OC friend Spike Jonze’s cinematic masterpiece, her, is in the running for five Academy Awards this Sunday. Among these is the nod for Best Original Score, an honor bestowed upon the delicate, heart-wrenching brainchild of the band Arcade Fire. But due to the Academy’s limitations on the number of individuals who may be listed as nominees, composers Owen Pallett and William Butler have emerged as the named nominees for the award.
After checking out the her by Opening Ceremony collaboration at his hotel this week, Owen lounged on the rooftop patio with a piping hot cup of mint tea to reminisce about his time working with Arcade Fire on the Oscar-nominated score and fond memories of OC. “Opening Ceremony was always the store that I would slip away to and pick up whatever items I could afford in my early twenties,” Owen told us of his relationship with OC. “As Humberto’s fortunes have progressed it’s been such a delight to see him move to Kenzo.”
While performing and recording with Arcade Fire, Owen also began a solo project under the stage name Final Fantasy, even winning a 2006 Polaris Music Prize, before reverting to his given name to avoid infringing Japanese copyright laws. In addition, he has recorded string accompaniments on a wide variety of albums, and remixed music from the likes of Stars, Grizzly Bear, and Death from Above 1979 (RIP). Befitting a man with such a wide breadth of experience, the score for her is not his first foray in composing for film. Other credits include the soundtracks for The Box, the 2009 film by Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko, Southland Tales), and The Wait, starring Chloë Sevigny and directed by M. Blash (who also directed Pallett’s video for his 2010 single “Lewis Takes Off His Shirt”).
Despite being an Oscar nominee, Owen was modest in discussing his part in composing the score. He started work on the score towards the tail end of the process, as Arcade Fire had taken on the project a year earlier and asked Owen to help capture the moods of the film after he worked on their latest album, Reflektor. “One of my skills is working as an interpreter, taking more vague, abstract moods and addressing on a compositional level what is going to make that most effective, whether or not it’s removing this note or that note or slowing it down or speeding it up. I also run my mouth off most of the time, so that gets things done and forces people to make decisions,” he added with a laugh.
When Owen climbed aboard, the film and its score had a very different tone. William Butler recently likened the earliest incarnations of the score to Blade Runner, a comparison with which Owen concurred: “A lot of [the earlier version] found its way into the cues in different formats, reorchestrated for guitar and acoustic bass.” He elaborated that initial versions of the film emphasized the futuristic aspect of the story’s setting, including a storyline that involved Chris Cooper falling in love with an airplane. “You hear about people marrying bridges and all sorts of beautiful dysmorphic situations. There is a lot of reflection of this in day to day life.”
Earlier in the season, Spike Jonze
After checking out the her by Opening Ceremony collaboration at his hotel this week, Owen lounged on the rooftop patio with a piping hot cup of mint tea to reminisce about his time working with Arcade Fire on the Oscar-nominated score and fond memories of OC. “Opening Ceremony was always the store that I would slip away to and pick up whatever items I could afford in my early twenties,” Owen told us of his relationship with OC. “As Humberto’s fortunes have progressed it’s been such a delight to see him move to Kenzo.”
While performing and recording with Arcade Fire, Owen also began a solo project under the stage name Final Fantasy, even winning a 2006 Polaris Music Prize, before reverting to his given name to avoid infringing Japanese copyright laws. In addition, he has recorded string accompaniments on a wide variety of albums, and remixed music from the likes of Stars, Grizzly Bear, and Death from Above 1979 (RIP). Befitting a man with such a wide breadth of experience, the score for her is not his first foray in composing for film. Other credits include the soundtracks for The Box, the 2009 film by Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko, Southland Tales), and The Wait, starring Chloë Sevigny and directed by M. Blash (who also directed Pallett’s video for his 2010 single “Lewis Takes Off His Shirt”).
Despite being an Oscar nominee, Owen was modest in discussing his part in composing the score. He started work on the score towards the tail end of the process, as Arcade Fire had taken on the project a year earlier and asked Owen to help capture the moods of the film after he worked on their latest album, Reflektor. “One of my skills is working as an interpreter, taking more vague, abstract moods and addressing on a compositional level what is going to make that most effective, whether or not it’s removing this note or that note or slowing it down or speeding it up. I also run my mouth off most of the time, so that gets things done and forces people to make decisions,” he added with a laugh.
When Owen climbed aboard, the film and its score had a very different tone. William Butler recently likened the earliest incarnations of the score to Blade Runner, a comparison with which Owen concurred: “A lot of [the earlier version] found its way into the cues in different formats, reorchestrated for guitar and acoustic bass.” He elaborated that initial versions of the film emphasized the futuristic aspect of the story’s setting, including a storyline that involved Chris Cooper falling in love with an airplane. “You hear about people marrying bridges and all sorts of beautiful dysmorphic situations. There is a lot of reflection of this in day to day life.”
Earlier in the season, Spike Jonze