Sundance 2022 Exclusive: Composer DeAndre James Allen-Toole On Scoring Julian Higgins’ God’s Country
Among the films that had its World Premiere in the Premieres category at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival is the dark thriller God’s Country, co-written, produced and directed by Julian Higgins and starring Thandiwe Newton.
Based upon a short story, Winter Light, by James Lee Burk, Sandra (Thandiwe Newton) is very tired. It’s been years of trying (and failing) to please her recently deceased mother, while also navigating the challenging politics and power dynamics at the college where she teaches. And then there is the racism, sexism, and toxic masculinity she encounters wherever she goes. But it’s a confrontation with two hunters trespassing on her property that ultimately tests Sandra’s self-restraint, pushing her grief and mounting anger to their limits.
Scoring the music was Detroit native composer DeAndre James Allen-Toole, who first connected with director Julian Higgins through the Sundance Institute’s Film Music Program (a.k.a. Composer Lab). The film marks DeAndre’s first feature length film and Julian’s directorial debut. Blackfilmandtv.com caught up with Allen-Toole as he spoke about his journey from the Sundance Scoring Lab to the Festival
How did you get involved with this project?
DeAndre James Allen-Toole: I first got involved with God's country through participation in the Sundance film, music and sound design lab, I was a 2020 Fellow. And back then I was paired with Julian Higgins and his project God's Country. And at that point, of course, we were in the middle of the pandemic. So things were sort of on pause. And so we really just spent this time you know, reading the script, responding to it, sending like our responses back and forth, and then generating some ideas to record to the first 10 or 20 minutes of the film that he actually has shot and prepared for at the lab for that purpose. It was interesting, working with him at that stage, because he hadn't committed to the idea of having a score in the movie yet. It was really just like a blank canvas, which is exploring some ideas and then out of that material, and that time, in the lab came some other ideas that sort of work this way to the final iteration of the score as it exists in the movie
What's easier for you to see scenes, and you come up with a score, or you come up with a score, he's implementing it in the scenes?
DeAndre James Allen-Toole: Well, it's interesting, because I'm so used to, or I have been so used to working with the picture, just as it is, because usually, I'm like, Alright, everything has been shot, and sometimes even color corrected, and things are very close to completion. And yet, here was this project where all of a sudden, there's not a lot shot, they're looking forward to eventually restarting production. But nobody knows when that is because of the pandemic, like at the time, it was just we didn't know when that was going to happen again. And at the same time, I didn't even know if I was ultimately going to be hired for this project; it was just continuing this creative conversation that we were having just from some preliminary material. There wasn't really much picture to work with. I was just generating ideas and then sending it to Julian just to see how he respond. I was just evocative themes or concepts that we discussed at length. Once production started again, and once I eventually got hired from the project, it was taking the music that I wrote from these months of discussing really just deeply the film and the script. We wanted to tell as far as music was concerned as a narrative device, it was just really seeing how that all fit within the project as we neared Final Cut. It was great, because the score really got to evolve alongside the project in a way that I thought was really unique to the experience of just what we did in the lab in a pandemic as a whole.
What made you want to start composing music?
DeAndre James Allen-Toole: I've always just had a deep love for music. I come from a family of musicians. I realized from an early age, I have synesthesia. I always just had this instinctual link between sound and colors. I was one of those people who try to hear a sound and automatically see a color and I know what the pitch is so it's like the perfect pitch type thing. But also it's really interesting because when I would look at just like visuals, I would always say like, "Hmm, that sounds like something," even as a kid. I would just start writing these pieces just based off of colors that was just seemed like an artwork and on TV and environments. And eventually I really wanted to write music for media. When I was younger, I started primarily with games. I would just find emulators on the computer and sort of download like old video games, and I would play through it and then rip the music out of the game, write my own music, put it back in and see how that changed the experience. Eventually as I became more comfortable with writing, getting more comfortable in a dark environment, I decided to go to college for music. I studied at Columbia College Chicago. I got my music composition degree there. and undergrad. And I also continue in their music composition for the screening program .It’s an MFA program. I completed that. My thesis semester here in Los Angeles is a five week at the system master. And after that, I was already here, I had some internship opportunities, and I stuck it out and was going to see where it took me. I'm just glad that it all worked out about five years later. Now, here I am.
What sort of scores, film scores, did you appreciate going up?
DeAndre James Allen-Toole: When I was younger, I wasn't particularly sure that I wanted to do film scoring at all. I always knew that it was going to be something with media. But at the time, like I said, I was just so into interactive media. I didn't really explore the idea of writing for medium, which is narrative driven media. So not just like games and interactive environments, and things like that, but actually just having music tell the story. That was something that I got connected to more when I was studying in college. I felt a little bit of fear at first. I don't know exactly where that came from. I always just felt like, "Hmm, there's so much that I don't know."I know I can write music, I know I can write engaging music.
But there's something really sensitive about your music, also acting as a narrative device. And it took me a while to sort of find my footing in the language and genres and conventions and just getting comfortable enough to be like, Alright, I know enough to therefore sort of step outside of that, and try to find my own path. And what I want to do and what I want to accomplish in a film score. It was interesting because I got a lot of that experience writing for other composers. I've done a lot of additional music for more established composers here in Los Angeles. It was great to be able to take everything I've learned in that time and sort of apply it to my what is my first feature score. This is the first big project that I've had. So it's just really nice to put everything into practice. And so I would say, the biggest inspirations are frequently the people that I was fortunate enough to study underneath.
What was your first feeling when you finally got it all done and saw the completed work?
DeAndre James Allen-Toole: It was interesting that we were still able to see the finished work, and then have this collective sigh of relief. All of our conversations were basically supporting each other on social media, just really acknowledging that despite all these obstacles, we managed to create a piece of work, which in itself, just to create an indie feature is quite an accomplishment. It’s a means for celebration. But just to create something on the scale that we created, I just felt we had a lot to be proud of. It's gorgeously shot. We have phenomenal, phenomenal performances by our actors, especially our lead actress Thandiwe Newton. She's amazing. I'm really proud of how this score came out just for it being my first feature score. I had to navigate trying to figure out how to record remotely and how to get everything done and produced.The landscape has changed so much within the past few years. But I guess the benefit that I had is because it was my first time I really wasn't aware of the changes. This is what's available to me now. How do I make it work? There's no reason to be upset. It's just how can we get this done? And we did.