Oscar-Nominated Composer Germaine Franco on Making History in Disney’s ‘Encanto’

Even before the 2022 Oscar nominations were unveiled, composer Germaine Franco had already made history. She is the first woman to score a Disney film, in this case the magical Encanto. Franco then received a nomination for Original Score for her work, becoming one of a handful of women to be nominated in the category.

Here, in an interview with Awards Daily, the newly Oscar-nominated composer talks in-depth about her work and how her history in the movie industry got her to this point. She also reveals the details about the traditional Columbian music and instruments she combined with a more modern approach to create the unique sound of the score. Then, she ends saying some very nice things about people who interview her!

Awards Daily: What were you doing when you heard about your Oscar nomination?

Germaine Franco: I was sleeping. [Laughing] I figured if the phone rang that was good news, so that’s what I did. I got a call from my boss, Tom MacDougall, who let me know about it and my brother also called. Actually, it was my brother who called me first, so that was exciting.

AD: So your brother was watching the nominations live?

Germaine Franco: He heard about it through a friend on Facebook and she said, “Wake her up!”

AD: What was your process in creating the score?

Germaine Franco: I started out by just talking to the filmmakers a lot. We had a lot of conceptual meetings and they sent me a lot of artwork. They were still in early animation; there were not a lot of sequences finished. I came in about October of 2020, so I basically created themes just sitting at the piano coming up with melodic ideas and motifs. Also diving deep into Columbian history and literature, Then reading, watching, listening to 1500s Bach to current pop, making this huge list and underlining things I liked that spoke to me. Then the third part was listening to Lin-Manuel Miranda’s songs, and most of them were written by the time I came on but they were in various stages, so I spent time learning his language that he had created for the film and studying and working with his harmonies and melodies to see how he built it.

I went away and started writing my own score with my own themes. So I have an Encanto theme that you hear at the very beginning when Mirabel is a little girl and that thing is related to the house and the family. When you see the whole Encanto being built that is when it comes really alive. Then there’s a theme about Mirabel being kind of tenacious, searching for an answer about what’s hurting the house. That theme comes in many forms but the first time you hear it is in cumbia form, so what I did was used traditional rhythms and harmonies from Colombia, and tried writing in the style of their folkloric songs and dances using Columbian instruments like the tiple, bandola and the arpa llanera, a beautiful harp from Colombia. I bought all these and I captured the sound of these instruments into my piano. So I did a lot of preparing the specific palette of sound using these traditional instruments. Then when I got all these ideas together I started presenting the suites to the filmmakers.

We were looking for the tone of the score. They really wanted some of it to be small and intimate, not a super Hollywood traditional score all the time. They really wanted a different sound and they pushed me to find something that didn’t sound like the temp music that was in there. We were trying to create a sound of magical realism, which is very subjective so they allowed me to take my personal take on how I was interpreting what magical realism sounds like. It was my goal to find that tone and the right melodies, and once I landed on the themes they liked then I really got into scoring more to picture. It was a lot of exploration away from pictures that led me to those themes.

AD: Sounds like they gave you a lot of creative freedom to pursue that.

Germaine Franco: Yes, it was amazing. I spent many months just getting the sound right.

AD: What got you interested in composing for film and television?

Germaine Franco: I came into composing for film and television through live music and theater. I started out when I was at Rice University studying classical western music, but on the side I always had my own Latin jazz band and I did that to make a living while I was in school, playing all sorts of concerts and festivals. So I was always writing out charts for the band and that was one of the things that prepared me for doing all the parts of the score. I was also working in theater doing lots of playing as a percussionist in different musicals, and then when I moved to Los Angeles a music director at LA Theatre Center told me they had a Latino theater initiative. While I was working at that theater I heard about somebody who was looking for some music for a film and I submitted my work and I got the gig.

It happened through the Universal Hispanic film project, which no longer exists (they have a different program now), but they would give filmmakers enough money to do a short and they would donate all of their facilities so my first film score I scored on the Fox Scoring Stage with Armin Steiner mixing it. It was an amazing experience and then I became hooked at that point. When I saw how it all came together I eventually got more independent films, and I just became obsessed with doing this because it seemed like the perfect way to tell stories to music and I was always inspired by the collaboration with filmmakers and their images.

AD: Speaking of that, you have done television, documentary feature, animation, video games–you have done pretty much every kind of visual medium. What attracts you to a project?

Germaine Franco: I think the story is important to me, also the creative team and the support that the studio gives to the composers to work. I want to do live music as often as I can because I feel that gives the score a human element. But also I’ll sometimes take on something for the challenge of it. I did Work It, which was a dance movie, and I had never done a dance film, but I wanted to do it because it sounded so fun and I loved working with Laura Terruso. Sometimes I just feel like if someone makes an offer and they seem like an amazing artist/filmmaker it makes me want to collaborate with them and I will take the job. But I think the first thing for me is the story.

AD: I saw that animation is a huge part of your filmography (including of course the film that just got you your Oscar nomination). Is there anything about the medium of animation that appeals to you specifically?

Germaine Franco: Yes, when I was a child I watched so many cartoons–Roadrunner, Daffy Duck. It was just fun and lighthearted and I always loved the music. So when I started working with John Powell (I was his assistant for many years) he was doing all these amazing animated features. The first one I worked on with him as his assistant was Happy Feet, and I watched him work with George Miller with hundreds of songs in several sessions. Then working with DreamWorks on Kung Fu Panda–John Powell and Hans Zimmer worked on those, and then he did How to Train Your Dragon. I was at all those sessions and helping out and orchestrating. I felt like there was something special about animation. T

he music always kind of drove the story in different ways than live action and also the imagery, the illustrations, and the artwork by the animators to me is so stunning! I just love it; I just think it’s so great. I enjoy both but I just have this affinity to animation. I really think also there are so many artists working on the team like when I worked on Coco (which I worked on for over 4 years). There’s a family-like teamwork because you know there are hundreds of people animating what you are writing and it’s a different experience because when it’s in live-action film most everything’s already been shot unless there’s some pr-records. So, I think that all together gives me an urge to do animation. I would say that’s my best answer.

AD: That is similar to what I have heard from other people I’ve interviewed in animation and that family aspect comes up a lot.

Germaine Franco: Yes it is, and we on Encanto definitely feel like a family. We had a nice talk yesterday with Jared (Bush) and Byron (Howard) and Yvett (Merino) the producer, Charise (Castro Smith) and Lin(-Manuel Mirando). When you do these projects they tend to take longer because it takes so long to develop them and you do become like a creative family. This one was a little different because it was all during the pandemic so we weren’t always in the same room but we still have that feeling. Same with the cast; you have a bond that is very nice.

AD: How did you originally get involved in Encanto?

Germaine Franco: The first time I worked on a Disney animated feature was Bolt; I was an orchestrator and assistant to John Powell. That’s where I met my current boss Tom MacDougall, the president of music at Disney, and he saw me working in the background and he noticed me, I guess. I didn’t even really talk to him. When I was leaving John’s studio I had started getting a lot of work on my own, and I had to leave so I could do my own work. Coco came out so my agent Laura Ingle submitted me and they hired me to do some small tasks. One was doing the Disney logo in a Mexican style with this huge orchestra and they really liked what I did so they started asking me to do more work, and then they eventually asked me to help write five of the six songs that were in Coco. I produced them all, including the Oscar-winning song. They flew me to Mexico. I worked with fifteen musicians, all in Spanish. I did all the research on what would be the sounds of Mexico in terms of these very classic songs. They saw me orchestrating, composing additional music and songs. They just saw me working and I guess Tom thought I would be a good fit for this film. Then also, Lin-Manuel Miranda knew of my work even though I didn’t know he knew about me. I was just happy when they said, “Would you be interested in talking to Lin-Manuel Miranda and, if it goes well with the directors, we would love to have you.” It was amazing for me to get to work with Lin-Manuel Miranda, and the filmmakers who I’d seen all their work on–Zootopia, of course. So it was a progression, because we already had this professional working relationship from Coco.

AD: How are you preparing for the Oscar ceremony?

Germaine Franco: Well, the first thing is I’m working on a dress! Then coming down from the excitement from Tuesday was really crazy and fun. I heard from so many friends from all over. So now that it’s calming down I am focusing on just being ready to meet the other filmmakers during the nomination lunch and just enjoying it. I really want to enjoy it. I think preparing would be understanding the process. There are certain things you have to do as a nominee. I can’t say enough that I’m super grateful for this honor that the music branch has given me.

AD: Any final thoughts?

Germaine Franco: I just want to say thanks to Awards Daily! Because you have been really supportive and I feel that the support I get from journalists like you helps people become aware of the process and how the film was created. People are loving the film and the music separately as a soundtrack, and I think people like to hear the insights into how it was made. So, thank you for offering that opportunity for the readers and me too.

Encanto streams exclusively on Disney+.