British composer Sam Slater on composing music for 'The Railway Men'

Ask British composer Sam Slater what composing music for a film or series involves and he introduces us to the concept of a sound world Slater a twotime Grammy award winner whorsquos known for his background scores in the documentary Chernobyl and the movie Joker says that coming up with a musical theme for a series involves ldquostaying true to its historyrdquoldquoI really like stories which have purposemdashnot just entertainment valuerdquo Slater emphasises talking about the reason why he picked up this project ldquoTherersquos a lot of power that cinema holds and I like to contribute to narratives that have meaningrdquoThe Railway Men is based on the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy that claimed nearly 20000 lives It was challenging to compose music for this project he says not just because it was the first Indian series he worked on but also because of its scale ldquoWhen therersquos a truth in the story the music has to reflect that Itrsquos not just about a layer of sound to complement the visuals itrsquos about the truth about the real lives of peoplerdquo He had to recontemplate the scale of the tragedy although hersquod read about it in the past through news reports chronicling the disasterThe Railway Men is based on the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy that claimed nearly 20000 livesThe process of composing the background music and score which usually is completed in six weeks on an average took four months for this series Why ldquoA whole film is about 40 to 50 minutes of music For these episodes we made about 50 minutes of finished music per episode Itrsquos like four films in onerdquoThe work seems to have paid off as The Railway Men is currently trending in the Netflix Top 10 lists globally and in IndiaThe sound board for The Railway Men involved many elements of railway stations of course and recordings of trains plying incorporated into the rhythm of the songs Slater who is a drummer at heart and enjoys playing percussion instruments used a large drum with a loudspeaker hidden inside it to create heavy feedback and ldquogrowlsrdquo ldquoI throw sounds at the screen and see what sticksrdquo he explains ldquoI rely on intuition on what sounds support the image on screen Itrsquos all a process of playing aroundrdquoHe loves working on nonfiction stories because it gives him a chance to learn more about the different versions of history that are put out there ldquoI love how Shiv the director told the story in a way thatrsquos very personal to him He threaded a hopeful story through the disaster and tragedy that the real accident was That was a hard thing to pull off and I learnt a lot from him about telling stories of hope in sad situationsrdquo It was also fun collaborating with the team ldquoI think wersquore friends nowrdquo he says sounding hopefulTalking about his past projects like the Joker or Chernobyl Slater says he dealt mostly with sound worldbuilding while wife Hildur Guethnadoacutettir the Icelandic composer cellist and singer worked on actually composing the scores ldquoShersquos been my longterm collaborator for these projects and eventually became my life partner We enjoyed collaborating so much that we married each otherrdquo he laughsSound worlds for him are unique and bespoke auditory elements corresponding intimately to the character and the contexts of the stories theyrsquore created for ldquoItrsquos so easy in 2023 to just grab some dark sounds off the Internet or buy a library of cinematic sounds and put them to workrdquo he muses ldquoBut when you take the time to really become friends with the characters who are in need of a friend you create sounds and melodies that represent the story as honestly as possiblerdquoAnd what was his experience working on his first Indian project like ldquoSo goodrdquo he smiles broadly ldquoIt was greatrdquo Hersquos visited India several times in the past and loves Sikkimrsquos tomato curry and Kashmir in particularmdashand anything to do with idlis ldquoI wanted to bring my wife here for a honeymoonmdashwe havenrsquot managed to do that yetrdquo he signs off