‘The Afterparty’: Composer Daniel Pemberton on Telling the Same Story in Eight Different Genres
variety.comWilson Chapman editor“The Afterparty” on Apple TV Plus is a wildly ambitious storytelling exercise; over the course of its eight episode run, the series’ first season tells the story of a high school reunion that ends in murder in wildly different genres, as the various suspects recount their recollections of the night through the lens of their own worldviews.
And in order to successfully embody the different genres, be they rom-com or thriller, the show needs to adapt itself to every episode: a single moment might be romantic one episode or comical the next, through the use of music and editing to change the mood of the scene.The music of “The Afterparty” is composed by Daniel Pemberton, who came to the project after working with creator and director Christopher Miller and executive producer Phil Lord on the critically acclaimed animated film “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” He was attracted to working on the show because of the challenge and complexity of the score, which would require him to alter his musical style nearly every episode. “Chris and Phil are amazing geniuses and amazing at never stopping wanting to keep pushing stuff,” Pemberton says. “Which is both great and costs many sleepless nights because there is so much to do on a show like this when there’s just so much music.
It’s like I’m scoring 10 films, plus a series, plus loads of incidental stuff, plus producing some songs. There was a lot on my shoulders with this project.”When creating the score for “The Afterparty,” Pemberton first crafted the main theme and the music for the frame story, which is styled after classic murder mystery scores with plodding pianos and strings.
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