Award-Winning Composer Daniel Pemberton On Returning to the ‘Spider-Verse’

Golden Globe-nominated composer Daniel Pemberton, the brain behind the Spider-Verse scores (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse), talks about the balance of making new music while staying true to the themes of the first film. He shares why making music for these films brings him so much joy, thanks to the artistic freedoms he’s able to take with such an original take on a beloved character.

His score for this year’s Across the Spider-Verse has already been recognized with a Golden Globe nomination and is shortlisted for this year’s Academy Award score consideration. But just because he’s talking about this Across the Spider-Verse score, that doesn’t mean we will hear anything about what’s potentially in store for Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse just yet!

Awards Daily: What was it like returning to this universe and story in making this score? Did it help or did it kind of give you a new challenge?

Daniel Pemberton: It’s one of the most exciting worlds to return to as a composer I’ve had because the first film pushed boundaries. I really felt like that was a very exciting environment for me to play as a composer because I don’t like a lot of superhero movies from a compositional point of view because I don’t feel there’s a lot of space to express yourself creatively. I felt what was special about Spider-Verse was it really allowed me to create my own sound and my own personality in the film.

Then with the second one we’re making the universe so much larger, and it was really exciting because opportunities don’t come along very often where you get that much creative freedom on a movie with this much scale and scope. So it was very exciting but also quite a daunting position. I think I have been thinking about it constantly over the last five years, so in some ways it’s very nice it’s done and I feel proud of it because I was so terrified of messing up one of those once in a lifetime opportunities.

Awards Daily: So you’re trying to keep the feel of the first film with some of the music, and yet you’re also trying to create something new obviously because it’s a new film and, like you said, with a larger canvas. How did you approach doing that?

Daniel Pemberton: In the first film, I felt we managed to establish quite a good sonic identity for the film both through the sound of Miles’ world, which infused hip hop elements like brakes and record scratching with electronics and orchestral writing. Also we had strong thematic ideas, and it’s nice to take those ideas and expand them as Miles as a character expands. But then in the second film, there are so many different universes and characters, each of which have to have their own themes and their own identities. That was a massive challenge, but a very exciting challenge because you’re trying to make each of those worlds feel unique in the same way the art style feels unique to those worlds. But then everything’s got to combine together so everything can work together, and that was very tricky to make a score that was both completely different but very coherent.


Awards Daily: Speaking of the visuals, they are so distinct in both of these films and play into the music so well. How much of the visuals did you have before you were able to make your score?

Daniel Pemberton: Well, the first thing that really happened in this movie is I had a big meeting with the directors and designers and we just went through literally all the looks, all the art styles, and all the techniques. It was interesting seeing the techniques behind the animation and the artistry and how it is going to move. That’s hugely inspiring for me because I got involved with this process so early on, and I’m so knitted in with everyone else that I end up being influenced by the look and the vibe of those places. That was a big help, being surrounded by these great artists and being inspired by them and their great work, because the work is phenomenal in this movie.


Awards Daily: Your publicist linked me to “Across the Spider-Verse (Start a Band)” from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Original Score), and it just immediately grabbed me with this sinister sound and what sounds like animals growling. What is that sound?

Daniel Pemberton: Well, that is the Prowler sound from the first film. That’s why everyone calls it the elephant sound. It is the result of this crazy synth jam that I did with this guy Brian Dougans, who is like an acid house pioneer who was this artist called stack of humanoid and then he’s part of the Future Sound of London. So we’d just jam out crazy noises, throw things into synths and that’s the noise we came out with. So when that character comes back in the second film it was a great opportunity to bring it back. I love having themes and sounds that are really recognizable for characters, spaces, and universes. I think a lot of film scores have just become, like, there is some music for this scene without thinking about the world building and the whole big picture. But you know because it’s a different universe we time stretched it and gave it a slightly different feel. I think the thing about it is it’s got a very visceral sound to it that just gnaws into your head.


Awards Daily: In some of the scores, you have opera singing. What was behind that creative choice?

Daniel Pemberton: That was for the Vulture! The other great thing about this film is there are no rules and no boundaries. So it’s like if I want to come up with a crazy idea I will generally get supported by the filmmakers. Early on I was trying to work out how I wanted to represent Vulture, who was this character from Renaissance Italy, and there were two approaches, one of which was this kind of, you know, record a bunch of medieval instruments, then cut them up and time stretch them, but they kind of get lost in the mix of everything, all the other crazy s*** that is going on. There was a line that Gwen’s dad used in the film that actually got changed, but another policeman asked him, do you know Italian, and he’s, like, I don’t know I listened to an opera once. I was, like, ”Opera! Let’s put some opera in this.” I was just, like, let’s just record an over-the-top opera part for Vulture’s scenes. For me it was just a fun out-of-the-box approach to that character. Like I said, what I love about these films is I can do that. It’s not okay, that doesn’t fit what this character should be, it’s yeah, go for it! Fusing opera with mad electronics, synths, with an orchestra, and these medieval twisted string instruments all shot on top of each other for 30 seconds before it turns into a rock track, before it turns back into a hip hop track, then a pop track. It’s a crazy environment to work in.


Awards Daily: You just did a live picture concert with this film’s music. What was that like?

Daniel Pemberton: That was fantastic! It’s been interesting with this movie so we’ve been doing these concerts for the first film now, and it’s a very crazy experience because I think it makes people realize the importance of a score to a film, and it also allows them to react to the film in a way that you don’t really do in the cinema. They get out their seats and cheer and shout when a character appears or even when a cue ends. Because we had done this previous concert we worked out more of the process. Doing those first sets of concerts was really complicated because I try to approach doing film music in a way that is different for every film. I try to make every film feel very different and I try to make the approach very different and do a very non-traditional approach. Which is exciting but it makes trying to stage them live very complicated because it’s not like there is a symphony orchestra that will play your queue.

My scores are made up of so many desperate ideas and none more so than Spider-Verse. That makes performing them live very difficult. Things like the record scratching. How do you notate record scratching? That was like one of the biggest dilemmas. We needed skilled virtuoso record scratches to perform on stage but they haven’t had a classical training generally. I mean I don’t think I’ve worked with one yet so you have to find a way to notate what you want to do live so they can replicate it. You have to come up with a new language of how you represent what you want and it was difficult but we got there. Then by the time we got to the second one we established a new language just for record scratching.


Awards Daily: You are doing Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse, the third film in the series. Have you given any thought to that film yet?

Daniel Pemberton: Right now, my official line is I’m not talking about Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse because I don’t want to think about that. I’m excited about that film, but I don’t want to think about it yet.


Awards Daily: Final thoughts?

Daniel Pemberton: This score is probably the most artistically and technically challenging score I have ever done in my life. I wanted it to feel like a whole different way of experiencing a film and a film score. I have this idea that the most important thing for me in cinema is the element of surprise and the new. If you go and experience something that you haven’t seen or heard before I think it has a much bigger impact on you as an audience member over an emotion you have felt or seen before. So much time and effort has gone into trying to make this sound and feel like nothing else before.

It’s been really cool and rewarding to see audiences respond to that. It’s also really weird that the prowler sound you mentioned earlier and 2099’s score have become massive TikTok memes. 2099 was the number one sound on TikTok for a while, which is a crazy but very nice thing. Like getting to number one with generation Z! It’s nice watching your ideas filter through the film into something bigger.