Interview: How David Buckley Wrote the Music of Dreams for ‘The Sandman’
Netflix debuted all episodes of The Sandman earlier this month. The series is adapted from Neil Gaiman’s comic books of the same name. Since the initial publication of the comics, Gaiman has been fighting for it to be adapted into a movie or tv series. After three decades of development hell, The Sandman has made its triumphant debut to critical acclaim.
FilmSpeak sat down with composer David Buckley to discuss how he first got interested in making music, the pressures of adaptation, and his role in creating the “sonic worlds” of The Sandman.
Buckley’s scoring career began in adverts, reality tv, and theme park rides. “I liked cracking the code. I liked looking at something. Whether it was a twenty second commercial, a roller coaster ride, or reality tv. I like looking at it all and thinking, ‘well, what does it need? What’s missing and what can I add musically?’ I quite liked trying to figure that out,” Buckley explained.
Despite enjoying the challenge of creating music to match moving pictures, movies and tv weren’t a big part of Buckley’s adolescence. “I do very clearly remember going to see E.T. for the first time,” Buckley said. “But I wouldn’t have said that I was a cinephile. I think what got me into it was the aforementioned choir. We sang on a soundtrack, just purely by chance.”
That soundtrack? The Last Temptation of Christ. “Quite a big, controversial movie,” Buckley laughed. “I think that kind of opened my eyes, or my ears to cinematic sound. I wouldn’t say that I understood it…I think it was that sound world which I liked. Something expansive. I mean look, singing in a cathedral with a big old acoustic, that’s got quite an expansive sound, I like sort of reverb and big, epic vistas and spaces.”
There is perhaps no better use of Buckley’s enjoyment of expansive soundscapes than the sprawling epic that is The Sandman. Dream (Tom Sturridge) is the ruler of dreams and nightmares, but was captured in an occult ritual in 1916. After being imprisoned for one hundred years, Dream finally escapes and seeks to gain control of The Dreaming world again. In his travels, Dream comes across regular humans, Biblical characters, and fellow ethereal beings.
The Sandman jumps through time and space frequently. The Dreaming realm is a stark contrast to the waking world and it was part of Buckley’s job as composer to find a way to make sure there was an underlying current of familiarity to bridge these varying worlds.
“There’s no luxuriating in a specific sonic world for too long because we gotta keep moving to marry this drama,” Buckley said. It was a challenge at first that seemed daunting. There’s the inherent worry that these sudden changes to the score would be like “huge gear changes” and would ruin the necessary cohesion.
Instead, Buckley decided that these forever shifting times and “sonic worlds” could keep things lively. “Why don’t I let [the score] be something that defies the imagination and keeps things fresh and evolving?” Buckley continued.
The theme he created for the show’s main protagonist, Dream, was ultimately what cracked the code. Dream’s “tune” was Buckley’s launching point for the rest of the score. After many back-and-forths with studio executives and others involved with the project, Buckley was happy with Dream’s melody. Buckley managed to create something that could be manipulated to work in any of the show’s different “sonic worlds” and would work as an anchor to create a sense of cohesion.
“It’s always a tall order when you’ve got something that’s been around for so long and in time that time has meant so much to so many people. You do feel the like, ‘my god, am I letting them down? Am I giving them what they want? Was it what they anticipated?’” Buckley said. “But in a sense, you have to trust Neil [Gaiman], David Goyer, and Allan Heinberg.”
Trust Buckley did and the response for the series has been overwhelmingly positive from fans old and new alike. In the week after its debut on the streaming service, The Sandman stayed at the number one spot and amassed 127 million viewing hours. With results like that, it seems entirely likely that a second season announcement could be on the horizon.