I think the last repair shop is one of the most personal projects that I've scored.
My dad is a musician, so jazz, big band, rock music have been part of my life for as long as I can remember.
So when I first got the call from Ben and Chris, it was quite daunting.
pressure not only to score a film about music but to have the music be good as well.
The last repair shop is not only a film about music, it's also a love letter to Los Angeles.
LA is such a diverse place.
The Crafts people in the film, they have different backgrounds, they come from different places.
So of the first things that Chris and Ben and I talked about was the instrumentation following each individual character and making a unique world
The process started with me writing these piano sketch themes for each of our craftspeople.
Steve's theme in particular, it sounds like someone who keeps like falling and trying to get back up.
Yeah, I really wanted to approach it more like...
And I talked a lot about all the emotional ways to approach each of those scenes and
she just took those little seeds of a theme and turned it into this really incredible score.
Those themes were kind of a jumping-off point for me to discover my own arrangements
and Chris gave me the freedom to really explore that emotion with my own musical place.
The warmth that Katya brings into it is what moves me the most and really highlighted each of our craftspeople.
Dina works on strings so we hear harps, canos, strings, and guitars and when he's talking about learning music.
My mother and father were both musicians and my mom taught me whatever you do don't stop.
That was a unique challenge to get to ask amazing studio musicians to play badly and then morph into this beautiful chord as Dana says.
You know don't quit don't give up.
Every time I watch that sequence, I still get emotional.
For Patty's section, we had a brass quartet take center stage.
It's so difficult for brass to be as malleable as some of those other instrumentations into emotional timbre of cures like...
Her section has a raw urgency and vulnerability that I think the brass instrumentation connected really well.
For Duane's theme, I was inspired by...
Wayne's talking about finding the violin at a swap meet.
I wanted to play, play, and learn, and learn, and play, learn.
That blue grassy fiddle sound.
I didn't know that that was something in my wheelhouse, but apparently it is.
I've never had to think about instrumentation in such a deep way, but it was really fun to explore.
From pretty early on, Ben and I talked about Katia being the perfect choice to compose the score for this film.
She brought a different perspective and so to hear the score happen in a way that I couldn't even have imagined
and for it to turn out so beautifully.
I feel really thankful for that collaboration with Katia.
To score a film about music.
It's like, okay, how do I reflect on my life and music?
give back and give thanks to all the mentors and teachers that have taught me the joys of music
and have helped me get to where I am today.
The last repair shop, it's a film about music, it's a about LA.
It's about joy and perseverance.
one of the most special projects that I've been a part of, and I will remember it for the rest of my life, definitely.
