Price, of course, won the Academy Award for Best Original Score for his work on Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity, and his career is full of impressive work across a variety of genres on films like The World’s End, Fury, and the docuseries Our Planet.
Price’s latest effort is in the realm of feature animation on Wonder Park. The film tells the story of an optimistic young girl named June who discovers an incredible amusement park hidden in the woods. It’s in a state of disarray, but is full of fantastical rides and talking animals, and June discovers it was created by her imagination, and she’s the only one who can fix it.
Below, you can listen to a track from Price’s score called “You’ll Hear Me in the Wind”, which is quite sweet and dreamlike, with a dose of whimsy and wonder thrown in for good measure. Indeed, in parts it’s almost like the music you’d hear at Universal’s Islands of Adventure theme park, which is rightly fitting with the subject matter at hand here.
Wonder Park opens in theaters on March 15th, and the soundtrack is available to purchase now!
Steven Price - You'll Hear Me In The Wind
“Wonder Park is really a story about imagination. June and her mom spend countless hours imagining, designing and building models of an amazing park, complete with rides such as Fireworks Falls and the Skyflingers, all powered by the magical Clockwork Swings, the heart of the park. The park is their game, their shared project taking over their whole house and sometimes the whole neighbourhood, and, as the film progresses, we see June entering this world for real.
Musically, the film couldn’t have been a more exciting thing to write for. I needed to capture the sense of this park, and June herself, full of fun and imagination, and also how the state of the park reflected June’s emotions. It seemed an opportunity to deliver something really thematic. The principle two themes of the film are the Park theme, where I really wanted to capture something classic, melodic and celebratory, a kind of fanfare for the imagination if you like, and the Mom theme, a more introspective theme that helps us connect with June’s emotions as the story develops. Also needed were motifs for some of the principal characters in the park itself, the team of animals led by Peanut the Monkey that all work together to save the park from the darkness that envelopes it. Underpinning all this, and central to the film and its score, is the idea and the sound of the Clockwork Swings.”
Wonder Park features a all-star voice cast, including: Matthew Broderick (Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Rules Don’t Apply, The Producers) as Dad, Jennifer Garner (Nine Lives, The Tribes of Palos Verdes) as Mom, Kenan Thompson (All That, Kenan & Kel, Good Burger, SNL) as Gus, Ken Jeong (Kung Fu Panda: Legends of Awesomeness, Bob’s Burgers) as Cooper, Mila Kunis (Family Guy, A Bad Moms Christmas) as Greta, John Oliver (The Daily Show, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, live-action Lion King) as Steve, Ken Hudson Campbell, who voices Boomer the Bear, Sofia Mali as Young June, Brianna Denski (Momsters: When Moms Go Bad) as June, Oev Michael Urbas as Banky, Norbert Leo Butz (Bloodline) as Peanut, Kate McGregor-Stewart as Aunt Albertine, Kevin Chamberlin as Uncle Tony, Kath Soucie (Rugrats, Hey Arnold!) as Bus Counselor Shannon, and Noen Perez as Chatty Kid.
To further celebrate the release of Wonder Park, Collider's Adam Chitwood got the wonderful chance to interview composer Steven Price about his work on the movie, which you can check out below!:
Composer Steven Price on ‘Wonder Park’, Working in Animation, and Edgar Wright’s Next Film
Composer Steven Price first hit most people’s radars when he won the Oscar for Best Original Score for his terrific work on Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity. But film music aficionados took notice a few years earlier with his major release debut on Joe Cornish’s cult hit Attack the Block. Price’s compositions feel wholly unique and somewhat offbeat, but never delve into electronica muddiness. There’s always a musical rhythm pulsing through, and it’s what makes his work on films like The World’s End, Baby Driver, and Fury so striking.
Most recently, Price made a first for himself by working in the world of feature animation on the upcoming film Wonder Park. The Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Studios animated film tells the story of an optimistic young girl named June who discovers an incredible amusement park hidden in the woods. It’s in a state of disarray, but is full of fantastical rides and talking animals, and June discovers it was created by her imagination, and she’s the only one who can fix it.
In anticipation of the film’s release in theaters on March 15th, I recently got the opportunity to speak to Price about his work on the movie. He explained why he was drawn to the feature animation medium in the first place, the surprising ways in which the project evolved over time and the opportunities that presented, and more. Additionally, given Price’s relationship with Edgar Wright, I had to ask if he’s involved in Wright’s next project—which is reportedly an original psychological thriller. While Price couldn’t divulge details, it does sound like he’ll be composing the score for that film, which comes as very welcome good news.
Image via Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Movies
Check out the full interview below, and if you missed our exclusive debut of a track from Price’s score, [scroll above]. Wonder Park is in theaters on March 15th and the soundtrack is available now.
How did you first get involved in Wonder Park and what made you want to be a part of the project?
STEVEN PRICE: Scoring an animation had always been something I was really interested in doing… throughout my life I’ve always loved animated films and latterly its been something I’ve enjoyed shared with my kids, so I was always hoping to get an opportunity to work on an animation of some kind. I’d done a couple of animated shorts in the UK, but was constantly hassling my agents to see if we could find a feature for me to really get stuck into. In the end, I was lucky in that this one came to me when the filmmakers had heard some music I’d written for a BBC show called The Hunt in 2015. The stuff I’d done for that was very thematic and yet quite textural, and that opened a door for this, we met up and talked about the project, and I was thrilled to sign up. It’s been a load of fun.
When work first began on the film, what were some of the big ideas you wanted to capture with your music?
PRICE: The key thing was that this is a story all about imagination. The park is the work of the lead character June, who creates all of these incredible designs for an amusement park, building it and playing it as a game with her mom. Every aspect of the park is full of ideas; there’s a ride called Fireworks Falls, a Zero G Land and all sorts of things along those lines. Kind of the place you’d love to have gone to as a kid. So, musically, I had the opportunity to really shoot for big thematic ideas. I wanted to capture the feeling of a classic theme park, this feeling of the park being filled with flowing music, but also find the characters of the distinct zones within it. Combine that with a touch of magic as we learn that the park has come to life, and it gave a huge amount of opportunities musically. I never thought I’d be experimenting with recording the sound of fireworks for a percussion track, but this was the sort of project where you could get into that!
Image via Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Movies
You’ve worked on a number of diverse projects in your career, but never an animated feature film. What surprised you about the process of working in animation that you didn’t quite anticipate?
PRICE: The length of the process, and the way they whole thing would evolve in both big and subtle ways was really interesting to me. What was cool was how the process kind of rewards constantly going back and studying the changes. Every time I revisited a piece, there’d be a new bit of animation, perhaps a tiny little facial gesture that suddenly had more depth and subtly tweaked the emotion, or a lighting change that made me want to reach for different instruments to keep the music bonded to the picture. I kind of felt that the way the animation evolved suited the way I think musically, in that I’m often gradually developing the music from quite rough outlines into something with a lot of textures and shifts of color. It was a really interesting process, and the film seemed to keep offering up new inspirations.
Was there a theme or motif you created for Wonder Park that you’re particularly proud of?
PRICE: The whole park runs on the power of June’s invention, The Clockwork Swings, and we see these first in toy form, and then in the “real” park on a massive scale. I wanted to have the whole score feel like it was being powered by these whirring cogs and gears, whether they be the small homemade clockwork versions of June’s original model, or the huge towers of the park itself. So I built various motifs played on all manner of bells, chimes, anything metallic. We literally filled the recording stage at Sony in LA with all of these instruments and would work through to see which combination would work for each scene. The motif is an intrinsic part of the main park theme that is heard throughout the movie, but, crucially, when the park is failing, and things are not working, the bells and their patterns would be stretched and morphed around, hopefully sounding as damaged as the park looks. Its often low in the texture, but there’s some element of the clockwork swings working, or at least trying to work, throughout the movie. So that was something I enjoyed working on. Also, speaking thematically, June herself has a theme that had to undergo a lot of changes as her journey progresses , and I’m proud of that emotional side of the score.
Image via Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Movies
I’m a huge fan of your collaborations with Edgar Wright—your score for The World’s End is tremendous, and I love that movie to pieces. Will you be reteaming with Edgar on his new horror film, and if so, what can you tease about that project?
PRICE: Thanks for the kind words! Working with Edgar has been one of the great treats of my life. He’s a genius, and he loves music and uses it brilliantly in his project. I’ve got a load of great memories working on projects right back to Scott Pilgrim, through The World’s End, and then finally finishing Baby Driver after being involved in it from it’s earliest drafts back in 2007 or thereabouts was a massive thrill too. It’s a bit early for me to talk about anything to do with Edgar’s next project, but obviously it’s exciting and I can’t wait to see what he shoots. All I can say is that I have read a script, and it’s going to be brilliant.
Image via Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Movies
Image via Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Movies
Wonder Park is scheduled to roll into theaters on Friday, March 15, 2019. An animated television series based on the film will also debut on Nickelodeon in 2019.
Funrise, Inc. will serve as the worldwide master toy partner for the franchise.
Look out for Wonder Park merchandise in stores soon!
Follow the movie online:
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Web: WonderParkMovie.com
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More Nick: Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Movies' 'Wonder Park' Characters Star in New PSA to Inspire Girls to Pursue Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM)!
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