Kelly Mac, award-winning producer, composer, and CEO of Kelly Mac Music, has succeeded in various music production formats. Kelly and her team provide services ranging from music supervision and composition to motion picture and interactive media scoring and more. Kelly’s work sources its unique sound from pop record production values and a constant drive to create a fresh, cutting-edge sound.
In her projects, Kelly uses an attentive eye for detail to dive deep into the significance that every measure of a musical score can have on how a viewer perceives a scene. One of the many ways her talent is made apparent is in her ability to understand a score’s overall flow and emotional impact while knowing what to tweak to achieve any changes she desires. The emotion she weaves into the musical scores of television shows such as the recently released Donyale Luna: Supermodel paints just as much of a picture to the audience as any of the show’s writing or cinematography.
I had the privilege of asking Kelly a few questions on her most recent project, Donyale Luna: Supermodel. What she has to share only scratches the surface of what she does as an artist, but even that brief glimpse is a pleasure to receive from such a talented composer. If you want to see more of her work in action, check out Donyale Luna: Supermodel on HBO!
When finding inspiration on how you would like to compose a show or film, where do you begin?
I like to start by asking many questions and getting into the director’s mind and psyche. I want to understand the film’s emotional tone and how the director hopes to impact the audience.
The director is the ship’s captain when it comes to a movie, and it’s my job to do as much work upfront to understand his or her vision. If there’s temp music, I’ll use that as a reference point to see what the director likes or doesn’t like about the temp, which will help us hone in on the creative direction.
What sort of unique musical cues and themes do you employ to demonstrate the personality and emotions of a person like Donyale Luna on screen?
My team at Kelly Mac Music and I enjoyed capturing the internal world of Donyale’s character. The music is very much from her perspective, and we created these elements that represent her dream world. We created a hybrid score that’s cinematic yet contemporary, ethereal, and fresh.
Donyale was truly otherworldly, so we tried to channel that energy into the score. We used a lot of piano arpeggios and repetitive melodies that paint the picture of her running away from her pain and trying to escape.
Throughout the film, there are moments where the melodies get more dissonant or we have a dissonant drone to represent her world falling apart.
What were some of your favorite parts of composing the soundtrack for Donyale Luna: Supermodel?
Getting to create the music for moments when Donyale moves to New York and London were great because we got to pull from Motown music and the British Invasion.
It’s one of the few times in the score that we use a whole rhythm section with drums, bass, guitar, B3, etc. Those moments felt very close to what we do in the world of record production as we got to be inspired by the landscape of these cities in the ’60s and ’70s.
Did you face any challenges in understanding Donyale Luna when setting out to represent her with your music?
The New York scene was a fun challenge because we wanted to get the right mood for the audience. Most of our sketches and cues at this point lived in this dreamy atmospheric world, but we needed things to be bolder for the New York scene.
At first, the score sounded too light and pretty for these grainy montages of New York in the ’60s, and we had to find a way to give it more attitude. At the same time, we wanted to keep it cohesive with the rest of the score. The director, Nailah Jefferson, was great because she kept us rooted in the spirit of Donyale. Ed Perkins, the editor, was also great because he pushed us to be bold, especially in this scene.
Ultimately we achieved a nice balance. We ended up with a Motown-like rhythm section to give it some grit, and we layered legato strings on top, which gives it a dreamlike feeling and ties into Donyale’s whole persona.
Did working on the soundtrack to Donyale Luna: Supermodel deepen your connection to her story?
Absolutely! While working on this film, we were taken on a journey of how Donyale uses modeling and art to escape her past and pain and how she uses art as a platform.
Anyone who becomes a musician or an artist in any discipline can relate to the escapism that creating art can give you. Donyale’s daughter, Dream, mentions, “When the sensitivity is too high, you’re afraid of being sucked in, and you create fairy tales to escape.”
We can all relate to wanting to feel that escapism with music and art.
With a lack of Black female representation in film/TV scoring, what does it mean to be able to help bring a story like Luna’s to life with your music?
Her story is the kind of story that I hope my team at Kelly Mac Music and I get to uplift continually. Stories that represent those who are often underrepresented but have done some pioneering act and gone through the hero’s journey. Donyale’s story got lost and I’m grateful that my team and I got to help bring it to the forefront. It means a lot that we, in turn, were given a platform and got to be highlighted with this project.
If you enjoyed hearing what Kelly Mac said about her work, check out her most recent project: Donyale Luna, Supermodel, on HBO. It was a privilege to hear Kelly share insights on the work she does.
