Pulse Composers Score Amanda Knox Documentary

Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans, a team of composers integral to the in-house roster of Pulse Music, the NYC and Cape Town-based music production house, composed the score for “Amanda Knox,” directed by Rod Blackhurst and Brian McGinn.

“Amanda Knox” premiered at the Toronto International Film Fest, but Bensi and Jurriaans are no strangers to the film festival circuit. This year alone, 9 films scored by the duo have premiered at Sundance, The Tribeca Film Festival, and TIFF.

Jurriaans comments about the composing process, “It was a huge amount of music and took about 4 months. Brian and Rod had very strong ideas about how they wanted the music to help the story. The film is very unique in that it plays like a narrative feature. There are such strong characters - Amanda, Raphael, Mignini and Nick Pisa that all needed their own thematic material. We grounded the music in the lyricism often found in Italian music and the had to apply it to a huge range of emotion - the darkness of the murder, tragedy and sadness, and even some moments of absurdity that border on comedic.”

In talking about the challenges specific to documentary scoring, Jurriaans said, “documentaries are generally more difficult. We have to maneuver much more around a ton of dialogue, which makes it difficult to convey melodies. The small chances you get have to be particularly powerful!”

Another key to their writing is their uninhibited collaboration, said Bensi “We’re constantly bouncing ideas off each other. If one of us is writing something slightly more inspired by a modern classical thing, then I’ll be like, “Does this sound cool?” [Saunder] needs to like it, but we generally share our similar aesthetic, which is why we work so well and so fast together.”

Next up for the duo is the theatrical release of “Christine,” starring Rebecca Hall, directed by Antonio Campos.