One film follows a girl losing her mind as she moves into what seems like the perfect Hollywood apartment, and another short digital series keeps people sane at home with adorable animal videos.

These two projects may seem like polar opposites – and they are – until composer Ronen Landa steps in. He is the man responsible for both the heartwarming themes from All the Feels and the hair-raising tunes from the new horror film 1BR. Some of Landa’s other credits include Gravitas Ventures’ Yinz, IFC Films’ The Pact, and IFC Midnight’s At the Devil’s Door.

We caught up with Landa and spoke with him about these projects, scoring documentaries, the different horror subgenres, and when he first realized he could make a living out of composing.

Dark Sky Films’ ‘1BR’

Roarbots: 1BR premiered at the Fantasia Film Festival last July. How excited are you for audiences to finally see it almost a year later?

Ronen Landa: It’s always gratifying to see a film make its way to audiences.  David Marmor, the director, and I worked very closely on this project, and it’s great to be able to share it with the world. With the present reality feeling so unstable, my hope is that the movie will at least give people something else to think about for a few hours!

Roarbots: There are many different types of horror subgenres. 1BR is more psychological horror. If it were to be a slasher film, how would you have scored it different? Would you have used the same instruments?

Landa: I try not to cram a movie into a formula that predetermines the score. Sure, there are conventions in all genres that film composers draw from. But my goal is always to score the movie in front of me rather than worry about those things too much. I like to think creatively about what that film should sound like; I ask myself what melodies, textures, pacing, etc are going to complement the storytelling and the aesthetic and connect with the audience emotionally. Sometimes the answer is closer to the conventions, and sometimes it’s more subversive, but either way, the goal is to create the best score I can for that project.

Acoustic instruments especially are so flexible; there are violins in Beethoven’s 9th symphony and in Penderecki’s Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, but you probably wouldn’t use those pieces of music to score the same scene.

Dark Sky Films’ ‘1BR’

Roarbots: 1BR delivers many ominous warnings that something is wrong in the first half of the film. How did you go about amplifying these warnings with your score?

Landa: The concept behind this score was to always reflect Sarah’s emotional and psychological state. In the beginning, there is a suggestion of her naivete and trepidation, but as her situation starts to feel strange, the score highlights those moments. There is a a knocking percussion motif that appears along with an uncanny vocal melody that especially indicates things in Sarah’s world are “off.” There are also a few moments where the score is just setting the tone, and I used soft but dissonant woodwind textures to help create a darkened mood.

Roarbots: In this film, there are two significant set pieces, one of which launches the major drama of the narrative and another that spans the final 8 or 9 minutes of the film. Did you work on those sequences first and then put the rest of the music for the film together around it?

Landa: The first piece of music I wrote for this film was the opening theme. After digesting the script and an early edit, I sat at my piano at home, away from all the visuals, and thought about Sarah. Eventually, the gestures started to take shape, and once I had the theme, I recorded it on my iPhone and immediately sent it to Dave [Marmor].

Usually, I’ll take a recorded sketch like that and produce a much more professional demo before the director hears it. But Dave has such a great musical ear and I knew he would get the emotional core of that theme right away, and of course he did. It was such a great start to making music for this film.

The middle set piece was one of the first few cues I worked on. I do like to bite off a big chunk early if I can because it helps me develop themes that I’ll pull from elsewhere in the score. I think I worked on a few small cues before that one, but it was definitely one of the first. The final cue I saved for last, though. I knew I’d have to tie everything together musically in that scene, so I really had to have the entirety of the score mapped out before I could compose an effective finale.

Roarbots: You scored the theme music for Quibi’s new animal series All the Feels. Every day has its own emotional theme, whether it’s “Motivation Monday” or “Ugly Cry Tuesday.” Can you talk about how you modified every day’s theme a little differently?

Landa: Yeah, obviously a show about cute animals is a very different world than horror films! For All The Feels, I started with just a simple – and I hope catchy – melody that is meant to reflect that sweet feeling we get from our relationship with animals… and especially our pets. Then for each day, I shaped the arrangement to reflect that day’s primary emotion. So “Motivation Monday” is an upbeat brassy dance version, and “Ugly Cry Tuesday” is a little more melodramatic with soft piano and cello.

Roarbots: Which day of the week is your favorite theme?

Landa: I probably shouldn’t admit to having a favorite, but I’m a little partial to “WTF Thursday.” I went with a bit of an Exotica vibe with that one and it makes me smile.

Roarbots: Quibi is a very interesting concept as all content is designed to be watched on one’s phone in 10 minutes or less. Besides the obvious of less music, how does this new format affect your job?

Landa: The theme had to be spring-loaded and connect quickly with the material, so in that sense, the challenge was to write a strong hook that could make an immediate connection with the audience. But as far as the process, it doesn’t affect me much – I worked with the showrunners to find an approach that worked, and we were off to the races.

Roarbots: You’ve scored many documentaries, including the recent Do No Harm. Why do you think your music works so well in this genre?

Landa: I always start with the emotions. What music is going to connect the viewers to this story? That approach helps me find a pathway into different film genres easily because the story guides the musical direction.

I love working on documentaries because the stories are often so deeply meaningful and important. Do No Harm is a great example of that, and I’m so glad it’s getting seen and hopefully making a difference for doctors.

Roarbots: Was there a defining project in your career, one when you realized “Wow I can make a living out of doing something I love, creating music”?

Landa: I definitely remember a few key moments early on, such as the first time my music was broadcast on TV or screened with a film at a festival. The most important of all those was a phone call I got one day from the wonderful composer Jeff Beal. He had taken the time to listen to some of my early scores and told me he thought my work was promising. That meant the world to me at 25 and still does; his generosity just floors me.

I’d like to think I would be writing music no matter what – I live for it – but it’s hard to say what would’ve happened without Jeff’s encouragement that day.

Ronen Landa’s 1BR score is getting released by Lux/Eon Records April 29, 2020.