laughs)
JB: Yeah, exactly, because it was something crazy. And I started watching the film, and I was like, oh my goodness, what did I get myself? (laughs) I asked myself, how am I going to get his done – I have no idea. Just Faith.
And I just started going back and just started writing music. And I started writing music away from picture because picture was not ready for me to start working with directly. Soon after I was hired, I had a meeting with Lorenzo di Bonaventura.
WAMG: THE Lorenzo di Bonaventura?!
JB: I had a meeting with him and he said, welcome to Transformers. Happy to have you. Don’t mess it up.
WAMG: Oh, my gosh. And you’re like, man…
JB: Exactly! What the heck did I get myself into? But he did have some direction, which was very good. He said, “so many composers end up not finishing the movie because by the time we as the producer, and it’s not getting any better, he says, because by the time we as the producers and the studio hear the score, if it’s not exactly what we were thinking about, there’s not enough time to change gears. And then we go into sort of like triage. What we want to do to ensure your success is we want to hear music to picture as early as possible.
As a matter of fact, we have a cut coming out, I believe, in February for little internal screening. We want to hear music in that. This way we can steer you in the right direction. And there’s time to course-correct.”
I’m like, okay, so it was game on. (laughs)
WAMG: Time to get my game face.
JB: Yeah, my game face. That’s right, I’m not going to mess it up. You don’t have to worry about me. I got it covered. All the confidence came out, but I was sheep on the inside. So what we decided to do was to score the cold open of the film and pretty much all of reel one, which ended up being about 20 minutes of music. And I wanted to have that ready to go for the first sort of like screening of the film for studio’s screening. So that’s what we started working on.
And there was an eight-minute cold open, we say now called the Trans cut because that’s no longer in the movie. The whole thing different direction, different opening, and it’s been called online, the Trans cut. We’re hoping to release that at some point, so my work is not wasted. But what it did was, when we screened the movie with that music in there, it gave the studio, the producers and myself, the confidence that I can do this. And also talking with them about the direction and what they heard, they appreciated. At that point, I was a little more secure, but at least I passed the first test and I can live another day.
WAMG: I noticed there’s a lot of unique, orchestral instruments. There’s lots of great percussion going on. There’s this other worldly kind of theme. There’s a really great human element to it, but you can almost hear, like, the machines working. You’ve combined all of it with the orchestra for this new sound.
What instruments did you say, Okay, this instrument is going to be this maximal. This instrument is going to be Optimus Primal.
JB: (laughs)
WAMG: This instrument is going to be this to combine for all those music cues.
JB: Well, so much of the foundation of the score was set by Steve Jablonsky in his scores for the original Transformers.
And that music is so beloved and really set the tone and the sound for what a Transformer score should be. So my plan was not to really defer from that language, but to totally embrace that language. And I guess there were a couple of rules, we call them “The Jablonsky Rules.” One is the score had to have a sense of nobility and honor, especially when we talk about Prime and the Autobots. The score has to be a hybrid of orchestra and fit because we’re talking about electronic or electrical energon life forms, so we have to have a sense of both of those together. There needs to be a sense of emotion because we want the audiences to connect to the plight of the Autobots, that they’re trying to save their planet and their culture from extinction. Right? So we want to be able to connect with their journey.
There has to be a certain level of emotion in the score. And then there also has to be themes, because what Jablonsky did so wonderfully was create these memorable themes that we attach now to characters and have become almost synonymous with who they are. I knew I had to create some melodies, some themes that we could attach to this next chapter in the story. So those were sort of the rules that I was playing with, but at the same time, I wanted to infuse my own experience, what sounds heroic to me, what melodies kind of work, and then also what sounds we can infuse from the environment. A very important thing for me as a film scorer is to make sure that the music represents the cultures and the characters that we see on screen.
But I wanted to figure out how we could infuse a little bit of Brooklyn, how we can infuse a little bit of story, how we can infuse a little bit of let’s just say the environment is the third act. So those were sort of the overriding things that I wanted to have in there. And as far as instruments were concerned, both the Maximals and Optimus Prime, the Autobots, I never really created theme for Prime by himself, which is more the Autobots kind of theme. Those are both in brass, so French horns and trombones both sort of lead other lead measurements in their motifs, specifically the large versions of it.
But I also try and use string versions of it as well. We want to get more emotional or not emotional, but the more connected side where we want to really feel their plight, both the Maximals and the Autobots, so I also used those themes in strings as well. It wasn’t really about assigning certain instruments to the characters.
It was about trying to create themes that really connote the essence of all the characters.
WAMG: Because in the movie, you learn this is set in 1994, and the Maximals have been on Earth much longer than the Autobots have. And these beasts, they really know the humans, they know they have merit. They believe that they’re worth fighting for. So it’s like you’re having to keep within, like you said, the Jablonsky rules. But it’s pretty much a prequel, which is so cool.
JB: Yeah, it’s very cool. From the story, we kind of learned that the Optimus Prime that we’ve grown up with or that we know and love from the movie isn’t there yet. And it’s really Optimus Primal who shows him the way to actually find value in humanity.
WAMG: What’s really impactful is Tobe Nwigwe ’s lone original song in the film, “On My Soul” featuring Nas and Jacob Banks. Oh, my gosh, it was such a great finale for the movie. It’s just really good. How did you like working with him?
JB: First of all, working with Tobe Nwigwe was amazing.
He just has a sense of energy. I mean, again, the energy that this man brings to the table and positivity is really infectious, just like being around him as a person. But during the third act, Steven wanted to inject some of that energy from Tobe into the film, so he asked him to write a song that would be used during a sequence in the third act. Tobe did that and he actually wrote the song to Picture, and when we first heard it, we were like, wow, we’re blown away.
Steven brought it to my room and we watched it and we were like, whoa, this is great. Of course, Steven being the great director that he is, he had some notes and some ideas on how to make it more attached to the story and hit the beats in a different way. And Tobe and myself and our music editor and Tobe music team, we sat down and then we kind of rearranged the song based on Steven’s notes. And then it was my job to add all these orchestral elements on top of that. So to really sort of bring out some of the strings and add some more parts, some of the string parts, adding in the brass part, there’s a part of the song where you actually hear the Maximal melody making that work with the picture and the music there.
So that was what my job was, to really add the orchestral elements to the song. And the great news was when we actually did that, we played it back for Tobe and his team. They were like, what did you guys change? It’s great! (laughs)
It means we did our job. We did our job because we basically were able to bring it into the world of the score, yet it still felt like the song that they envisioned wrote.
WAMG: Because it’s a great music video. I just watched it again today on YouTube. And the music video is really terrific.
Who are some of your favorite composers? What are your favorite scores? What grabbed you when you were a young composer or just a person going to movies, and thought, this is great music for this movie.
JB: The funny thing is, I didn’t know this was actually a vocation as a young person, okay?
I was always into music. I played piano for a long time. I was never great. I was never fancy like that because I didn’t spend a great amount of time to really be great and I was okay. But I really enjoyed making music with my friends, doing that thing.
When I went to college, I decided I wanted to study music as well. So I did that. And when I got out to the real world, I had no idea how to make money with music, so I ended up launching into a software career, and I did that for about 15 years. It wasn’t until a friend of mine heard some music I was just messing around with in garage band. She said, that sounds like film music. I said, wait there’s music in films? Wait is music in video games?
By this point, I was in my mid-30’s. I was on the track to be a chief technology officer for Silicon Valley Company and I was married with a wife and two kids. I was entrenched in life and I realized that, no, this is not what I need to be doing software. I need to figure out how to do this music thing and now this is the career that I want because it allows me to have music.
It allows me to actually make some money as well as and it also allows me to work with technology to do this stuff. I ended up going back to school to USC Film’s Scoring program, came out of there and also had no job again. But luckily enough, I had some great friends. And I made one guy named Peter Roder, who is a contractor here in town. He contracts all the musicians for recording sessions.And he suggested to me, “instead of looking for an assistant job, you have this great knowledge of technology and, you know, the process of writing for film and TV. Why don’t you combine those two and create a company that does tech consulting for other composers?” And Composer Tech was born, and I did that for eight years, and by the time I was done, I had about 140 clients around the world, and they included some of the top film score people that I grew to learn to love.
So Danny Elfman was a client, Lucia Gordon, Teddy Shapiro, Michael Giacchino, these are all my clients who I did tech work for. I got a chance to understand how they approached scoring a film, what their process was, how they want to utilize technology. And some people, like Christoph Beck, became mentors to me and took me under their wing and I love their music. So you ask getting back to your original question about where I find inspiration and other composers, I would say I was blessed that Christoph Beck, I love his way of infusing pop sensibilities and electronics into his scores and they always sound so fresh. Ludwig Goransson, look at the way he pulls in. Again, also a pop sensibility, but also a world sensibility, whether it’s hip hop or if it’s music from Latin America, whatever it is, he knows how to pull in the essence of all these styles of music and turn that into a memorable film score.
Mr. Alexandre Desplat, I mean, the guy, let me tell you. And the way he uses these textures, especially with the woodwinds for his scores, he’s so delicate, yet also so powerful. I remember his score for GODZILLA. I was working for him when he was working on that and the first time I heard that in the studio, I said, wow.
Teddy Shapiro is another composer. That score for TROPIC THUNDER still provides a lot of inspiration for me, as well as his amazing work on “Severance” and the way that he makes these very creative ensembles and create his textures that are pretty evocative and interesting. So those are the people that I look to for inspiration.
And I’m blessed to say that I know them all. I have all their cell phone numbers and they may actually answer my phone calls. (laughs)
WAMG: (laughs) That’s when you know you’ve really made it.
JB: Well, remember they needed me to keeping their studios alive for a long time.
WAMG: You know, I saw this YouTube video with you and Pedro Eustache about the Tarka flute that is so cool.
JB: One of the things that I want to do in the film was making sure that the score would get reflected the place that we were. And when we went to Peru, I wanted to inject, but inject authentically, the sound of Peru into the score. So I looked to partner with folks that understood that music and intrinsically could bring that to the cues that they were on. And Pedro Eustache came on.
I was very careful because so many times in a film score, you hear a pan flute, that tells the movie is set in South America. So I was definitely aware of and wanted to avoid that proclivity and I was reticent of any kind of woodwinds. Because I was like, I don’t want to fall into that stereotype. One of the editors said, hey, I think we should kind of get some old woodwinds in here, but I wanted to do it again in a way that was interesting and new, so I talked to Pedro.
I wrote a little bit of line for some Tarka flutes. I didn’t want the pan flutes. I wanted these Tarka flutes. I wanted ocarinas, I wanted some toyos. So I was very specific about the flutes, the woodwinds that I wanted. And then Petro was like, I got you. And he built a custom Tarka flute that was the mouthpiece of the Tarka flute, but the body of a regular Western flute because he wanted to get the breathy sound of a Tarka signature of that instrument. But we needed the body of the flute to get the sustained and all the notes that we needed to work with the actual cue. He built a custom instrument that did not exist before this score and first time being heard. And he did it so masterful.
WAMG: It’s so effective and to watch the two of you on this YouTube video. You both are really giddy about the Tarka and it’s so much fun to watch. It’s really wonderful to watch. And you got a Transformers T shirt on, and the sound is great. The sound is so great.
JB: Thank you so much. It was really a labor of love. I love Transformers. I love the universe. I also want to make sure that what we did, the fans would appreciate.
And that’s really what sort of drove every… drove us to do all the stuff that we did. We want to do this for the fans. We want to make sure that the score elevates the movie and is at the level that the fans deserve. And that meant working with the greats like Pedro Eustache or Alicia Acuña on latin percussion, Abraham Laboriano, hiring the best programmers. Anthony Baldino worked on scores like TENET, “The Mandalorian.” He came on board to do synth programming for us. I just really tried to surround myself with amazing folks.
And then finally, Steve Jablonsky, he came on board as a mentor and guided us toward the end of a process. He was so gracious and so giving up his time. He said, “I’m here to pass the torch onto you and to help you realize the score for the fans and for the movie.” So it was pretty phenomenal, that interaction I was really blessed to have.
Check out this amazing track “Humans and Autobots United” from Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Soundtrack – Music by Steve Jablonsky.
WAMG: Gosh. That must have really been a moment.
JB: I’m so thankful for his involvement and his guidance.
WAMG: I have one last question. You talked about when you were younger and playing music with your friends. What advice would you give to young musicians considering your career in film composing or mixing or editing?
JB: Well, I would say one thing is continue to make music with your friends and the people around you, because that interaction of making music with people, I think, keeps the joy alive.
The second thing is, start making music for media now. No one has to give you permission to score things and find young filmmakers around you. Look to the left and to the right, and now there are people around you that are budding cinematographers or buddy directors. Start working with them right away, because it’s just going to be so important to start to build a rapport with people, build a language with people and start to understand what it is like to work with someone else to sort their film. One thing we remember as film composers is that we are artisians, not artists. Our art is in service of something else. It is to help something else function. So you need that sense of collaboration and to have those instincts of collaboration well honed, so that you can do this and to serve a director’s mission.
WAMG: What else have you got coming down the pike? What else are you working on now, if you can say?
JB: Well, I can’t say about too many things. As of right now, I have four films coming out next week. I’ll be traveling to do that. Choirs on Disney+, a docuseries. I have World’s Best, which I co-scored with Raashi Kulkarni, Disney hip hop musical coming up the end of this month on Disney+. Plus, I have a documentary, The Space Race, about the African American experience in the space race.
WAMG: I can’t wait to see that. Yes.
JB: Which I co-scored with Anna Drubich, my longtime friend. And then, yes, another film for Hulu called JAGGED MIND, which is an erotic thriller. And that comes up on June 16. (laughs)
WAMG: And then you’ve got some little film called Transformers RISE OF THE BEASTS.
JB: (laughs)
WAMG: Thank you again. This was a real pleasure. Good luck with the film. Good luck with all your upcoming projects. And I hope we can speak with you again because this has been a great conversation. Really.
JB: I hope so. I hope we will be crossing path many times.
TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS is playing now in theaters everywhere. (review)
TRANSFORMERS: RISE OF THE BEASTS (ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK) TRACKLISTING –
1. The Maximals
2. Unicron / Scourge
3. Autobots Enter
4. What Are You
5. More Than Meets the Eye
6. Mirage
7. Museum Heist
8. Battle at Ellis Island
9. Fallen Hero
10. Chris Meets Mirage
11. Arriving in Peru
12. Hiding in Plain Sight
13. The Cave
14. Switchback Chase
15. The Village
16. Saving Elena
17. One Last Stand
18. The Final Battle Begins
19. Unicron Approaches
20. Home Team
21. Volcano Battle
22. No Matter the Cost
23. Till All Are One
24. Humans and Autobots United
25. Here’s My Card
26. A Long Time Ago
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