Interview: Composer Tim Davies Discusses Maya and the Three

The animated series Maya and the Three, featuring the voice talents of Zoe Saldana, Diego Luna, and Queen Latifah, is currently streaming on Netflix. ComingSoon got a chance to speak with composer Tim Davies, who discussed his inspiration for the score, on which he collaborated with Gustavo Santaolalla.

Davies previously worked on the TV series Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia as well as the TV movie Doomsday. He is also a well-known conductor, as he was the orchestrator on recent films such as Free Guy, Snake Eyes, Thunder Force, Frozen II, and Ant Man and the Wasp.

What led you to become a composer?

I have always written music. I remember I would take manuscript to bed when I was a kid and write things, then when my parents got a piano I started playing it and writing my own pieces, not really songs, but riffs and tunes and ideas. I can’t really play piano though, I think my playing peaked when I was fifteen.

Who were some of your main musical influences?

My favourite composer is Prokofiev. He had an amazing harmonic sense; the music can be familiar, then all of a sudden something happens that you were not expecting, maybe one note added to a chord, and it changes everything! I am also a big fan of jazz and big band music, so people like Oliver Nelson, Quincy Jones, and Nelson Riddle are often on the playlist. I am fascinated by harmony, like with Prokofiev, and I like unpredictable things. I also like circular progressions and I find a lot of those things in Sting’s music. It is catchy, but when you look under the hood there are really cool things going on.

What was it about Maya and the Three that made you want to work on it?

Money. And the chance to work with Jorge again!

You worked with Gustavo Santaolalla on a few themes – what was his contribution and how did it mesh with your work/style?

I have worked with Gustavo on a few projects now, the first being a video game called The Last of Us, then the movie The Book of Life, which is where I met Jorge, and now Maya. In the case of Book of Life and Maya, Gustavo starts early, working on themes and ideas with Jorge, then I come in and use the material to compose the score. At heart, I am an arranger, like the people I mentioned above. We love to take an idea, any idea, and manipulate it. I am just as happy working from a theme by Gustavo as I am one of my own, it is just the kernel. On Book of Life, we were finding our way, so Gustavo was a little more involved throughout the process, but for Maya, we decided that he would write some themes, then hand it all off to me and to work on the score with Jorge.

I read that you studied up on music from the Mesoamerica period – what did you learn about the musical styles of the era? And how did this newfound knowledge contribute to the score?

Thanks to the internet we can all get a quick education in just about anything. I really wanted to go to Mexico and do some research in person, but Covid hit right as I was going to! I had actually done some research during Book of Life, so had some ideas, but Maya was a good excuse to learn some more.

They used simple clay flutes and ocarinas. They also often used log drums in place of headed drums in certain places as the climate was not conducive to animal hide lasting very long. One fascinating thing I did not have any idea about before I looked into the culture is what they called a Mayan Trumpet. It is pretty close to the Australian Didgeridoo, a long hollow branch that makes a low drone-type sound, and you can pinch your lips and make higher tones and noises. I decided to use this sound for Lord Mictlan, the baddest of the bad guys, combined with the Aztec Death Whistle. I used a lot of log drums in the action cues and ocarina for some of the more melodic moments.

Musically, I just wrote in my normal style: Prokofiev meets Sting arranged by Nelson Riddle with some Latin American influences from Gustavo. I used a traditional orchestral string and brass section, lots of guitar, a western choir, and a Mexican one. Add in the instruments I mentioned above and I had a very unique palette to create from!

What was the most challenging aspect of Maya and the Three and how did you overcome that?

I love challenges, and writing music to picture is like solving a puzzle. I get the picture, I get ideas from Jorge, and I get the temp score (placeholder music for editing and to see what might work) and some themes from Gustavo. I mix all of that up and the music comes out. On Maya, it seemed like each episode also had what maybe you could call a bonus challenge. For example in Episode 3, Jorge wanted the battle to be scored with Mexican-style ska music! I have never written ska before, and I did not even know the Mexican kind existed! Jorge would often start the spotting session by playing what he wanted the new surprise ingredient to be. Episode 3 was ska, 4 was Mexican polka, 5 was some EDM stuff. For 6 he wanted the big fight with the gods to be based on Bizet’s Carmen! But it is not hard; you listen to the music he is inspired by, write down the elements, then work in a Gustavo theme or write a new one with that sound and style palette and you’re done.

The ‘actual’ challenge we did have was pulling off all of the recordings with Covid. We were exploring recording the orchestra and choir in Mexico, but then when Covid protocols were in place the logistics became impossible. But I had an idea! I could go home and record in Australia. I had to do two weeks in hotel quarantine, but then things there were pretty free.

Do you have any fun, behind-the-scenes stories about the making of Maya?

I would sometimes get confused and use character names from The Book of Life to refer to characters in Maya. My assistant was always worried I would do that in a meeting with Jorge.

Also, at one stage Jorge wanted a big drum hit on the final title card of the last episode. It’s the very end of the show, after a really big emotional cue that gradually winds down as the whole adventure is wrapped up, finally coming to the end with just a solo voice. Now there was also this very irritating temp rooster sound effect they had everywhere in the show. So when we were putting it together to present to him for the first time, I had my music editor cut in the rooster noise instead of the final boom. I chickened out (pardon the pun) on sending it as I did not want to ruin what I hoped would have been a beautiful experience hearing the ending for the first time, but maybe I should have sent it!

What were some of the things you learned from Maya that you’re excited to apply to future endeavors?

I think the main thing I will try to remember is that anything is possible. Sometimes you get out of a spotting session and the 30-minute episode has 29 minutes of music, 15 of which is action, and you just don’t know where to start or if you will ever get done! But you do just need to start; the sooner you do, the sooner you will be done. Writing music is really easy for me, the only stressful or hard part is worrying about the deadlines and notes from the director. I always made the deadline and never got any bad notes from Jorge, so worrying about it was silly.

What are you most excited for audiences to experience with your score and show?

Jorge’s world is very colorful and vivid and needed a score to match. I am really happy with the sound I came up with and the performances of my friends in the orchestra and choir back home, the choir in Mexico, and the soloists I recorded in LA. It was truly a global effort and that is a positive thing.

Do you have any other projects coming up that you can share with us?

I have been orchestrating Marvel’s Hawkeye for composer Christophe Beck and in November I start scoring a few episodes of Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities for Netflix.