The opening cue for Capture Her immediately sets the audience in an era of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals or MGM silver screen epics with sweeping orchestral passages. The big challenge when scoring Capture Her was composing the song to lyrics already co-written by O’Shea and Lucas. Initially this is performed by the male lead accompanying himself on piano. As the female lead gets sucked into his alternative retro world and even joins in with her own verse, the score grows from a small cocktail jazz number into a large orchestral big band piece complete. The song was written in advance and played on set for the two leads to mime to. Originally the idea was to re-dub the vocals with professional singers but there was something more real and intimate that came from using Aislinn and Rob’s vocals in the final version.

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All is a sweet, innocent throwback at this point up until our two characters enter the dark room. At the pivotal moment of the film, the visuals transition from noirish black and white to bold, high contrasting colour. And so goes the score, following suit by going full-on bonkers into a heavy hitting fight cue with a rock / orchestral / dubstep fusion.

Although this was a micro budget short, it was very important to have as many elements as possible played by live musicians to give a true vintage aesthetic. The score includes Simon Da Silva on trumpets and Bob Payne on tenor and bass trombone, with Tom and Daisy playing the rest of the instrumentation including all saxes, flutes, piano, guitars and bass guitar (with programmed drums and strings). The score was mixed by Olga Fitzroy.