DC Super Hero Girls Composer Michael Gatt Discusses Show’s New Themes

The musical themes for superhero projects often prove to be just as integral to the hero as their costumes, weapons or getaway cars. Whether the score is prompting the character to shift personas or serving as a sidekick while battling enemies, one thing is they are never dull. Cartoon Network’s newly rebooted DC Super Hero Girls serves a prime example of this, thanks to the show’s composer Michael Gatt. Even with only 11-minute episodes, the musical ride can be equivalent to that of a full-length feature as the girl’s juggle superhero (and supervillain) life in the locker-lined hallways of Metropolis’ local school. Below Michael talks about creating themes for Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Bumblebee, Batgirl, Zatanna, Green Lantern and much more.

What do you feel like is your main goal as the composer of DC Super Hero Girls?

Michael Gatt: I think this show is really quite special on every front…character design, story, art direction, voice acting, and on and on, every frame receives the utmost care and attention and I think that comes across in every episode.   So my goal is really to honor the work everyone else is doing on the show with a score that speaks to their hard work and talent.  A score that not only supports the story, but also gives the show a signature sound and feel.   Every episode of DC Super Hero Girls is like a standalone film, culling on a new a diverse combination of characters and story telling, thus unlike most serial television there is very little or no reuse of score from one episode to the next.  I of course, play into the signature themes and sounds we’ve established but overall the score for each episode starts off as a blank page.

Has one episode of the series been more musically complex to score than others? If so, can you discuss why that was?

MG: Each one is its own kind of puzzle.  There’s just a ton of storytelling happening in a short amount of time and that really effects how the score will be approached.    I think we were able to unlock a lot of how to approach things while scoring the Sweet Justice film.   For example, there are plenty of scenes in the film that feature one hero at time, so one might be inclined to play fully into that hero’s theme however, the cuts are happening so fast, there is not enough time to get through a whole melody.  This is where having a signature sound for each character along with the melody has really payed off as I can just switch gears with instrumentation and it will make a big nod to the musical feel we’ve established for each character in the show.  You can hear this in the big battle at the pier, first we see Zatanna, and the score is playing EDM with magical elements, then Bumble Bee comes on screen and you hear 8 bit, then Wonder Women more orchestral, Batgirl surf guitar stings and on and on.

How did you get into TV scoring?

MG: Relative to composers who often start right out of school, I came to composing much later.  During and after university, I played and toured in various bands, then I started working in television production doing location sound.  Eventually I sold all of my possessions and set off for a multi-year backpacking trip that took me to 60 countries.  Along the way, my work in production lead to picking up jobs with both Animal Planet and Discovery Channel.  This led to a whole new level of adventures, while shooting a Shark Week show in Gaudelupe, Mexico for example, a great white tried to come over the top of my cage and I ended up actually being in the show.

Upon returning to the states, I started scoring TV commercials, this was and is a very fast paced and extremely competitive world of music creation with very fast turnarounds.  Eventually, I started scoring long form, first documentaries and then scripted narrative.  While I still do commercials at times and really enjoy doing any kind of composition, the long form storytelling format really spoke to me.  Having the opportunity to collaborate with filmmakers for a significant amount of time and be a part of the story happening both on and off the screen is extremely fulfilling.  This is certainly the case with DC Super Hero Girls, it’s already been an amazing journey and I feel like there is so much more exciting territory ahead for every aspect of the show including the score.

We read that you created themes for all the characters, what was this process like?

MG: The creation of the themes for all the characters was extremely collaborative.  While I write the music for the show, so much of it is informed and inspired by the direction and feedback from Lauren and the other creatives.  The character themes for example came out of  multiple creative meetings and many emails exchanged as we talked about different ideas.   Then I would set to writing, each pass was given very detailed feedback and we repeated this process for as long as it took.

Some were rather straight forward, the idea of trying 8 bit for Bumble Bee came about early on, after discussing, I sent back a sample and it was a fairly instant win.  Conversely, something that might seem straight forward, like doing a rock driven theme for Supergirl’s character was quite involved.   I did a lot of different passes.  And with each round of notes, not only tried different melodies,  different drum beats and sounds, guitar tones, performance, etc. etc.  It’s this kind of attention to detail that I feel informs every aspect of the show.  Where good enough is not an acceptable outcome, it has to be right and that very much speaks to my own values about creating music.

There is a montage in the episode titled #SuperWho where it keeps going back and forth with Supergirl trying to get more attention than Superman.  Supergirl’s score during this is more rock, dark and edgy in contrast to Superman’s score. Because both character’s themes are basically playing consistently, did that add any pressure to make them sound pretty different? If there would have been breaks in the score would you still have composed it this way?

MG: I really appreciate this question and it makes me think of the one earlier about more complex moments to deal with in the score.   I think the idea was really to play into the character differences between Supergirl and Superman and have that be reflected in the music.  Supergirl has a ton of attitude.  Superman, while still coming into his own, comes off as a much more experienced and established hero but also vein.  And we tried to have this reflected in the score. This particular episode was one where after our usual spotting session and my sending in the first pass, we had a follow up conference call specifically about Superman’s motif.   Lauren, Jenn and all on the call were very specific about wanting to find just the right feel for Superman.  This is the kind of care and attention we had already given to Supergirl’s music when we worked through all the main character themes.  During the call, we talked about what I had already written and I played new ideas or variations for them over the phone from my studio.  Their feedback was extremely specific with Lauren actually humming ideas during the call.

At what point in the animation process are you scoring the episodes? When they are already complete or are you scoring to rough cuts?

MG: Most often the cuts I get are locked for timing which is the most critical for what’s happening on my end.  That said, when we were diving into scoring the themes and transformation music for each main character,  I was often working to an animatic or just a verbal brief that I would later use when picture arrived.  Among other animated projects, prior to coming on to DC Super Hero Girls, I had scored multiple animated projects for Illumination/Universal featuring characters form Minions, Despicable Me, The Secret Life of Pets and Sing.   I think there is something quite unique and challenging about every aspect of animation, you are truly creating a world from nothing and this often means the score has an opportunity to play a big role in helping to tell the story.

Is there a character in the DC Universe you would like to see on the show that hasn’t been on yet?

MG: Let’s just say, I think that any and every DC fan is going to be very pleased with what lies ahead.  I thought I knew a lot about the DC canon from being a lifelong fan.  Working on this show has been even more of an education on how deep the origins of this universe goes.