Posted in: Audio Dramas, Star Trek, TV | Tagged: star trek, Star Trek: Khan

Star Trek: Khan Composers on Balancing Old & New, Honoring Legacy

Star Trek: Khan composers Marcus and Sam Bagala discussed blending the scores of the TOS films and new Trek sound for the audio drama.

As the brother composer duo, Marcus and Sam Bagala accepted the challenge of helping to tell the story of one of Star Trek's notorious villains in Khan Noonien Singh, for Star Trek: Khan. From The Wrath of Khan director Nicholas Meyer, and writers/EPs Kirsten Beyer and David Mack, the audio drama bridges The Original Series season one episode "Space Seed" with the 1982 film, which Khan (Naveen Andrews), the exiled Starfleet officer Lt. Marla McGivers (Wrenn Schmidt), and his band of Augments are tasked to tame the wild lands of Ceti Alpha V before it becomes a desolate wasteland we see in TWOK. The Bagalas spoke to Bleeding Cool about comparing the differences between working in the podcast sphere to screen work, coordinating sound to create a greater immersive experience, and blending the classic cinematic scores with modern Trek.

Star Trek: Khan Composers on Audio Drama Challenges, and Evoking 'The Wrath of Khan' and 'The Undiscovered Country'

What are the biggest differences between working in the podcast sphere and the screen?

Marcus: The biggest thing is you don't have a visual, right? So, it becomes the job of the other things in the podcast to make up for the visuals with the dialog, the way the dialog was written, and the sound design must be clear and understandable so that when you're listening, you understand what's happening. Then music can help give a sense of emotional subtexts, help influence action, and give additional emotional cues. We're trying to ensure that we're tracking the emotional state of the characters and how they feel within the world. That's the music's job, so it's a heightening of a lot of the stuff that you do in film. For the sake of clarity and to make up for the fact that we want our music to evoke a dangerous jungle, but there's like a little extra pressure to nail it. Sam, what else would you add to that?

Sam: You're spot on. There are a lot of things that we try to do, just like subconsciously set what the world is. For instance, if it's the jungle, maybe there's some extra wood sounds about percussion or any of those things that we can do to create a world that makes you feel like you're there more so than in film, because obviously, it's spelled out with the visual.

Would you blend in more with the Foley work as well, or is it more of a streamlined process?

Marcus: We worked more closely with the sound designer, Dan Brunelle, who's amazing, and we're constantly checking in with each other. For example, he's doing stuff in these frequencies, so we're going to try to stay away from them and do other stuff, so we're not ever clashing. We're trying to be very thoughtful about, like, "Okay, there are some important sound design here that we need the audience to hear," so the music's going to pull back.

There are a lot of handoffs and interplay that we're trying to be conscientious of, and then it goes both ways, too. Sometimes, Dan will send us a mix, then Sam and I will be working on it, and we'll be like, "It would be great if we had like another 10 seconds here for the music to do this or do that." Since there's no visual the podcast is tied to, we can do that very easily. Dan goes and moves stuff over in the virtual session, and then we can let the music breathe a little bit more. There's a nice interchange between the two departments, essentially, that we were able to take advantage of, back and forth, which helps.

I was wondering about the evocations to other things, like you've got Tim Russ and George Takei, which goes back to that season three episode of 'Voyager,' but it's more of 'The Undiscovered Country' timeline. How did you guys decide on how that was going to sound if it was going to evoke more of the film, the UPN series, or a hybrid?

Marcus: It's more of a hybrid middle ground, because you can talk about the growth of the Trek franchise and who's been shepherding it and stuff. Obviously, Secret Hideout, Alex Kurtzman, and all the things that they've been doing for a while now, but there was a little bit of trying to be conscientious of what the modern scores sound like. While we try to evoke at times and pay homage to the James Horner score for 'Wrath of Khan,' or be aware of it.

There was also [composer] Cliff Eidelman from 'The Undiscovered Country.'

Marcus: There's that aspect where we're calling back to an earlier era of Trek, while also being conscientious that this project was written by wonderful Trek writers, Kirsten and David, and there's a specific tone to that. There's even a point, and here's a little behind-the-scenes thing, but we were talking about what it would sound like to use music that was even more towards what James Horner did for 'The Wrath of Khan,' and we mocked a couple of things up to see what it sounds like.

What we realized is that there is a specific…the film was made when it was made, and it's an amazing film, but to take that and put that into something written today for today's audiences with the tone of the current Star Trek franchise in mind, it didn't work well. We had to find a way to take our influence from James Horner's 'The Wrath of Khan' score and filter it through a more modern version of film composing, basically.

Sam: And adapted to the story we're telling, yeah.

The premiere episode of Star Trek: Khan, which also features the voices of Sonya Cassidy, Olli Haaskivi, Maury Sterling, Mercy Malick, and Zuri Washington, is now available with new episodes on Mondays through November 3rd.

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