An Interview with ‘Marvel 616’ Composer Jeremy Turner
“[I] very much wanted it to be in the tradition of what Marvel fans have come to expect from their cinematic scores.”
MARVEL 616, a new documentary-style anthology series streaming exclusively on Disney+, dropped on November 20th. The series is described on the website as exploring “Marvel’s rich legacy of pioneering characters, creators and storytelling to reflect the world outside your window. Each documentary, helmed by a unique filmmaker, showcases the intersections of storytelling, pop culture, and fandom within the Marvel Universe. Episodes in this anthology series will cover topics including Marvel’s world-spanning artists, the trailblazing women of Marvel Comics, discovering the “forgotten” characters of Marvel, and much more.”
Each episode having a different filmmaker creates a unique and distinguishable style. Two-time Emmy award nominee Jeremy Turner composed the music for episode four, titled “Lost and Found.” The episode is hosted by comedian Paul Scheer and focuses on finding the odd and forgotten characters within the Marvel Universe. Turner, who has over 25 composing credits to his name, sat down with FilmSpeak to discuss his process working on the show.
Turner comes from a musically-inclined family and began playing piano at the age of two on his father’s basement piano. His parents began him with formal training at the age of five, and eventually started playing violin, cello, and guitar. He realized at sixteen-years old that he wanted to be a composer, and attended Juliard and played in orchestras before beginning his career around ten years ago. His first Emmy nomination came from working on a Netflix show called FIVE CAME BACK where one of his friends, Jason Sturman, was involved as an executive producer. Sturman then brought Turner to work on MARVEL 616, and in addition to scoring the fourth episode, he also composed the main theme for the series.
Certain characters in the Marvel Universe, such as Spider-Man, have a well-known and recognizable theme. Given that Turner’s episode was focusing on the lesser-known characters in the comics, how did he work to find a custom sound for these relative unknowns?
“I was surprised to learn that there are over 8000 characters in the Marvel Universe, I had no idea. I knew there were a lot. And [I] certainly assumed that there was some B sides and things like that, but I didn't know that many,” Turner begins. “And so yeah, that part was was fun, when they're sort of digging through the archives and pulling out these unheard of characters.” He continues, “There was a character called ‘Typeface’ that just just had letters like, typed [on his face], so we use the sound of a typewriter in the music . . . there is one that is the trucker—I guess he's a superhero who can pick up CB radio or whatever, and then ends up driving in space, so we use some traditional trucker music for him.”
Turner associates as a casual comic fan, having definitely read them when he was younger, but not much beyond that. In doing some research in preparation for his episode, he was inspired by the outfits and character types. “There's a bear, for instance,” he says. “So, alright, let's bring in some tubas and some low brass and some percussion. And there's a kangaroo, so we might be a little on the nose, but we snuck a little didgeridoo in there.”
Despite the fact that his work was part of a single series, he didn’t really have the opportunity for collaboration since each episode was directed and scored by a different person. Commenting on this, he says:
“Everybody was in their own little bubble for their particular episode, at least to my knowledge. So yeah, like you mentioned—eight different episodes, eight different directors, eight different opposers. I know this from past experience working on things where, you know, maybe I scored the series, but didn’t write the main title. Sometimes people ask, ‘Oh, did you incorporate that theme into the score?’ and that kind of thing. I didn’t personally use my own title of music anywhere in my score, but the main title itself kind of felt like a standalone thing and [I] very much wanted it to be in the tradition of what Marvel fans have come to expect from from their cinematic scores.”
Jeremy Turner
Turner’s approach for scoring music varies with each project, and for this series, he didn’t have the completed footage prior to composing. “For the main titles, I didn't have any picture to write to. That was just writing music to whatever I thought was in my mind's ear at the time,” he says. “Typically, documentaries have a lot more shifts in the edit, just by the nature that it's a documentary and they're constantly tweaking right up until the last minute. ‘Oh, we got one more interview. Let's sneak that in there.’ You know, that kind of thing. So I think when you're working on documentary films and shows, you have to be a little bit more flexible.”