“The Beanie Bubble” Duo Damian Kulash and Nathan Barr Consciously Blurred the Lines Between Song and Score – Sound and Film

The Beanie Bubble is about the 1990s Beanie Baby trend and the drama behind the scenes. Zach Galifianakis plays Ty Warner, the founder of the toy line. Elizabeth Banks, Sarah Snook and Geraldine Viswanathan play the three women in Warner’s life who found each other and success in business. OK Go singer Damian Kulash directed the film with his wife, screenwriter Kristin Gore.

Kulash said he hoped people couldn’t tell where the “needle drops” of the film’s archive music ended and the original score with Nathan Barr began. The film features songs from The Cure, INXS, The Cranberries, Queen and more.

“The point of the score wasn’t to compensate for something like that, but rather to explain when you’re in a pop song and when you’re not,” Kulash said.

Kulash said they even tricked Apple’s legal department with their selection for Deadline’s Sound & Screen: Film event at UCLA’s Royce Hall. Apple was concerned that Kulash and Barr were playing other people’s copyrighted music.

“This is the result that was a big win for me,” Kulash said. “They don’t know which one is a score and which one is a song.”

For the instrumental score, Kulash wanted the music to be more universal than the 90s sound. The instrument they used was an organ, which Barr stated was from the 1960s.

“There’s a whole genre from the ’60s with a Wurlitzer with an orchestra and drums,” Barr said. “It fits very well with the direction in which we wanted to take the story.”

Kulash hopes the three women’s triumph at the end of the film reflects universal themes such as economics and capitalism. They are leaving the capitalist system, but it is not an easy victory.

“It had to be very uplifting, but also a little melancholic,” Kulash said.

Barr had never worked with Kulash before. He said when they realized they could criticize each other, he knew it would be a good collaboration.

“We just looked at each other and laughed,” Barr said. “We’ll just try to be more sarcastic than the others.”

Kulash remembers the play Barr played on him that didn’t work.

“The moment you talked about was something so stupid,” Kulash said, adding that he appreciates “just being able to look at yourself and say, ‘That’s not it.'”

Come back on Monday for the panel video.