John Debney on Channeling Childhood Wonder for the Dream Worlds of ‘In Your Dreams’
Pictures courtesy of Netflix
In Your Dreams is an ambitious animated film. Director Alex Woo’s adventure doesn’t shy away from the difficult emotions children face. When Stevie and Elliot witness their parents’ marriage struggling, the film depicts their confusion and pain with honesty. Of course, the dream worlds the kids visit — like Breakfast Town — are a vibrant, colorful blast, but what stands out is the respect Woo and his collaborators show their young audience.
One of those collaborators is composer John Debney, whose credits include The Greatest Showman, The Jungle Book, and Elf. Debney is a musician with an ear for grand adventure. Recently, he spoke with What’s On Netflix about his approach to character and spectacle in In Your Dreams.
There’s a very Wizard of Oz cue or two in In Your Dreams, especially with the kids flying in the eye of a storm. Does Oz and other classics of characters going to other worlds influence you when scoring a movie like this one?
I think there’s a lot of similarities. I love that score. I think that they’re very similar in the sense of when you’re thinking about a childhood and a dream and going to this other place in your dreams, this magical place of the Sandman and his realm, I think, yeah, I go to scores that I have heard and known and loved as a kid, from Wizard of Oz to E.T. A lot of those scores are just so iconic. I think my brain goes to those, and I do listen often to some of those scores for inspiration. But I think Wizard of Oz is a great example of this type of score — this kind of grand adventure dream world. Is it real? Is it not? Was I sleeping? Yeah, that’s a great reference.
Do you often think, How did music move me as a kid?
I think this all started for me when I was a kid. My dad worked at Disney Studios for 40 years. Employees at the time used to be able to bring home 16-millimeter movies, which was great. We all had projectors, and as kids you’d thread up the reel and you’d watch the movie, and it would be a movie night.
Some of my earliest memories of movie night were my noticing the music and being enthralled by it and kind of taken over by it. I guess I’ve always had a musical thing — gene, as it were — or something that I honed in on, and then it spoke my soul. I guess that’s how a lot of artists are.
I remember as a kid watching Bambi or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or some Disney movie of way back, and I just remember being just fascinated by the way music works with a visual. Whether it was a scary moment or a pretty moment, I always think early on I had that instinct in my mind, and I kind of glommed on to what the music was. And I guess that’s why I do what I do now.
Do you try to tap into that child creativity when scoring for kids? Given its many settings are dreams, you can go musically wild, right?
Absolutely. In this case of In Your Dreams, which is such an imaginative, evocative story. To answer your question: yeah, it gave me a Pandora’s box of opening up ideas musically, be they wistful and imaginative and dreamlike or emotional. It was quite a palette to be able to work with.
There are times when the score had to be sort of a mad, circusy sound or otherworldly, ethereal sound, and Sandman had to have a theme, so I worked on a theme for him. And then the brother–sister relationship is so strong in this film, and I really relate to that.
I have a couple little grandgirls and two grandboys now, and the idea of their relationship and how this film portrayed the brother–sister relationship and the love they have was really important. So every film presents its opportunities, and this one was great because it gave me a whole palette, I guess, like I said, to work with and paint.
When it comes to the siblings seeing their parents argue, weighing the possibility of divorce, the music does a good job of making it a little less scary. Was that a challenge, how to hold the younger audience’s hand a little?
You nailed what I thought was the biggest challenge in the film, and that is because the film is talking about a very serious, scary subject for kids. I knew that we had to tread lightly, or at least walk a tightrope between it being too heavy, too dramatic.
I think we came up with a happy medium in that we’re talking about these big subjects, but the way they portrayed the story — I think it was really smart, but it was gutsy. Thank you for mentioning it. I have to give it to Netflix too, because you don’t see animated films that talk about these subjects, divorce and strife in a marriage, et cetera.
Many times, if there was something going on that was hinting at the strife, I would play it very simply. And I would do it very simply with a piano — a little piano theme. Just lighten it up a little bit. I hope we struck a good, happy medium so the subject was digestible and yet not too heavy.
The parents in the film are musicians. At one point, the father uses music as an allegory for life while speaking with his kids. Out of curiosity, do you ever do that?
I absolutely do. I love the way the dad and the mom were in a band and they’re songwriters, and he has this really beautiful lilting song that we hear early and that comes back. When I write themes, I usually dedicate them to someone.
I did a movie called Luck a couple years ago — that’s a wonderful animated film, also on Apple TV if anybody wants to see it — and that theme for Luck is for one of my granddaughters.
And then I did another film, and that one I dedicated to the other granddaughter, and I told them. So, hopefully when they’re grown up and they can listen to Papa’s music, they’ll know that that was their music. I don’t sort of intend to write it for someone in particular in my life, but it ends up being that. It’s a fun and emotional thing for me.
