Creating Amazon's Anti-Musical Música with Camila Mendes

FanReviews

Here's your behind the scenes look at the Amazon Prime Video romantic comedy anti-musical movie Música, directed by Rudy Mancuso.  Música Cast:  Camila Mendes, Rudy Mancuso, Francesca Reale and J.B. Smoove  Stream Música now on Amazon Prime Video!

Transcript

00:00 [MUSIC - "MÚSICA"]

00:04 Give me all of it right now.

00:06 Action.

00:08 Música, there's just nothing like it.

00:10 It's uniquely different, uniquely amazing.

00:12 This was Rudy's dream about most his life.

00:15 Keep the energy up.

00:18 Música is based on some version of my truth and my experience.

00:23 It follows a young man, played by me,

00:24 who tries to balance love, family--

00:27 What are you doing?

00:28 What are you doing?

00:29 --relationships, and culture all through this unique synesthesia

00:32 perspective.

00:33 Are you hearing them, the sounds?

00:35 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:38 I've always wanted to tell a story that explores

00:40 synesthesia, which is a condition I have had

00:43 my entire life, where everyday regular sounds, my brain tends

00:46 to turn them into rhythm.

00:49 Is it torturous, or do you enjoy it?

00:52 Like, sometimes it's nice, and then other times

00:55 it feels more like a curse.

00:56 It's essentially the second lead character of the film.

01:00 Every time I'm speaking with him,

01:01 every time he's engaging with people--

01:03 Rudy?

01:04 --it's the other character in his ear.

01:07 I'm here trying to plan our future,

01:09 and you can't even be bothered to tell me.

01:11 [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:15 I don't know why I am this way.

01:18 I get distracted by music every day.

01:24 We've never seen a story be told where the world around us

01:27 is making the music.

01:28 You hear the bounce?

01:29 Yes.

01:30 Listen for more.

01:31 I wanted to make the anti-musical musical,

01:33 where everything is being recorded live.

01:35 Everything's being performed live.

01:36 Five, six, seven, eight.

01:38 It's interwoven with the dialogue and the story.

01:41 Is that score I'm hearing, or is it happening in the scene?

01:44 The sounds in the bus when the commuters

01:47 are stomping and clapping, is that live, or is it produced?

01:50 You're not going to know, but you're

01:52 going to feel the authenticity.

01:54 Working with the rhythm performers

01:56 has been so fascinating.

02:00 Everybody's doing their own little special skill,

02:03 and when you watch it all together, it's phenomenal.

02:05 The brain behind the music was Jamie, Marivaldo, and myself.

02:08 Marivaldo can take anything and turn it into an instrument.

02:11 I was doing stomp for 25 years.

02:13 The people that worked with me in stomp, when they came in,

02:19 I was like, I want you to feel the timing and the music,

02:22 because it was a creation of a language.

02:25 We had been conceiving the movie for two years

02:28 before production, and it allowed us to prepare

02:31 every movement on screen.

02:33 That was solid.

02:35 Shane, our DP, really helped bring

02:37 those more unconventional visual ideas and styles to life.

02:40 It was like, how can we get the audience inside Rudy's mind

02:44 and ears to really feel it?

02:47 So you're sitting in the audience,

02:49 and you're like, oh, I get this synesthesia thing.

02:52 That's incredible.

02:53 You can hear it.

02:54 No.

02:55 But I feel you feeling it.

02:56 We used GoPros.

02:58 We could attach it to the wrists of the basketball players,

03:02 hook it to knives and spice bottles

03:05 so the camera was moving as the sound was being produced.

03:09 I just-- something's had to get away from the noise.

03:11 That noise is a part of you, bro.

03:12 Another symptom of synesthesia is your relationship with color

03:16 and how that correlates to sound,

03:17 where Isabella's very warm, colorful Haley

03:20 was cooler tones.

03:22 Little more lifeless and shot very still and static.

03:25 And Rudy is just dark and black.

03:28 But depending on who he's with, that changes

03:30 over the course of the film.

03:31 I think I see it.

03:33 It's beautiful.

03:33 You're actually really experiencing synesthesia

03:37 through the lens of Rudy.

03:38 When you watch it all happen together, it's magical.

03:41 The colors, the smells, the sounds, I love it.

03:44 Music is the first language I've ever spoken.

03:46 And now I got the opportunity to actualize

03:48 what I've been visualizing/experiencing for so long.

03:50 And it was an absolute blast.

03:52 [CHEERING]

03:53 [MUSIC PLAYING]

03:57 [MUSIC PLAYING]

04:00 [BLANK_AUDIO]

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