Dreamworks Animation’s latest film “ The Wild Robot ” impacted composer Kris Bowers in ways he did not expect. Director Chris Sanders called on Bowers to write the music for the animated feature about a robot named Roz (voiced by Lupita Nyong’o) marooned on an uninhabited island. “From the beginning, Chris told me he was going to rely heavily on music for this film.
He said he specifically had moments where he wanted the music to lead us emotionally, Bowers explains. Not only did the music lead audiences emotionally, but its themes of family, community and relationships struck a chord with Bowers. “The Wild Robot” marks Bowers’s first foray into scoring animation.
He began work on the score shortly after the birth of his daughter and spent the next two years fine-tuning the music. Roz learns to adapt to her harsh surroundings, slowly building relationships with the other animals on the island. Catherine O’Hara, Mark Hamill and Pedro Pascal are among the voice cast.
One relationship dynamic is between Roz and an orphaned gosling named Brightbill (Kit Conner). Roz raises him and teaches him valuable survival lessons such as flying and swimming before migration season sets in. In putting the main theme together, Bowers knew it needed to encompass the idea of family, how the island represented it, and the relationship between Brightbill and Roz.
“That was the first theme I wrote,” Bowers says. “I went on to write Roz’s theme which you hear at the beginni.
