Netflix's Shadow and Bone has been lauded as a fantastic adaptation of Leigh Bardugo's bestselling fantasy novels, earning praise for the way it managed to translate the layered, intricate world Bardugo created to the screen. Showrunner Eric Heisserer's adaptation is ambitious, weaving together both the original Grisha trilogy as well as the characters from the standalone Six of Crows duology. The world is broad and complex, full of different cultures and countries. The story is enhanced by the show's attention to every detail, from the specific embroidery on each Grisha's kefta, to what kind of money might be used in a Ketterdam gambling den, to how it might look in real life if someone were able to manipulate shadows.

But the lush score also helps create the world as much as anything visually seen on screen, and the credit there goes to composer Joseph Trapanese. He spoke with Screen Rant about tackling such an ambitious project, the fun of getting to play in the sandbox of the Grishaverse, the character whose theme he had the most trouble finding, and the one section of the score he had to completely redo after seeing the footage.

You're a veteran of the industry and you've done a little of everything. You've done movies, TV, all across genres. But this could arguably be maybe the most complex thing you've ever done and most ambitious. Did you find that that was kind of intimidating or was it more exciting because you had to play in such a big sandbox?

I was much more excited than I was intimidated. Don't get me wrong, it was a bit intimidating, especially when you realize someone like Leigh has poured so much of her life into creating these super-rich characters, which is why it was all the more meaningful for me to do that same thing, to really invest my time and energy into learning them and understanding the world in a very deep way. And you're exactly right, I feel so lucky that my career has been so interesting. It's a real adventure, I love that I'm not just... I don't just do one thing or another. But I also feel that everything I've done has almost led up to this show because one of my earliest gigs was working on Tron: Legacy with Daft Punk and watching how they built a world for the grid, how they built a sonic world. And that's something I really cherish and keep with me that I love when I have these opportunities to build a sonic world.

I think because of my varied background, I had a lot of interesting tools in the toolbox, so to speak, to draw upon that world. So I'm orchestrally trained, I've done a lot of work with live musicians, so obviously that's doable, but I've been playing with synths ever since I was a little kid, so I love combining the orchestra and synthesizers. And I also have a great network of musicians I could call upon for all the solos that we needed in Shadow and Bone, that represent all these characters. So, yeah, Shadow and Bone definitely was... It felt almost like everything was leading up to it, didn't it? [chuckle]

You mentioned creating this symphonic world, but really, you literally had to create a whole world world as it is the Grishaverse and each country gets different influences. The tricky thing is that it's based on our world, but it's not exactly our world. How did you tweak things just slightly enough so that it still fits within that fantasy element?

I love that you're bringing up how this world relates to the real world because I think there's a real analogy to how we create music in there. And one of the reasons why I love film music is that, yes, starting music on a blank page is hard, but when you work in something like film, you already have a script, you have a director, you have people to kind of start figuring out what exactly you wanna write. So when I used to write just music, like concert music when I was in school – and I still write concert music sometimes – but it's a very different challenge 'cause you start with this blank piece of paper. Whereas with the Grishaverse, you already have just these whispers of, obviously, the Russian influence, Eastern European, you have Ketterdam. There's a whole list of checkboxes there. Let's make sure we feel that Russian influence, that Eastern European influence, you know.

At the same time though, there is a bit of a blank page aspect. For the Grisha, I wound up using a lot of gamelan, which is from Java; it has nothing to do with Russia or anything Eastern European. But the idea was that it's this bell sound and it has this mystical otherness to it, and it seemed to really represent that the way the Grisha are in their world there, that mystical otherness that they don't quite fit in. So yeah, I feel really lucky in that regard that there was a bit of table setting done for me, but I wasn't locked in like, "Oh, this sound, you have to do exactly this and that's all you can work with." No, I had a much broader range to be able to draw upon.

Did you watch any or listen to any soundtracks from any specific movies or TV shows to get inspiration? 

Not really. What I do... It's funny, I don't have any hard and fast rules about like, "Oh, don't listen to this" or "Don't watch that." To me, when I'm writing a score like Shadow and Bone, what I'm hoping is that the last thing I need to "learn" about or research is music. I might make a playlist, I might make a playlist to get inspired by, but really, my focus is the story and the drama. Because I'm a musician and I spend all my life worrying about music. When it comes down to actually setting notes on paper, the last thing I think about actually is music. I try to think about story, what is motivating these characters, because then I can make the musical decisions based on that, rather than me saying, "Oh, I'm gonna listen to the music of such-and-such." So with the Crows, for example, I was influenced by three things. One is just these characters themselves are so scrappy and improvisational. So one, I wanted the music to feel that way. Two, there's something about Ketterdam and about these characters that felt very Roma-ish to me.

Right. You definitely feel that influence with Inej and the Suli people. 

So you can hear the music there. And then my conversation with Eric about the Crows was, hey, here's a group of characters where we want their music to feel like it's like a train about to run off the tracks at any time, like anything, everything could fall apart. So there's the ticking clock sound, for example. Everything's really fast and very rhythmic, but it's also rhythmic in a way that's not like a 4-4 straight rhythm. It has a little bit of a limp to it, a little bit of a weird rhythm to it that you can't quite put your finger on. So those are all things we've talked about in that. But yeah, I try to put a majority of my effort into the storytelling, if that makes sense.

Speaking of the Crows, and Kaz Brekker, each of the six main characters has their own individual themes, and introduction music. Kaz's with the plucking violin is reminiscent of Jaws, like a shark circling, which is perfect. Did you start composing the themes for each of them just from reading the books, or did you find you had more inspiration once you started watching the shot footage to start creating the themes for each one of them?

It was all from the books. I actually didn't see a frame of picture until I was basically done writing the original melodies. And so it's a testament to several things. One is Eric giving me guidance, but also Leigh giving me guidance, the fact that I was able to talk to her and sit down with her and really understand the story from her point of view. And it's also a testimony to what a great job they did working together, and Netflix, too, for allowing them to work together, that this wasn't like, "Oh, Eric's taking the books and gonna do whatever he wants." It was really them figuring out how to bring this world to life, in a way that represented the books in a really authentic way. And so since I then based the music based on the characters in the books, it all translated to the screen really well when I started getting footage in, it all just worked. It's rare that that happens. Let's just put it at that... Let's just leave it at that.

Despite the fact that they took the trilogy and the duology of books and put them together, so added essentially twice as much story, it's still probably one of the best, and in a lot of ways, truest book to screen adaptation I've seen in quite some time. I imagine that might have helped, as well, because it nailed the spirit of the books. So there isn't a completely re-imagined tone or world or major story changes outside of, again, adding in the Crows.

Yeah, you're exactly right. I've been on movies where nobody can agree on what they're trying to make. To one person, it's a comedy, to another person it's something else. So the fact that we were all on the same page creatively, building this world together, that, again, very rare. And also, look at the results. You have this very rich story that has come to life in an equally rich television series. How cool is it that the characters are so rich that they were able to build this entirely new storyline? And like you said, it just feels right. There is no– at least in my mind, it wasn't like, oh, it would never happen like this. It's like, oh no, I can actually see in an alternate universe this being exactly right.

In composing the themes for each of the main characters, did you find that there were any that just came to you more easily, and others that were more difficult, that you had to maybe wrestle to find the tone of? Like writing in general - some pieces just come more easily to me and others I struggle with. I imagine it's the same with composing music.

I wrestled a lot with Mal and it's so funny, I... For a while, I was wondering why I was trying to find the right tone for Mal, and then I got to know him more. He was maybe one of the characters that my homework didn't reveal enough about when I was reading the books. Then I realized that a lot of the readers view Mal as kind of a jerk, he's this stupid boy. But then what I feel so rewarding is sure, maybe he starts off as this jerk, but in the Netflix series and in the book series, he becomes a man. He realizes his greater responsibilities to the world and to Alina and to himself, and he grows up. And that, to be able to communicate that musically is super hard. So, I look back on that like, no wonder why I spent so long struggling with the Mal theme. The character himself has a lot of struggle in becoming who he is by the end of season one. So it's interesting when dramatically, it lines up with what you've experienced creatively, too.

He definitely got an upgrade character-wise from the books. I know that Leigh has said in the past that these were the first books she ever wrote and if she could go back and do some things differently, maybe she would. I think that Mal might be one of them, because there are moments in the books where you're like, "That's pretty toxic. That's pretty controlling."

Right. But I think what's great is she's built such strong characters that can weather that...

Sort of change in an adaptation? 

That's it. These little changes and alterations, and still... It's still Mal. Just like Alina isn't quite the exact Alina from the book, but there's no argument like, wow, Jessie is Alina.

Absolutely - she's so good. She's a little bit more assertive than she is in the books, Mal's a little less toxic. But they're still the essence of them, of their characters.

Exactly. It's a true testament to Leigh and then the evolution that Eric did. It's very rare to be in a project where it's been so rewarding and thrilling to see it come to life, like this one. And yeah, I just hope... I don't know, we'll see. I know Netflix doesn't do ratings, but my secret goal is that each character could have their own series 'cause they're all so rich. You could take any one of these characters and build a past story or a future story for them, and just go on for multiple seasons just with that. [chuckle]

It's the same with the countries, too. It's such a vast and broad world, and some of the countries are a little bit more analogous to the real world, where others are more of a mish-mash of influences. Did you find that there were countries where it was harder to nail the tone? Or, on the flip side, easier?

Well, I wonder if Ketterdam came more easily to me just because I'm originally from the New York City area and I went to school in New York. And I know Ketterdam is not exactly New York, but the melting pot...The fact that it's not one identity, it's many identities, it's very multicultural. And that very much was my youth. I can't quite say I was in the alleyways of Jersey City as my youth, but still, the idea of this very multicultural melting pot, that certainly is something that influenced me.

One of the coolest things that I hope we get to use some more, in both of those episodes, when we are in Ketterdam, there's a lot of "source music" that we did, that is all off-screen, that you're hearing in the Crow Club, as well as the other places like the Emerald Palace, the Orchid, there's all this background music that's happening. That was yet another fun homework for me. I jokingly said to Eric, "This is like the cantina band." And the whole idea behind the cantina band music in Star Wars,  George Lucas said he wanted to feel like these aliens have found a big band score from the '50s and they're trying to play it. So, my whole idea with the Ketterdam locations is like, "Oh, I want them to feel like they've discovered Russian classical music, but are trying to play it with these interesting, multicultural instruments." So, you hear instruments like banjos, as well as flutes and pianos and cellos, so it's this really interesting melting pot of music, but they're trying to play it like in a Russian style. Anyway, back to what you originally said. It's a very rich world, and part of that is because of the music. We really put a lot of homework into it.

I'm always curious about where the bottlenecks are in a giant undertaking like this. Is there anything that you found that, when you were looking at the footage and starting to assemble all of this, wasn't quite working and that you had to completely change? Or did it all mostly work with just a few tweaks here and there?

The big one is the Shadow Fold. When reading the books, for some reason, I had the impression that the Fold was a little bit more mysterious than a monstrosity. Of course, there are monsters in it, but to me, it was more of a subtle fog. And you see the show and, oh my God, what they did with the Fold is amazing. It goes on forever and it's screaming at you, and there are lightning storms. And so, my music for the Fold was very mysterious and ethereal and ambient. And everyone said to me, like, "Hey, Joe, I think the Fold needs to have more of a presence." I said, "You are right. I gotta redo this." So, I kept a lot of the textures that we had, that we had developed for the Fold because the textures felt right, everyone liked that, but I developed a brand new melody, a much bigger sound, so when we go into and out of the Fold, it's now a really big event. Whereas initially, I was thinking of it more of like, "Okay, we're going to the Fold, let's sneak in..." Now, it's like a huge statement, like, "We are going into THE FOLD." That was certainly something that evolved.

Right. Going into the Fold is an event, the kind where you write out your last will and testament beforehand because you might not be coming back.

That's exactly right.

Have you actually gotten to see the whole finished show yet? 

Oh yeah! I was so lucky that because it was a great team, great editorial, great production team, that by the time I got the episodes to score, they were already very close to what you saw. So I already kind of saw everything as I was scoring it, but I did, just this past week, revisit it all. In normal times I get to write the music, record it, mix it, deliver and then I go to a screening, just to give some notes. But this year, unfortunately, I never got to do that. So I said, okay, I wonder how this came out? Because I never heard it and how it all worked when laid out.

But it came out great. I couldn't be more thrilled. It's a testament to everyone involved, and including the mix team, they did a great job, the dubbing team. The sound effects are amazing. And it all just sits together. Dialogue sounds great. This past year has been a whole new adventure for all of us, you included, I'm sure, so, yeah, this is part of the adventure of the last year for me is, I didn't quite get to be as present as I normally am.

It really did turn out spectacularly. I rarely do this if I have a screener, which I did, but I went back and rewatched the entire thing last weekend when it came out and found more to appreciate.

You're right. There aren't many shows there to rewatch, but you think of the classics like The Wire or Game of Thrones or shows that are timeless. And this show has an equal amount of nuance, I think, that there is so much that you could even turn off the sound, and just look at the costumes and just look at the visual effects. Or you could turn off the picture and just listen to the sound and you can hear the incredible sound effects that were built for the Fold and the volcra. It's such a rich tapestry that you're right, this is totally worth repeated viewings. So yeah, watch it again everyone!

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