by Tomasz Ludward
IFMCA member Tomasz Ludward recently interviewed composers Caleb and Brian Chan about his score for the animated Nickelodeon show The Fairly OddParents: A New Wish.
TL: First off, congratulations on winning the Breakout Composer Award at the 2024 SOCAN Awards! Given your rich musical background—from classical training to indie tours and sound recording—I’m curious to know what you find most special about composing for film. What makes it stand out for you?
C: Thank you! The SOCAN awards were an incredible moment for us and a lasting highlight. It was a great reminder of the type of career we’re building and the paths it has taken us. And on that reflection, film composing has been for me the space that embraces the diversity of musical experiences and makes it all relevant. Here, all parts of me creatively can coexist, belong, and be given the freedom to express when needed. Scoring Fairly OddParents is a beautiful example of that, where my summer spent fiddling on a riverboat is as essential as my years studying the orchestra, hiding in my bedroom making beats, or playing 2am free improv gigs.
B: Thank you. It was an honour and humbling to be in the same room as so many Canadian Icons. Grateful for SOCAN for spotlighting and supporting those of us in AV. In college I felt the walls of having to be a particular kind of musician closing in, and then was given the fun and liberating opportunity to be a part of a student video game that required us to write in a broad range of musical genres. We’re talking alternative, to boy band, to country. I feel a similar kind of liberation scoring to picture – license to weave through genres to serve a collective vision. It’s the freeing paradox of working within specific enough confines, whether that be musically, sonically, or within a simple episodic deadline, and to do this work largely in sweats at home.
How do you guys split up the composing duties between yourselves? Or do you even split them at all?
B: Yes, we write separately in our own spaces and split writing duties – a big plus with a tight TV timeline. To keep things consistent, we share a template with mostly the same instruments as a starting point. The sonically defining cue for the show that actually became this base template was an action sequence Caleb wrote for our initial pitch. This is where Hazel runs away in Ep. 1 and you can hear the segment at the end of the track “A New Wish”. Once a sound world is decided upon or we run out of time to tweak the template cues are split based on what would be fun to write, or say if one of us writes a character theme we might try to stick with cues with that theme.
Did you try to keep a connection to the original series and maintain some continuity with the earlier parts of the franchise?
C: In the same way the show reinvents itself while keeping a sense of familiarity, we were mindful to do the same with the music. The big band swing and genre hopping lives on and we’re pretty excited to be able to drop the iconic original theme in key moments as easter eggs. We’ve added a more contemporary tilt on the sound world, particularly for new characters like Hazel, and even in the swing, there’s a touch of modern production with electronic elements mixed in. After the show aired, Guy Moon, the original composer who created the FOP music world, reached out with some nice words which was incredibly special for us.
Working with a big franchise like this, were there any musical guidelines or expectations from the producers? Or did they just give you free rein?
C: Our execs Dave, Dan, and Ashleigh enjoyed what we had initially pitched though some of the earlier conversations were still crucial. Here’s verbatim one of their notes that helped unlock the score: “It feels too dramatic and serious. The team would like it to be goofier to match the spirit of the scene.” Once we understood the assignment to let the humor come through in the drama, their advice was often to just “go for it!” Dan is also a bit of a bassist so we knew a saucy bass groove would always get the job done.
I imagine all the creativity and wildness you put into the score must’ve been fun. How did you make it so hilarious?
B: We did a fair bit of meditating on hilarity as a worldview and philosophized over retreats and near silent ice baths.
C: Tightrope act of taking this way too seriously while remembering how completely unserious this all is. The comedy is probably somewhere between there, but who knows!
Animation is one of the most challenging genres, where the music often needs to change every 10 seconds to match the action. How did you approach those dynamics and energy?
B: Yes there are many quick changes and emotional pivots. A lot of it is funnier when there is absolutely no smoothing between scenes. Luckily enough, we shared the sentiment with the showrunners that the show as a whole would be focused on longer story arcs. So there may be comparatively less “stingers” for every action, and more attention paid to character development and sitting in a particular emotion which is a nice balance.
The music of “The Fairly OddParents: A New Wish” mixes so many different styles—horror, heist, western, manga, and a superhero movie. How did you manage to weave all that together while keeping it true to Nickelodeon’s signature tone?
C: We were hoping that the score would come together like a big family dinner – every cue is a bit weird and eccentric, but somehow share the same DNA. We had our base sonic template and set of themes but that was constantly being stretched to fit in new action. The common gene was really seeing the world through the eyes of Hazel and the fairies where everything is an adventure. Even if we went to some scarier or unexpected places, it all had this anticipation that it was all part of this fun absurd ride.
With some of those jazzy cues, was there room for improvisation, or was everything more structured and planned out?
B: We’re always “improvising” when we start writing, or tapping into that instinctual place anyway while being motivated by story and character. But in the pure jazz improv sense, there was some room for our collaborators to rip a few solos. Nick Torretta and Braxton Raymond are quite the sax shredders and you can hear that in “A New Wish” and “Teacher’s Pal.”
And maybe this is just me, but the music feels pretty referential, especially tracks like “Love and Games” (which gives me Rocky vibes) and “Rattleconda” (which has that Ennio Morricone feel). Did you do any research to make those emotional cues familiar and relatable?
C: A lot of the score worked because it relied on specific genre references and we made earnest efforts to dip into it. Those influences were infused back into our scoring style for the show, sometimes letting things get a little silly or push it over the top. For those moments to work, a lot of it is in listening and distilling the elements that make a style instantly recognizable and leaning on those to support the scene.
I’d love to hear what you’re working on next and what we can expect from you both soon!
C + B: We’re currently working with Wildbrain Studios on an animated Lego series and we’ve started scoring season two of CBC’s Allegiance. Next year releases, our score for season three of Alert: Missing Persons Unit will be out midseason on Fox and we’ve wrapped on an exciting feature for Toei Animation with a release date still to be announced. More to come!
For more info on the Chan Brothers and their work: https://www.chansounds.com/
The score is available for your consideration here: https://republickids.lnk.to/TFOPANewWish
