MUSIC+SOUND AWARDS 2023 WINNER SPOTLIGHT

BEST ORIGINAL COMPOSITION IN FILM + TV TITLES

Crossfire Titles

Composer: Nainita Desai at Soundology, London

Director: Tessa Hoffe

Studio: BBC

2023’s winner of Best Original Composition in Film + TV Titles was the very talented Nainita Desai for her subtly haunting score on the titles for the BBC’s ‘Crossfire’. The score brilliantly set the musical theme for the drama’s heroine throughout the show.

Nainita tells us about her process,

“Strings are an immediate go-to cliché which I wanted to avoid. So with that in mind I decided to use reed instruments and the concept of breath (the character spends much of her time running around in panic). I used prepared saxophone and bass clarinets and recorded them using extended techniques such as circular breathing.

The visuals feel different from most TV dramas set in hotels, and the soundtrack had to equally progress the momentum – to be non-conventional, and also match the aesthetic of the show.

Rhythms and pulses were always restrained without being cliched big bombastic percussion, but created from subtle found sound elements. I wanted to bring out feelings of tension, compression, claustrophobia, a visceral immersive discomfort and disorientated feeling. We didn’t want the music to distract from the picture but I also had to bring out moments of emotion. I had to establish a theme for our heroine, Jo, that would tie in throughout the series which I created using the saxophone.”

Visit Nainita’s site here