In the making of the new series “1899” by “Dark” showrunners Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar, composer Ben Frost talks about his work on the soundtrack and explains what made his approach to production so unique.
“1899” has been on Netflix since November 17, 2022.
Frost’s leitmotifs during the composition of the soundtrack
In the intro of the making-of, Frost describes his feeling and the level he found himself on while composing as a “dream world”. “She [Die Traumwelt] is not tied to reality. It’s liberating and opens up endless possibilities. I want to stay in this zone as long as possible.”
He names relationships in the constant change of time, space and reality as the overriding themes of the series. Following Frost’s narratives, the making of the series was pretty unconventional. Unlike usual, the composer did not receive the largely completed project as a working basis. Rather, Frost began working on the 1899 soundtrack at the same time as most of the team, based on an idea: “While designing costumes and building sets, I was composing,” he says. The musician describes this joint start of the entire team as “richer” and in terms of content suitable for the constant change within the series.
“The thought that some characters keep coming back (…) gave me the idea to alienate the music (…) temporally”
The entire production is multi-layered: Not only were the dialogues shot in more than half a dozen languages at the same time, including Spanish, Danish and Cantonese, the soundtrack also unites different cultures. The Chinese percussion ensemble “Tangram” from London, the “Sinfonietta Cracovia” orchestra from Kraków and singers from different nations participated in the recordings. “I knew that if I took this path, I would arrive at something new, something strange,” explains the composer of this approach.
After working with the ensembles, Frost took the resulting recordings to Iceland on a fishing cutter, where the composer played the recordings through loudspeakers in different parts of the ship. He then recorded the resulting sounds and used them to create the final soundtrack.
Frost on the process of alienating the footage: “My job is to tell the truth while other elements of the series mislead the viewer. Creating reality around our main cast, the thought of some characters coming back like a loop, gave me the idea to take the music and time it out of phase. I made loops with bits of analog tape recorded with the film score. I looped them together until they were a bit dry and brittle. (…) One has the strange perception that the music one hears is played back. That the music itself is part of this mechanism, this invention.” The entire soundtrack is there HERE.
The plot in “1899”
The series tells the story of a group of European emigrants who travel to New York City on a ship, the “Kerberos”, in the eponymous year and become part of mystical events through a chain of events. Doctor Maura Franklin (Emily Beecham) begins her journey towards the past and forgotten secrets when she receives a signal from the missing steamer “Prometheus”.