Lacoste Theme
For this untitled Lacoste commercial re-score, I wrote for a hybrid ensemble of string ensemble, electronic drum Kit, and synthesizer. I chose this combination to express the fundamental disjointness between the two simultaneous scenes on screen: a romantic first kiss approaching in a crowded restaurant, and a man falling from a building to his death. The warmth and vibrato of the strings carry the love scene, while the static, unyielding quality of the electronic drones represents the inevitability of the fall. The piece runs approximately 1 minute and 15 seconds — just long enough to sustain the cross-cutting tension without exhausting the contrast.
Textural layering was essential to keep the love scene and death scene from collapsing into one another but the interplay from the instruments creates a sense of emotional vertigo. One specific device I am particularly proud of is a synthetic heartbeat sound that gradually speeds up across the piece. It begins slowly during the restaurant intimacy and reaches a panicked, fragmented pulse just as the man hits the ground. This heartbeat became the structural spine of the entire score.
My biggest struggle was locking my sounds to the pictures that had already been edited together. Unlike scoring a raw cut where tempo can be adjusted, this commercial’s editing was fixed, meaning every crash, every lean toward a kiss, and every cut between scenes had to land precisely. I solved this by mapping the visual edit points in my DAW (Ableton Live) before writing a single note, then building the heartbeat pulse as a tempo map that aligns with the accelerating cuts. This project taught me how to serve picture first, then emotion, then technique — in that order.
Westworld Theme
For this piece, I created an original score reinterpreting the thematic world of Westworld, a series that sits at the crossroads of the Wild West and science fiction. The piece runs approximately one minute and forty-five seconds. I wrote for a small cinematic orchestra centered on the cello as the lead voice, supported by violins, double bass, piano, snare and cymbal percussion, French horn, and trombones. I chose this ensemble to mirror the show’s hybrid identity: the warmth and melancholy of strings evoke the western element, while the sharp, punctuated force of brass and percussion conveys the sci-fi threat.
My primary inspiration came from Game of Thrones. After my initial composition, I dissected Ramin Djawadi’s score to study how the main theme develops and how different voices carry its ideas across the series. My workflow began with a Sibelius mockup, which I then exported as MIDI into Ableton Live, where I completed the score and applied final production touches.
Several techniques from class appear throughout the piece. I used countermelody to give the cello a vocal, searching quality against the string bed, and wrote a dialogue between piano and brass to suggest a tension between humanity and machine. One moment I am particularly proud of involves a visual cue: on screen, a robot plays the piano, and I wrote my piano cues to lock directly with those on-screen keystrokes which I believe creates an ambiguity about whether the music belongs to the machine or the composer. The score closes with a rising sequence that builds to a climactic peak, followed by a descending sequence that carries the ensemble to a final crescendo.
The greatest challenge was finding the right tempo and feel, then keeping all parts synchronized with each other and with the on-screen action. Through this process, I deepened my understanding of the respective strengths and limitations using Sibelius and Ableton Live for film scoring, and I developed a more polished approach to orchestrating for visuals and sourcing the right sounds and libraries for different creative needs.
Westworld-Theme-Final-Full-Score