Supe Troop music supervisor Chris Piccaro spoke to Anjelica Tavella and Sean Galloway about their original song, “Film Stills,” for the film Kodachrome, which Chris supervised.
Supe Troop (ST): How long have you (Angelica and Sean) been playing and writing music together?
Anjelica Tavella and Sean Galloway (AT & SG): We’ve been collaborating off and on for the last 10 years or so – since we were pretty young – either playing in and recording with each other’s solo projects, or more recently in our band TV Heads.
ST: You started working on “Film Stills” before the film started shooting. In lieu of visual images, what were the major forms of inspiration for the song?
AT & SG: Getting an idea of the emotional core of the film was pretty key – this kind of forgiveness story between a father and son who are both missing some pretty large pieces of themselves helped to guide the ideas behind the lyrics. They speak to the idea of false constructs we erect to avoid dealing with pain and reconciliation. The title, “Film Stills”, is a small reference to the “Untitled Film Stills” series by Cindy Sherman, an American photographer who uses ideas of character, artifice, and reconstruction in her work.
ST: Was this different than writing a song for yourselves? If so, in what ways?
AT & SG: It was definitely a different process writing this song than our normal approach as far as lyrical content goes. We were doing our best to connect the song emotionally to the film and sonically to what the director felt like this fictional band should sound like. From there, we just treated it as a song we would write for our band and went to work on it as we would a TV Heads song.
ST: Where did the lyrics come from? Do they have any special meaning?
AT & SG: We were aiming at this kind of idea of longing and incompleteness with the lyrics, and the idea of what you have to give into, and give up, in order to become a whole person and have a relationship with someone. It seemed like it was a cool way to kind of talk about the subtext of the film musically. But the lyrics aren’t really linear; they’re more sort of dream-state, painting a picture of this idea.
ST: What is your favorite instrument?
AT & SG: We’re both really into synths of all kinds! I think we’re both really drawn to the world of modular synthesis, but know we might never escape…
ST: What music are you listening to now?
SG: I just got Clarice Jensen’s “For This From That Will Be Filled” on vinyl and love it a lot.
AT: I’ve been digging deep into Pauline Anna Storm recently, as well as some early Prince in the evening and the latest Son Lux record in the morning.
ST: What is your favorite soup?
AT & SG: We’ve got a favorite spot in Berlin called Chagall that makes incredible sauerkraut soup and borscht which takes the cake.
Check out the film Kodachrome on Netflix and the soundtrack including “Film Stills” here.