Soul

Q&A with Composers

TRENT REZNOR & ATTICUS ROSS

JON BATISTE

Moderated by Director & Screenwriter PETE DOCTER

Screening Link Instructions provided with Registration Confirmation

YouTube Live Stream Q&A:

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 13 – 6:30PM PT

What is it that makes you…YOU? Pixar Animation Studios’ all-new feature film Soul introduces Joe Gardner (voice of Jamie Foxx) – a middle-school band teacher who gets the chance of a lifetime to play at the best jazz club in town. But one small misstep takes him from the streets of New York City to The Great Before – a fantastical place where new souls get their personalities, quirks, and interests before they go to Earth. Determined to return to his life, Joe teams up with a precocious soul, 22 (voice of Tina Fey), who has never understood the appeal of the human experience. As Joe desperately tries to show 22 what’s great about living, he may just discover the answers to some of life’s most important questions. Directed by Academy Award® winner Pete Docter (Inside Out, Up), co-directed by Kemp Powers (One Night in Miami) and produced by Academy Award nominee Dana Murray, p.g.a. (Pixar short Lou), Disney and Pixar’s “Soul” is available exclusively on Disney+ now. PG | 107min

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross are behind the original score for Soul, marking the first time they composed music for an animated film.

Reznor formed Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Nine Inch Nails in Ohio in 1988 and, over the next 30 years, proceeded to sell more than 30 million records worldwide. The band’s studio albums include the multi-platinum releases “Pretty Hate Machine” (1989), “The Downward Spiral” (1994), and “The Fragile” (1999), which became the first NIN album to reach No. 1 on the US Billboard 200, a feat mirrored by “With Teeth” (2005). The 1992 EP “Broken” yielded two Grammy Awards and also achieved platinum status. In 2008, Reznor teamed with Ross, his now-partner in NIN, and began a prolific career in composing music for film. Their first project, David Fincher’s The Social Network, earned the pair an Oscar and a Golden Globe. Reznor and Ross have continued to compose music for a diverse array of film and television projects – including the acclaimed Watchmen series for HBO which earned the duo an Emmy® for Outstanding Music Composition for a series. The score soundtrack was released in three volumes late last year, each coinciding with a major plot point for the show.

Their genre-spanning slate of upcoming scores includes Disney and Pixar’s film Soul, released on Disney+ Christmas Day 2020, and Mank, the biopic of Citizen Kane screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, which will reunite Reznor and Ross with director David Fincher. Previously, Reznor and Ross wrote the original score for the American remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and also scored Fincher’s 2014 adaptation of Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl. In 2016, Reznor and Ross wrote the original score for Patriots Day, Peter Berg’s film about the Boston Marathon bombing. Acting as music supervisors for the first time, they teamed up with Gustavo Santaolalla and Mogwai to co-compose the score for Before the Flood, a feature documentary from longtime environmental advocate Leonardo DiCaprio and actor/filmmaker/Oscar-winning documentary producer Fisher Stevens (The Cove, Racing Extinction). Reznor and Ross collaborated with celebrated documentary filmmaker Ken Burns on the eight-hour 2017 docuseries The Vietnam War. In 2018, they composed the original score for the Netflix film Bird Box, directed by Susanne Bier and starring Sandra Bullock, John Malkovich, Sarah Paulson, and Trevante Rhodes. The duo also contributed original music to Mid90s, a coming-of-age film set in the 1990s LA skate era, written and directed by Jonah Hill. 

Reznor and Ross were inaugural SCL Awards nominees for their work on Watchmen.

Jon Batiste is an American singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, bandleader, record producer, educator, and actor. As a teenager, he began self-producing and releasing his music on the internet, as well as performing internationally. His major-label debut “Hollywood Africans” was nominated for a Grammy® Award for best American roots performance in 2019 and, along with his band Stay Human, he is featured nightly on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. His composing and songwriting will be featured in his large scale, genre-melding symphonic work American Symphony, set to be performed at Carnegie Hall in 2021. Born into a long lineage of Louisiana musicians, Batiste received both his undergraduate and Master’s degrees in piano from the Juilliard School. He is currently the music director of The Atlantic, the co-artistic director of the National Jazz Museum in Harlem, and is on the board of Sing for Hope. A Forbes 30 under 30 honoree, Batiste balances a demanding performance schedule—which often includes his signature “love riot” street parades—with public speaking engagements, masterclasses, brand partnerships, and acting roles. He played himself on the HBO series Treme and appeared in director Spike Lee’s Red Hook Summer.

Batiste is committed to the education and mentorship of young musicians. He leads a Social Music Residency and Mentoring Program sponsored by Chase, and master classes throughout the world. He has hosted several cultural exchanges, beginning in 2006 with the Netherlands Trust, which brought students from the USA and Holland to perform with him at both The Royal Concertgebouw and Carnegie Hall.

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FREE for current SCL members (click HERE to check membership status).

Attendees will be emailed a Screening Link upon Registration and a Q&A YouTube Live Stream link on Wednesday, January 13, 10 minutes before Q&A start.

Attendees can ask questions on YouTube chat, and the SCL Host will pass them on to the Moderator. The SCL Member Code of Conduct applies to online Q&As.

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