‘It’s Fine Now’ is a short film about a misfit sister who has magical powers and is shunned by her other sisters. This film was a short homage film to Tim Burton, and so the director I worked with, Armeenah Bey, obviously wanted a Danny Elfman style score. Armeenah was unfortunate enough to have a lot of people say they would help her out in different ways, but then backed out at the last minute. Therefore, when it came time for me to score her film, I basically only had a couple of days. Then I was told that she needed it in a day, so my couple of days was really cut short. Before reading her script, Armeenah told me to check out Danny Elfman’s ‘Corpse Bride’ and ‘Alice in Wonderland’ score. I only listened to Danny Elfman’s ‘Corpse Bride’ score a couple of times and I listened to ‘Alice in Wonderland’ almost every day on my own already since it was my favorite album. What I really ended up listening to for this short film was Danny Elfman’s score for ‘Edward Scizzorhands.’ I thought that score of Danny’s was a lot better to listen to for this short because there was a connection between the character Edward and Armeenah’s character. They were in the same situation of being ‘those freaks,’ the character everyone thinks is weird, but in the end, ends up liking.

So when scoring ‘It’s Fine Now,’ it was pretty easy to compose because I had listened to Danny Elfman’s ‘Edward Scizzorhands’ for days and I felt it was perfect for the situation and character. The “Scizzorhands” score had that mystical tone to it because of the bells, strings, voices, and lack of drums which fit the character in Armeenah’s film. So for her score, I used bells, strings, and a creepy ghostly sound in the background that created that sense of mystery. In the end, I actually had to score everything for her film in one day except her main theme because I had worked on that before getting her film, I ended up working on it every moment that I had open and I probably stayed up until 3-4 in the morning. While composing, I took notes on what instruments are good for that type of character and situation, as I also did for ‘The Shelter.’

This is how the main theme came out for ‘It’s Fine Now.’ Check out my Soundcloud for more music from this film! If you’re interested in my work, don’t hesitate to email me at info@katrinazemrak.com