Posted in: Interview, Movies, New Line Cinema, Warner Bros | Tagged: final destination, Final Destination: Bloodlines

Final Destination: Bloodlines Composer on Opening, Catering to Fans

Composer Tim Wynn spoke to Bleeding Cool about Final Destination: Bloodlines, streamlining the score, the opening, franchise pressure & more.

When composer Tim Wynn heard about how his friends, directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, were in charge of Final Destination: Bloodlines, the latest in the horror franchise as its sixth entry, he had to jump at the opportunity. With 30 years of experience under his belt, he has worked on several genres from video games, film, and TV including Well Go USA's Freaks (2018), The CW's Supernatural, Disney XD's action adventure teen series Mech-X4 with Lipovsky and Stein, and 2K Games' Marvel's Midnight Suns. Final Destination: Bloodlines follows a family trying to escape the curse of Death, who's coming to collect once again after a premonition prevents a massive tragedy. Wynn spoke to Bleeding Cool about whether he felt any pressure working on the Jeffre Reddick franchise, his most difficult scenes to score, and how his creativity was nourished throughout the process.

Final Destination: Bloodlines Composer Tim Wynn on How Creating the Score Was Streamlined

Bleeding Cool: Since 'Final Destination' is such an established IP, was there a chip on your shoulder to go above and beyond for this, or did you treat it like your other work?

Every time a composer starts a job, and I don't want to speak for everybody, but personally, I get this fear at the very beginning, like, "Oh my God! How am I going to do this?" I was so excited to get the opportunity to work on ['Final Destination: Bloodlines'], and then when I found out I was going to be able to work on the film, it was a little bit of dread because, "Oh my God! I've got all this responsibility. I'm really in it now, and I have to make sure the fans of 'Final Destination' are taken care of."

I felt this burden on my shoulders, but I was excited, and I was able to write a lot of music before they shot the movie. I was writing as they were editing. We were going back and forth, so every possible way we could figure out how to make the best movie, we went through it from A to Z. What you're going to hear on May 16th is a labor of love for me, I'm proud of how it all turned out and from all the filmmakers as well. We are excited about the result.

What was the most difficult scene to score and put together?

There are a couple of death scenes, and I don't know how much I should say.

You can leave names out if you want to avoid spoilers.

There are a few specific death scenes that really require a deft touch. Where it needs to, the music needs to propel the action, help with the scare, and do these things. Then there are moments of brief levity, some emotion, and heart. It was going back and forth that was the hardest bit. For the most part, I would say it just took work and a lot of going back and forth, trying to see what the best way forward was.

The opening sequence, I can imagine, with so much going on, sets a precedent of what's to come.

Oh yeah. That scene was amazing, and if you've probably seen some of the reviews, I love how much that opening scene uses practical effects rather than your typical computer-generated stuff. I remember vividly the first time I saw dailies as they were filming it, and Sabrina [Pitre], the editor, was starting to do a quick little edit, and I was able to see the film very early in the process. They just filmed it three days ago, and here it was, and I was blown away by how unreal the scenes already looked without any extra visual effects, and how Zach and Adam filmed it. It looked and felt amazing, so I was excited to start the process, especially for that sequence as well. Seeing the whole movie was amazing.

Did you play a part in selecting the songs that ultimately were picked for those sequences?

No, I had nothing to do with that. There is one specific song, and I won't give it away yet. There is a song from the 50s or 60s I grew up loving, probably the 60s now that I'm thinking about it. It plays a vital role throughout the whole film. Erin Scully, the head of New Line, was one of the key drivers, and the songs they picked were absolutely brilliant.

Were there any sequences that got cut that included something that you were proud of?

Nothing in the movie got cut as far as I can recall. Things were shortened, and some things were a little bit longer. I was surprised there wasn't too much edited out of it. There were a few scenes I wrote music for that didn't quite hit the nail on the head, emotionally, and then I had to rewrite them. I was like, "Wow, I love this piece of music," but then they said, "Well, think about it this way. Producers Craig Perry and Sheila Taylor were amazing, and they've been through the whole process with the first five films. They're the ones who made it all happen. If they had any questions or thoughts about the music, they would say, "Well, look at it this way." They wouldn't say, "We need you to rewrite the music." They would give you a little hints and breadcrumbs of how to tease out the music a little bit better, so there were a few moments where they helped elevate the score and help me be the best composer that I could be. It shows in what we came up with, 'Final Destination: Bloodlines.'

So there weren't parts where you were like, "I had four or five different tracks that I could go with," and you ended up picking one. Was it pretty streamlined?

Yeah, it was pretty streamlined because, again, we were fortunate that I was hired before they shot the film, and I kind of got a head start. I was able to write a lot of music, and some of it didn't get used because it didn't fit stylistically. I have a bunch of other tracks that weren't used, but we were able to get that part of the process out of the way before we got into the post-production stuff. When they had the final cut, we hit the ground running, and everything fell into place. Everyone at that point for me was writing the new main theme, which I wrote before I got hired. It pretty much is, as I was listening to it the other day. It sounds exactly like how I wrote it, and nothing really has changed in that. Getting a head start helped the overall process in the end.

Final Destination: Bloodlines, which also stars Kailyn Santa Juana, Teo Briones, Richard Harmon, Owen Patrick Joyner, Rya Kihlstedt, Anna Lore, Brec Bassinger, and Tony Todd, is exclusively in theaters.

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