Sean Renner composed and produced the score for the debut feature film from writer/director Cairo Smith, Buffalo 8 and Askari Productions.

 

Taken in by a wealthy couple after her sudden divorce, a trusting woman spirals into a surreal nightmare of manipulation and betrayal.

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The score for Screwdriver uses a sonic palette that combines a traditional-sounding chamber ensemble with processed and manipulated string recordings that are progressively blended into the music as the story evolves.

 

The story of the film begins seemingly normal, but as the film progresses Emily begins to spin ever-deeper into psychological distress that makes it difficult to tell reality from delusion. Meanwhile, the motives of her caretakers become increasingly suspicious. The sound palette of the score follows a very similar arc. It begins with what sounds like a relatively traditional chamber ensemble consisting of strings, piano, mallets, basset horn, and light percussion. As Emily’s journey becomes darker, so too does the sonic palette as the instrumentation slowly shifts to incorporate layers of time-stretched and pitch-shifted versions of the chamber ensemble’s instruments.

 

This sound palette was achieved through a series of recording sessions with solo string instruments to compile a comprehensive collection of pitches and textures from which to create a library of custom virtual samplers. These samplers were used to apply granular and pitch and time-based processing effects to the original recordings, and were layered together with a traditionally-orchestrated chamber ensemble.