March 12, 2021 • 43 mins
Music absolutely shapes how we process the ache and splendor of our favorite characters on screen. In this episode, Shonda Rhimes -- the empress of knocking us off the couch with music and a word (“...you’re my person,” anybody??) -- talks about the transformative power of a good score.
Composer Kris Bowers and choreographer Jack Murphy discuss their creative process and director Julie Anne Robinson and Tom Verica share which ball scenes were their favorites to shoot.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bridgetin. The Official Podcast is a partnership between Shondaland Audio
and iHeartRadio. There's a dance definitely comes down the stairs.
Oh yeah, she dances with Freddie the Prince and it's
like this hand movement they have rownny. It's just like,
oh yeah, yeah, by that mode. I love that. Yes,
(00:20):
it's from a statue. I took that from a Greek
statue and that's one of the ways I was trying
to find, you know, the adoration of the woman and
the adoration of the man. And then wouldn't you know,
Will are amazing production designer. I mean second to none.
(00:42):
Amen to that. Amen to that. Let me hear you say.
And he wh did he come up with? He come
up with those statues? I mean their synergy for you.
I mean the statues were doing the same thing because
my people weren't dancing. And that's a fluke. That was
a pure fluke. Gabrielle, Welcome to Bridgerton the Official Podcast.
(01:03):
I'm Gabrielle Collins. On this episode, we're talking about the
balls as a window into house score and choreography on
the show Came Together. We're talking with movement director Jack Murphy,
who's going to share his view on the importance of
Bridgerton's ball scenes, and we're also going to hear from
Julianne Robinson. But first we should put a spotlight on
(01:24):
an element that makes each end ever reball in Bridgerton
distinct and special, and that, my dear friends, is the music.
In order for us to talk about the music in
this episode, we've got to talk to Shonda Rhimes. Shonda
Rhimes and Shonda land shows are known for infusing television
(01:44):
with transformative moments through music. Why because music is another
piece of the storytelling, Babe to me, the music has
to provide the emotional impact of that overtaking the content
of a scene. Yep, that's Shonda. Everything should inherently feel
like a new invention and we're trying something new. That's
the point. That's what keeps us excited about doing our work,
(02:06):
whether I'm producing it or writing it myself. I want
us to feel like we're growing and what we're doing
we're not just standing still. We've never made a show
in England before, We've never made a show that felt
this way musically before. It was just a lot of
fun to do something that felt new and innovative Shanda
Land uses music to add levels to the fantasy, the aspiration,
(02:29):
the romance, and Shanda will listen to a song over
and over again while writing like She'll get stuck on it.
I mean, I think it's different for every show. And
when it comes to score, I am very much a
person who knows what I like and I know what
I don't like. But I cannot tell you why I
(02:51):
know what I like and what I don't like, which
drives composers crazy. One of Shanda Land's not so secret
weapons is composer Chris Bowers. We done some quality time
with Chris Bowers to learn more about his work with
Sean DeLand and all the regencies swag he infused his
compositions with. Chris found love for the piano early on,
(03:14):
but his start as a visual artist still impacts his
musical decisions today. I'm a really visual person my writing
process sometimes or even like sketch out a graphic representation,
like a graphic score, or even just like a short
little sketch that shows what this should feel like, because
sometimes it's nice to take things out of the context
(03:35):
of musical terms. Where else have you painted with music?
I think most recognizably, probably either when they see us
with Abdyven for Netflix or Green Book, the film with
Marshal Lee and Vigo Mortensen. Also, I work on a
show called Dear White People, and just did a film
(03:56):
called Bad Hair as well. Yeah, Chris Bowers is lit,
you know. Fortunately I had worked on For the People
a few years ago. That was a time where I
felt most nervous about working on a shawan Land project
and living up to those expectations. Essentially, sean Land chose
that they are really incredible at creating a sonic identity
(04:18):
and then going deep with it. I just felt excited
about how there were no limitations to how I wanted
to approach it, and that this was going to be
a grand show. That they were really like pulling out
all the shops and it came to way they were
shooting it in a costume and like the locations and
all this stuff, and so they wanted the music to
rise to that level as well, and so for me
(04:39):
that that felt like an exciting challenge. I just felt
like I can push myself to write music that I
don't get the opportunities to write very often. What was
really wonderful for me was that Chris Bowers had a
very clear He had a very clear way of giving
every scene or every person in their own too in
(05:00):
a way, and it just worked. It's very early on
in the process of working on the edits that I
could see that it was going to work beautifully. Like
there wasn't a lot of it wasn't a lot of
back and forth that this isn't working for me. He's
a really talented and he was managing to catch things
that I just I thought were amazing. He's just he
(05:20):
was good. I was just saying, I love this, this
isn't do more so. The first scenes they shared with
me were the ball scenes, and I think that was
a really interesting way to be introduced to this world.
It really showed me the grandness that we were able
to play with the score. I think that initially before
when I was just reading it, you're never really sure
how big of a scope it's going to feel, and
(05:43):
that really can affect the score because it's something that
feels much more intimate. You want to write intimate sounding
music like fewer musicians or things like that. But with
this we were able to play with the scale because
you have intimate moments between these characters and these love stories.
But then at the same time, the grandness of these
balls and these events, and the landscape and these big
(06:06):
houses and all these different things allowed us to write
these huge orchestral pieces, which you don't really get the
opportunity to do for a TV very often. Once we
got to post, one of the big questions was how
modern do you make the music? That's executive producer Betsy Beers.
Betsy is known for bringing together all of the many,
(06:26):
many moving parts of Shanda Land's creations. It's something which
shan Enough debated with back and forth over the years,
and I think what we all came to the conclusion
was we wanted to make sure, like every other part
of this, that there's never anything that takes you out
of the story, but that you want to remember that
there's modernity to the story. So the genius Chris Bowers
(06:50):
who composed the score. If you listen to the score, yeah,
it's got a traditional feel to it, but it has
these very sort of subversive elements throughout that pop up
at points and whether you're totally aware of it or not,
kind of make you realize, oh no, no, no, this
this this isn't a front beat, dusty Regency show. This
(07:13):
has a little more pop to it when we first
see Daphne and Simon come on to the dance floor
after they've made this agreement. It's this huge, huge piece,
definitely the most ambitious piece that I wrote for the season.
(07:35):
But it encapsulates all these different themes, like Daphne's theme
and also their theme together. We could pretend to film
that attachment. You never really know how that's going to
work until you get into the nitty gritty and try
it with my own world. To believe I finally found
my duchess. When you described that, I just thought about
(08:00):
Shock and Delight. That's one of my favorite ones, and
that for me, really I think encapsulates what you're saying
to Actually, do you have a favorite piece? I think
(08:24):
that Shock and Delight is definitely one of my favorite
favorite pieces. What Women Do Best is another favorite of mine.
I think I just had a lot of fun. That
was one that was a big challenge, and I had
(08:51):
wrote maybe five or six different attempts, and the last
attempt was one of those moments where I was like,
I'm just gonna try something kind of crazier or really
good for it. Essentially, tell us how you approached your
work after you first saw those, you know, first images.
(09:13):
I started writing music really early in the process. They
were still shooting, and we had this time to play
around and try these different options and have this sandbox period.
And the thing that really unlocked it for me personally
was Simon and Daphanie's piano theme. So, you know, Chris
(09:39):
asked me to write that theme for them to shoot too,
so they needed it really early in the process, and
he sent me some pieces that were bits of inspiration
for him, and a lot of those pieces were Revel
piano pieces and a couple of other pieces that felt
really impressionistic and you know, era wise, maybe it's not
(10:00):
specifically eighteen thirteen, but it's definitely something that feels older
than now, of course. But the biggest thing I think
is just how much romance you can feel in the
sound of that music and that style of music. And
that's really what started to unlock this feeling of a
little bit of modernity and something that felt for me,
I think, really impressionistic and whispy or very or you
(10:25):
think what impressionistic painting, for example, you look at like
it looks like a scene that's recognizable, like you can
tell that's a park or a lake or a pond.
But it's all been a little, a little washy and
a little dreaming, you know. I think that's a good
word for it, is dreaming. So, Chris, we see musicians
throughout the different corners of the ballroom scenes. We're doing
(10:47):
bird's eye views, we're in close quarters, and you are
capturing all of that space in your score. How did
those scenes influence your approach? Yeah, I noticed that Chris,
whenever he would panchos or an instrument being performed, he
would always want that instrument to speak a little bit
more so if we saw a harpist playing or if
(11:09):
we saw a violinist playing something at a certain moment,
we wanted to bring that out in the piece itself.
But then other than that, we didn't really use the
instrumentation of the band that we're seeing as the basis
of the instrumentation. You know, I think most of those
ensembles were pretty small, and we wanted the balls to
feel really grand, and so the score is actually much
(11:31):
larger than whatever band is actually playing there. But we
would always highlight whatever instrument he would maybe pan to
except for a little bit later, like when they go
to the opera, for example. We wanted that to feel
specifically like this might be the orchestra playing this piece
while everybody's walking in or something like that. And although
it's mixed a little bit more like score and it
(11:53):
doesn't sound like it's coming from that space, the instrumentation
is written a little bit differently, so it feels like
it's in that space, or like the brothel type area,
or you know, any of those types of spaces. We
wanted it to feel a little bit more like this
could be a band that's playing in this space, and
(12:13):
so let's have it be a little bit smaller. Pick
some different instruments that made me feel like could have
been of that time. Here's creator Chris van Dusen. We
always joked that there were no dating apps, obviously, but
the men and women at these balls were still swiping
left and right until the early morning hours. Finding those
(12:34):
modern references was really fun for us. Among the modern
references in Bridgerton, we couldn't possibly miss the pop covers.
Did we not collectively just stop when we heard the
first trills of Ariana Grandez? Thank you? Next play I
know we did. We all did. The most important thing
(12:58):
was you could watch this and feel like you could
be part of this world, and it was immediate to you.
If we don't do that, I don't think we fully
do our job. Betsy has so many amazing qualities. One
thing is her ear for music. We really came to
the music during post production, once we had all of
(13:20):
the episodes shot and we were really looking at the
series as a whole. We wanted to try a number
of different things. We tried strictly classical at one point,
strictly modern at another point, and what we landed on were,
especially for these larger set pieces and these really important moments,
were classical reinterpretations of modern day pop songs. And that
(13:45):
was something that Betsy and I both fell in love
with when we heard them play against these scenes. It
ends up being both the strange sort of subconscious feeling
of Wow, I've heard that song before, but it didn't
sound like that, and a little fun easter egg for
the fans and the viewers, so that when they listen
to this they say with that way, whoa, whoa, wha,
what the hell is that song? I wanted whoever's watching
(14:10):
to feel the same way that the characters themselves felt
on screen. So, for example, when Daphne Bridgeton is walking
into a ballroom and she hears this classical rendition of
Ariana Grande's thank You Next, and she's filled with so
much energy and spirit. I wanted that same energy to
(14:31):
translate to the viewer. I wanted when you're hearing this
amazing song and you get excited, That's exactly how Daphney
would have felt at that moment. And I think that
these modern day pop songs because you recognize them and
it's fun and it's energetic and it's spirited, and I
think that's the show. Chris worked with long time Shonda
Land music supervisor Alex Potsavas and dug In. If we're
(14:54):
talking about music and we're talking about Shanda Land, we
cannot go forward work without talking about Alex pat Sabas.
Alex is the catalyst of the Vitamin String Quartet pop
covers that are making up our High Team playlists. She's
a three time Grammy nominee known for her crazy juxtaposition
of sound and image. She can lay a track in
(15:17):
a TV show and she's also done films. Twilight is
one of them. I mean, she gave us those ugly
crime moments in Grey's Anatomy, and she gave us the
sound of the eighteen thirteen dating scene, which is stirred
up with these string covers that we're talking about. She's
just been a legend for such a long time, and
that's exactly why she just knows how to, you know,
(15:40):
take the right angle with the show and with the
music that she picks for it. So she had started
placing a lot of the Vitamin String Quartet pieces throughout
the season, and they're really like one of the best
groups at covering these pop songs in a classical way,
in a way that I as a musician can listen
(16:00):
to and feel like, oh wow, that orchestration is really
good or these players are really good and really be
impressed by the musicality of it. But then at the
same time, somebody that's not a musician can can listen
to it and say, oh, I know that song and
really know they can hear the entire song within with
just these four musicians playing. And so Alex Potsavas picking
(16:20):
those cues I think was not only influential of the
way that I approached the score, but really just with
each of those spots made us feel the way the
characters feel. I think what is so interesting is that
nobody heard any of this music while filming, the actors, dancers,
extras crew. What I loved about watching the show on
(16:43):
Christmas Day with everyone else here's Annabelle hood is hearing
the music for the first time, those now famous violin
covers of you know, Ariana Grande and such. Is that
we didn't have that while we were filming. They would.
They were different songs, so they were dancing to different tracks,
but they were still modern and they were still upbeat.
(17:03):
But you hear the song so many times over and
over again that you think, oh God, I hope I
never hear this song again. Then you think, oh no,
I'm going to hear this song when the show comes out.
And then when the show came out and it was
that incredible violin covers for some of the balls, I
was blown away. That was one of the things where
it was really special that I didn't know that that's
(17:24):
what that was. I have to say I inspired mister
Chris Bowers. I think, oh no, no, I was kidding.
I was kidding. I was kidding. That's Jack Murphy, the
movement director. I'm Bridgerton. Yeah, Jack's one of my favorite
people from the crew. Jack took just as many liberties
and the dance numbers as the soundtrack to show whif
(17:45):
the dating scene of the regency era. We'll find out
what music the actors and dancers were originally whilsting too,
and Jack will explain all of that later. Welcome back,
(18:05):
Hi again. It's me Annabelle. I'm a terrible dancer. There
was a point where Jack Murphy, our choreographer, was trying
to teach a few of us, Chris me Amy Mack,
the script supervisor, how to dance. I'm a terrible dancer.
I have two left feet. So whenever there was a
(18:28):
ball scene and I'd see the dances and they had
obviously been rehearsing, and the cast had been rehearsing over
and over again, I just thought it was magical because
it was something I could never ever do. And Jack
tried very hard to try and teach us how to dance,
and we're not very good. I can't imagine how grueling
it must have been for the introverts, you know, to
(18:48):
be pressed up on so many people, so many nights
a week. I mean those dances were literally twenty to
thirty minute physical endeavors. It's where suitors made their first moves,
you know, the young misses put their bosoms forward, which
makes me think about something that Hannah said about the
marriage market and dancing. Often we lose the sense of
(19:13):
how incredibly seductive the dance floor is at the time,
and just that chemistry and the electricity of that close
physical contact because people didn't have much body contact when
you're in the marriage market. You might take a man's
hand to get in and out of a carriage, but
dancing is basically almost full body contact, and particularly in
(19:35):
regency times when we have the Woltz, which is body
against body. If you do two dances or three dances,
that's half an hour altogether of absolutely electric flirtatious you know,
hot chemistry and body contact is incredibly exciting and romantic
(19:56):
and erotic. So the barroom scenes are really important. The
ballroom is a living, breathing fixture of the show's major
themes and events, and so was the act of presenting
oneself to society. The movement involved in all of this
has cultural and historical roots. For example, when Daphne presents
to the queen. She has to reverence. That became my
(20:19):
responsibility because of the wonderful work of Julianne Robinson and
Chris involving me. So we looked with Daphne at how
your reverence. Jack Murphy is known for his work in
British theater and his sweet spot the classics. What is
it to revere your head of state, your queen? And
(20:40):
of course then you've got the fantastic contrast to the Featherington.
So your polaric differences, polaric distances apart. But I have
to tell you Episode one I found glorious. I was ah,
I was on my breath with her, our wonderful Daphne,
because I had in a term world that's going on.
(21:00):
Does she believe in this whole setup? Does she believe
in all these protocols, these rules and regulations. But at
the same time, she's realizing that she's not wanting to
give too much away because of the complexity of that character,
which is just fabulous for such a young woman to play.
So I was thrilled to be there on set filming
the movement of the reverence, but the presentation the dead's
coming out to the queen, because I think it's paramount
(21:23):
that physically it's right, because just because you can't see
it doesn't mean it's not there. And by that I
mean the movement direction, the direction I gave to lovely
Phoebe who took it so well. And Phoebe, you know,
she has this facility that she can be very very serious,
but she can be very witty and very cheeky, and
she found the balance in that reverence. Jack, let's go
(21:46):
back to the beginning. Why don't you tell us how
you got involved with the bridget In I was in Spain.
I went to Spain with the scripts and I sat
on a balcony and the sun was shining and I
read those scripts and of course that's set in eighteen
thirteen summer, and it was just absolutely delightful. But I'm
very pleased of it was in Spain because I had
to go and have very long walks on the beach,
(22:06):
because it wasn't very long before I realized that this
was going to be possibly the job of my life,
because the involvement of a movement person of Chorogher was
evident from every single scene, whether there was a ball
or dance or not. There were many moments like this
that we're going to become my responsibility if given that opportunity,
(22:29):
because it doesn't always happen. I knew that it would
need the stars to align for me to actually realize
this job. It's just consummate. It's a consummate job for
a movement director choreographer like myself. Tell us how you
met Chris So. I first met Chris van Dusen on
(22:49):
the page and I found myself chuckling because you know,
I was the system choreographer on the very famous BBC
production or Pride and Prejudice and what I didn't read
back then, this dude walks into the room and you know,
checks out this chick. Well, I found the stage directions
on Bridget and so refreshing, so honest, so now so
(23:12):
fabulously witty that I kind of I They had me
at the stage directions before I even read the dialogue.
And that's all Chris. You know, I just thought, you know,
he's debunked so much about the myth. You know, it's
two hundred years and yeah, we could read the books
and red. So that's when I first met Chris. Okay, okay,
(23:35):
so the first time you met in person. The first
time I met Chris and the flesh was at the
Bloomsbury Hotel at my second interview. I mean, and I
knew from his handshake that I liked him, because I
don't know about you. A handshake is again, you know,
an action. You are making a connection and you're making
(23:56):
an engagement and you're investing your energy into that other
person and we shakes your hand. It's genuine. So after
this handshake, how did you all come together to map
out the movement of bridgertin like the shape of Bridgton
working on a script of this wit. The wit that
(24:17):
Chris has developed and realized with his team is really
the starting point for finding the style of our world.
In the first and foremost Julia Quinn, that comes from
her imagination, everything she invested into that book. So subliminally,
the world, the fantastical world, starts with the day that
(24:40):
Julia Quinn sat at her desk with a blank page
and then started to write. That's when the investment starts.
So it's a realization of her imagination. It's a realization
of Chris's imagination. So there are already two filters, and
then the third filter is of course the history what
(25:01):
can and can't you do? In eighteen thirteen? How do
you correctly? For example, if I wanted to do a
dance with you, Gabraelle, how would I ask you to dance?
So the etiquette, so the dances tell us very much
how to because in order to ask related to dance,
that informs me that outside of the ball, my approach
(25:22):
to certain ladies is not permissible. So when I am allowed,
when I am allowed to do something like would you
like the pleasure of this dance? I have to follow
certain protocols. So that becomes the real world of the regency.
And then the fantasy I have to say, is the
fact that that is so far removed from our own world.
(25:43):
And what rules did you bend? And why you know?
I didn't know a great deal about these novels, and
then when I researched them, I realize how many languages
they've been translated into. And then I realize, oh, my word,
a norful lot of people are going to watch Bridge
they speak another language, or English is their second language.
(26:04):
So that gave me a lot of inspiration to get
a little bit naughty, a little bit saucy with some
of the steps I used. How did I how did
I deviate from the historical to the fantasy. Well, that's
what you know, wouldn't it be lovely if you could
touch you know? How can you break the rules but
you're not allowed to touch their face? I mean, the
fact is you're only there's very little you're allowed to touch.
(26:26):
So it's this gesture. So I was playing with gesture
and the idea that instead of touching the face, I
can take behind because the statue is allowing me to
do so, and the inspiration comes from the classical, from
the Greek. So but that's where I broke the rules.
I broke, and I was happy to break rules. I mean,
(26:48):
I broke rules in the dancing, you know, with steps,
and I want to if I may lay a challenge
right here and now for our wonderful, wonderful viewers in Brazil.
There are two dances at the Trowbridge Ball and there
(27:08):
are two rhythms that they are dancing that are not regency.
So I kept the form of the regency dances, but
I changed the rhythms and those rhythms, my dear friends,
my our fans, our fans in Brazil will know what
those rhythms are there's a chatter cha and a samba
(27:33):
because because of listen listen, listen, listen, listen, listen. In
either a jig or a real step, you have a
triple step. In a chacha, you have a triple step.
It's called a chasse cyclos side, which is exactly the
same as a skip change of step in a reel
or a chig. The only thing is my my chacha
(27:55):
was done to originally, so before the amazing incomparable Chris
Bows got his hands on it and his genius on it,
I did it to blurred lines without lyrics, so not
to offend you were all dancing to music like storm Z.
(28:15):
Can you explain that absolutely? So I choreographed all of
the dances to modern music, having originally choreographed them to
reach the music, Chreer said, let's use music that has
soul and energy but still allows you to realize the
world historically, but finding the polaric with the fantasy. So
(28:38):
I use Rihanna. I used lots and lots and lots
of fantastic soul music. I use storm Z. I use Pink.
We danced to Pink and this is how it went.
I would find a link, send it to Chris and
say here's five tracks that I think are suitable for this.
(29:00):
Chris will come back to say I like three of them,
find me two more. I would go and find another two.
Going back, he said, like them, choreograph them. So I
did the job twice. So I did it in regency
and then applied the regency to the model and then
gave it the twist. After the break, we'll hear how
directors Tom Berica and Julianne Robinson can make magic on screen.
(29:33):
Welcome back to Bridgerton the official podcast I'm Gabby, and
we had a chance to hear from movement director Jack
Murphy and composer Chris Bowers about marrying the dance moves
with the score. Let's turn now to director Julianne Robinson.
I've thought of a decision that I made that I'm
really proud of. Robinson is a British television director. She's
(29:56):
worked on Masters of Sex, Nurse Jackie or Just the
New Black, and she co produced the Catch for Chandelan.
Julie's been with Chandelan for some fifteen years now, and
she directed episode one and six of Bridgeton Okay at
the assembly rooms. We were looking at the key room
where we were going to do this big ballroom sequence,
(30:18):
and I was looking at the chandeliers, and we were
told the chandeliers were worth five million pounds each each.
I think one of them was worth even more than that,
and I heard that they were on a pulley system.
So I spoke to Jeff Ja and I said, wouldn't
it be great if we lowered the chandeliers so that
(30:39):
they're almost just above the heads of the dancers, and
so that those chandeliers, which are worth so much money,
will be in every shot of the ballroom scene. We
lowered the chandeliers significantly. What's scary about that is we
had a technic crane in the room, and the technic
crane is a huge arm that could kind of sweep
(31:04):
past the chandeliers. And there were a couple of moments
where Jeff j wonderful crane operator. Jeff would be operating
the crane himself, but it would get so close to
the chandeliers. Five million pounds with chandeliers, no no, no, no,
no no oh. So you were just holding your breath.
(31:27):
Was there was a couple of moments where I was
holding my breath. There was very long lectures from people
about how we cannot swing that crane anywhere near the
chandeliers because the chandeliers are so so expensive. There from
the time period, I believe it's hard to describe how
dense and woven every decision is. I think a decision
(31:50):
that I'm very proud of was how we were to
go about shooting the ballroom sequence in episode. One key
decision that Jeff, Ja and I made together was to
spend most of the time shooting into the ballroom instead
of towards the walls. If you imagine filming from this
(32:11):
perspective this way, you've got to choregraph these dancers so
that they are doing the exact same move at the
exact same time every single time that you shoot seen,
so these dancers all know exactly what they're doing at
that moment, because obviously you shoot it again and again
and again, and so it's a very difficult and complicated
(32:32):
thing to do. You have to choregraph the whole sequence
as one, rather than being able to shoot a lot
of different separate scenes. So that was one that I
felt like it was really tricky, It was really difficult
to do, but it gave the ballroom sequences a sense
(32:53):
of movement and shape that I personally, I'm really proud of.
What it actually makes me wonder is how much of
it is like marching band. Was there some big metronome
in the ballroom or something like that where people knew,
okay when Daphanie says this, I am hitting this beat
(33:16):
and step over here. So that's a really good question.
The answer is all of the dancers had earwigs that
were hidden from the camera, tiny little speakers in their
ears so they could hear the music when they were dancing.
(33:37):
It was almost completely silent in that room because they
were dancing lightly, and we had timed out each interaction
that there's thirty three different interactions in that one ballroom scene,
the ballroom scene in episode one, the big ballroom scene
where the Bridgetons arrive and everybody's looking at them and
(33:58):
they promenade around the room and Anthony is already beginning
to turn people away, and the Featheringtons go over to
the Duke. So in that sequence there's thirty three smaller
little scenes that each need their own setups. They each
need to have their own unique shooting. So basically the
choreographer and me had rehearsed the whole sequence with all
(34:24):
of the acting and the actors the dancers had their
tiny little speakers in their ears, so they knew the
rhythm of the dance, how they were dancing, and then
we knew exactly where the actors had to be at
any given moment because we preplanned it. How long was rehearsal?
(34:47):
How long were you involved in rehearsal? We didn't have
that long. I think we had about We had a
couple of weeks maybe, but not every day. We only
had like a I would say a day on that
ballroom scene. But because leading up to that moment, we
had had a lot of dance rehearsals, so we decided
(35:08):
made group decisions about what the dancers would look like.
When I say group decisions, I'm including schandaland Chris obviously.
And we were already dancing to contemporary music as well,
because the fascinating things is that music is the same
rhythms now as it was back then. Sarada McDermott, every
(35:31):
single director had their own elements of balls and dancing.
Tom Berwicker had the most trick is because he had
the most like he had five balls, and he was
so brilliant at being pragmatic and making sure that all
of the flow was working between these different moments, because
of course you've got all different beads of storytelling in
(35:51):
each one of the balls, various different shapes of sizes
of dancing. All of them were themed differently. I mean,
you know we had a burlesque ball. I mean that
was pretty studying. My assistant Charlotte had to work out,
you know, which audition women in cages and magicians, all
(36:11):
sorts of things entertainers that we had to get for
that one. That was a Tom Verica, Tom Varka, and I,
oh my god, I think we should go into the
Guinness Book of Records for recording the number of balls
in only we did four balls. And of course the
brilliant Tom Bassett, the first assistant, I mean, my word,
(36:31):
can he ran a floor. We did four balls, three
in one building and the fourth one in another building
with only one day off. I mean, marathon, It's just
it's never been I don't think it's ever been done.
I really think there were many firsts on Bridgeton in
more ways than one. The balls were the biggest challenge
(36:54):
in blocking. Tom Baker directed episodes two and three. Bridgerton
you may know him as many things. Actually Tom is
an actor, he's an activist, he's a champion of diversity,
he's a director, and he's Chantaland's newest head of creative production.
Because you have seventeen characters, and one conversation will suddenly
(37:18):
go into another conversation in a different set of actors,
I basically have to lay out the plan of where
these actors are standing and how we're going to get
from one conversation to the next, whether we follow a
waiter with a drink tray that leads us to the
next conversation. So it gets very involved and very intricate,
and we didn't of course know what music or what
(37:40):
score we're going to use for these balls. But that
particular ball is where Simon and Daphne are dancing, and
it's probably the one that they have the most fun.
We are enjoying ourselves, as difficult as that. Maybe yes
quite in their their bouncing, he's doing a spin which
(38:00):
was not rehearsed, but it was really kind of this
them losing themselves in one another and part of that
courtship and falling in love with one another, and you know,
we had different songs we'd had playing, but because that
(38:20):
the energy of what I wanted, we had this library
of music and I picked this current day song by
Plan B that was just so fun and had this
energy and you even see Adua address like got this
little bop to her which she's you know, which is
probably not period, but again, we wanted to sort of
make that feeling of accessibility and a current and a
(38:42):
modern element to it. So we played this music that
I think everyone kind of kicked in the gear hearing that,
and then in post we lay in sort of a
fun classical piece, but that's what it probably felt like
to them if there was a classical piece back in
the time that was maybe a little bit more edgier,
and they probably you know, maybe had those moments, and
(39:03):
that's it's fun to sort of realize those moments and
you know, again to put that under underneath the scene
of what we actually played, because the music was very different.
If I may, I can honestly say that when we
were on set at the Hastings Ball in our studios,
so we weren't on location and it was the final
(39:25):
ball when Stormsy started playing and they danced its Storms
is the British rap Artists, and we danced to his
track The Crown. I mean that was that absolutely It
(39:45):
personified everything that we wanted to do. And we had
these twenty four dances, all of whom could have broken
out at any given moment into the most fantastic in
a lark or garage or popping, and there they were
fantastically restrained and they're being beautifully graceful to Stormsy's very
(40:06):
very beautiful peace. I'm thrilled with the dance that we
did to Storms, and I just knew by that point,
with costume, with set, with choreography, that we had nailed it.
It revealed itself to us that the choices we had
(40:28):
made were exciting choices. And that was a very very
beautiful moment. But I must say when the final dance
between Daphne and Simon, when they started dancing, I did
burst out crying because I did it. I did it
(40:49):
because it was the last dance and they danced so beautifully.
But then this extraordinary thing happened. Rains. I mean I
could rain now, but it was so so beautiful and
(41:11):
to be involved and to know that I was involved
with it, but also to watch the mover, to watch
the dancers, to watch you know, Nicola Reggae, to watch
the queen, to watch gold, to watch all these people.
And they run when the rain comes and it leaves,
and then there's this cleansing. Yes, And I actually I
(41:32):
knew the rain was going to happen because it's obviously
in the script and the final dance. Chris came up
with the music for the final dance, which is the
Max Ricketer and the spring and of the Vivaldi, and
I decided, because it was going to rain, that this
wonderful bounce in the music, I wanted them to be
(41:53):
like rain drops that actually they bring the rain. They
need the rain, they need the rain to move on.
So we do do a dance called a gallopade, and
it's a bouncing dance, and I said, I want you
to think that your rain drops hitting off the floor.
And that's how I got them to realize that. And
it's a very very I think it's a very moving
(42:15):
moment because you kind of get something's gonna happen, something's
gonna happen, something's gonna happen, and it does, and it's
the rain and so it's elemental and then there's extraordinary.
Do a lot between them and yeah and I and
my eyeballs rained all the way through it. We hope
(42:39):
you enjoyed this episode and that you'll come back to
hear more stories from behind the scenes of Bridgertin. Bridgertin
the Official Podcast is executive produced by Lauren Holman, Sandy Bailey,
Holly Fry and me Gabrielle Collins. Chris Vanduson is our producer.
Thanks for listening Bridgetin the Official Podcast. It's a production
(43:00):
of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get
your favorite shows.
Bridgetin. The Official Podcast is a partnership between Shondaland Audio
and iHeartRadio. There's a dance definitely comes down the stairs.
Oh yeah, she dances with Freddie the Prince and it's
like this hand movement they have rownny. It's just like,
oh yeah, yeah, by that mode. I love that. Yes,
(00:20):
it's from a statue. I took that from a Greek
statue and that's one of the ways I was trying
to find, you know, the adoration of the woman and
the adoration of the man. And then wouldn't you know,
Will are amazing production designer. I mean second to none.
(00:42):
Amen to that. Amen to that. Let me hear you say.
And he wh did he come up with? He come
up with those statues? I mean their synergy for you.
I mean the statues were doing the same thing because
my people weren't dancing. And that's a fluke. That was
a pure fluke. Gabrielle, Welcome to Bridgerton the Official Podcast.
(01:03):
I'm Gabrielle Collins. On this episode, we're talking about the
balls as a window into house score and choreography on
the show Came Together. We're talking with movement director Jack Murphy,
who's going to share his view on the importance of
Bridgerton's ball scenes, and we're also going to hear from
Julianne Robinson. But first we should put a spotlight on
(01:24):
an element that makes each end ever reball in Bridgerton
distinct and special, and that, my dear friends, is the music.
In order for us to talk about the music in
this episode, we've got to talk to Shonda Rhimes. Shonda
Rhimes and Shonda land shows are known for infusing television
(01:44):
with transformative moments through music. Why because music is another
piece of the storytelling, Babe to me, the music has
to provide the emotional impact of that overtaking the content
of a scene. Yep, that's Shonda. Everything should inherently feel
like a new invention and we're trying something new. That's
the point. That's what keeps us excited about doing our work,
(02:06):
whether I'm producing it or writing it myself. I want
us to feel like we're growing and what we're doing
we're not just standing still. We've never made a show
in England before, We've never made a show that felt
this way musically before. It was just a lot of
fun to do something that felt new and innovative Shanda
Land uses music to add levels to the fantasy, the aspiration,
(02:29):
the romance, and Shanda will listen to a song over
and over again while writing like She'll get stuck on it.
I mean, I think it's different for every show. And
when it comes to score, I am very much a
person who knows what I like and I know what
I don't like. But I cannot tell you why I
(02:51):
know what I like and what I don't like, which
drives composers crazy. One of Shanda Land's not so secret
weapons is composer Chris Bowers. We done some quality time
with Chris Bowers to learn more about his work with
Sean DeLand and all the regencies swag he infused his
compositions with. Chris found love for the piano early on,
(03:14):
but his start as a visual artist still impacts his
musical decisions today. I'm a really visual person my writing
process sometimes or even like sketch out a graphic representation,
like a graphic score, or even just like a short
little sketch that shows what this should feel like, because
sometimes it's nice to take things out of the context
(03:35):
of musical terms. Where else have you painted with music?
I think most recognizably, probably either when they see us
with Abdyven for Netflix or Green Book, the film with
Marshal Lee and Vigo Mortensen. Also, I work on a
show called Dear White People, and just did a film
(03:56):
called Bad Hair as well. Yeah, Chris Bowers is lit,
you know. Fortunately I had worked on For the People
a few years ago. That was a time where I
felt most nervous about working on a shawan Land project
and living up to those expectations. Essentially, sean Land chose
that they are really incredible at creating a sonic identity
(04:18):
and then going deep with it. I just felt excited
about how there were no limitations to how I wanted
to approach it, and that this was going to be
a grand show. That they were really like pulling out
all the shops and it came to way they were
shooting it in a costume and like the locations and
all this stuff, and so they wanted the music to
rise to that level as well, and so for me
(04:39):
that that felt like an exciting challenge. I just felt
like I can push myself to write music that I
don't get the opportunities to write very often. What was
really wonderful for me was that Chris Bowers had a
very clear He had a very clear way of giving
every scene or every person in their own too in
(05:00):
a way, and it just worked. It's very early on
in the process of working on the edits that I
could see that it was going to work beautifully. Like
there wasn't a lot of it wasn't a lot of
back and forth that this isn't working for me. He's
a really talented and he was managing to catch things
that I just I thought were amazing. He's just he
(05:20):
was good. I was just saying, I love this, this
isn't do more so. The first scenes they shared with
me were the ball scenes, and I think that was
a really interesting way to be introduced to this world.
It really showed me the grandness that we were able
to play with the score. I think that initially before
when I was just reading it, you're never really sure
how big of a scope it's going to feel, and
(05:43):
that really can affect the score because it's something that
feels much more intimate. You want to write intimate sounding
music like fewer musicians or things like that. But with
this we were able to play with the scale because
you have intimate moments between these characters and these love stories.
But then at the same time, the grandness of these
balls and these events, and the landscape and these big
(06:06):
houses and all these different things allowed us to write
these huge orchestral pieces, which you don't really get the
opportunity to do for a TV very often. Once we
got to post, one of the big questions was how
modern do you make the music? That's executive producer Betsy Beers.
Betsy is known for bringing together all of the many,
(06:26):
many moving parts of Shanda Land's creations. It's something which
shan Enough debated with back and forth over the years,
and I think what we all came to the conclusion
was we wanted to make sure, like every other part
of this, that there's never anything that takes you out
of the story, but that you want to remember that
there's modernity to the story. So the genius Chris Bowers
(06:50):
who composed the score. If you listen to the score, yeah,
it's got a traditional feel to it, but it has
these very sort of subversive elements throughout that pop up
at points and whether you're totally aware of it or not,
kind of make you realize, oh no, no, no, this
this this isn't a front beat, dusty Regency show. This
(07:13):
has a little more pop to it when we first
see Daphne and Simon come on to the dance floor
after they've made this agreement. It's this huge, huge piece,
definitely the most ambitious piece that I wrote for the season.
(07:35):
But it encapsulates all these different themes, like Daphne's theme
and also their theme together. We could pretend to film
that attachment. You never really know how that's going to
work until you get into the nitty gritty and try
it with my own world. To believe I finally found
my duchess. When you described that, I just thought about
(08:00):
Shock and Delight. That's one of my favorite ones, and
that for me, really I think encapsulates what you're saying
to Actually, do you have a favorite piece? I think
(08:24):
that Shock and Delight is definitely one of my favorite
favorite pieces. What Women Do Best is another favorite of mine.
I think I just had a lot of fun. That
was one that was a big challenge, and I had
(08:51):
wrote maybe five or six different attempts, and the last
attempt was one of those moments where I was like,
I'm just gonna try something kind of crazier or really
good for it. Essentially, tell us how you approached your
work after you first saw those, you know, first images.
(09:13):
I started writing music really early in the process. They
were still shooting, and we had this time to play
around and try these different options and have this sandbox period.
And the thing that really unlocked it for me personally
was Simon and Daphanie's piano theme. So, you know, Chris
(09:39):
asked me to write that theme for them to shoot too,
so they needed it really early in the process, and
he sent me some pieces that were bits of inspiration
for him, and a lot of those pieces were Revel
piano pieces and a couple of other pieces that felt
really impressionistic and you know, era wise, maybe it's not
(10:00):
specifically eighteen thirteen, but it's definitely something that feels older
than now, of course. But the biggest thing I think
is just how much romance you can feel in the
sound of that music and that style of music. And
that's really what started to unlock this feeling of a
little bit of modernity and something that felt for me,
I think, really impressionistic and whispy or very or you
(10:25):
think what impressionistic painting, for example, you look at like
it looks like a scene that's recognizable, like you can
tell that's a park or a lake or a pond.
But it's all been a little, a little washy and
a little dreaming, you know. I think that's a good
word for it, is dreaming. So, Chris, we see musicians
throughout the different corners of the ballroom scenes. We're doing
(10:47):
bird's eye views, we're in close quarters, and you are
capturing all of that space in your score. How did
those scenes influence your approach? Yeah, I noticed that Chris,
whenever he would panchos or an instrument being performed, he
would always want that instrument to speak a little bit
more so if we saw a harpist playing or if
(11:09):
we saw a violinist playing something at a certain moment,
we wanted to bring that out in the piece itself.
But then other than that, we didn't really use the
instrumentation of the band that we're seeing as the basis
of the instrumentation. You know, I think most of those
ensembles were pretty small, and we wanted the balls to
feel really grand, and so the score is actually much
(11:31):
larger than whatever band is actually playing there. But we
would always highlight whatever instrument he would maybe pan to
except for a little bit later, like when they go
to the opera, for example. We wanted that to feel
specifically like this might be the orchestra playing this piece
while everybody's walking in or something like that. And although
it's mixed a little bit more like score and it
(11:53):
doesn't sound like it's coming from that space, the instrumentation
is written a little bit differently, so it feels like
it's in that space, or like the brothel type area,
or you know, any of those types of spaces. We
wanted it to feel a little bit more like this
could be a band that's playing in this space, and
(12:13):
so let's have it be a little bit smaller. Pick
some different instruments that made me feel like could have
been of that time. Here's creator Chris van Dusen. We
always joked that there were no dating apps, obviously, but
the men and women at these balls were still swiping
left and right until the early morning hours. Finding those
(12:34):
modern references was really fun for us. Among the modern
references in Bridgerton, we couldn't possibly miss the pop covers.
Did we not collectively just stop when we heard the
first trills of Ariana Grandez? Thank you? Next play I
know we did. We all did. The most important thing
(12:58):
was you could watch this and feel like you could
be part of this world, and it was immediate to you.
If we don't do that, I don't think we fully
do our job. Betsy has so many amazing qualities. One
thing is her ear for music. We really came to
the music during post production, once we had all of
(13:20):
the episodes shot and we were really looking at the
series as a whole. We wanted to try a number
of different things. We tried strictly classical at one point,
strictly modern at another point, and what we landed on were,
especially for these larger set pieces and these really important moments,
were classical reinterpretations of modern day pop songs. And that
(13:45):
was something that Betsy and I both fell in love
with when we heard them play against these scenes. It
ends up being both the strange sort of subconscious feeling
of Wow, I've heard that song before, but it didn't
sound like that, and a little fun easter egg for
the fans and the viewers, so that when they listen
to this they say with that way, whoa, whoa, wha,
what the hell is that song? I wanted whoever's watching
(14:10):
to feel the same way that the characters themselves felt
on screen. So, for example, when Daphne Bridgeton is walking
into a ballroom and she hears this classical rendition of
Ariana Grande's thank You Next, and she's filled with so
much energy and spirit. I wanted that same energy to
(14:31):
translate to the viewer. I wanted when you're hearing this
amazing song and you get excited, That's exactly how Daphney
would have felt at that moment. And I think that
these modern day pop songs because you recognize them and
it's fun and it's energetic and it's spirited, and I
think that's the show. Chris worked with long time Shonda
Land music supervisor Alex Potsavas and dug In. If we're
(14:54):
talking about music and we're talking about Shanda Land, we
cannot go forward work without talking about Alex pat Sabas.
Alex is the catalyst of the Vitamin String Quartet pop
covers that are making up our High Team playlists. She's
a three time Grammy nominee known for her crazy juxtaposition
of sound and image. She can lay a track in
(15:17):
a TV show and she's also done films. Twilight is
one of them. I mean, she gave us those ugly
crime moments in Grey's Anatomy, and she gave us the
sound of the eighteen thirteen dating scene, which is stirred
up with these string covers that we're talking about. She's
just been a legend for such a long time, and
that's exactly why she just knows how to, you know,
(15:40):
take the right angle with the show and with the
music that she picks for it. So she had started
placing a lot of the Vitamin String Quartet pieces throughout
the season, and they're really like one of the best
groups at covering these pop songs in a classical way,
in a way that I as a musician can listen
(16:00):
to and feel like, oh wow, that orchestration is really
good or these players are really good and really be
impressed by the musicality of it. But then at the
same time, somebody that's not a musician can can listen
to it and say, oh, I know that song and
really know they can hear the entire song within with
just these four musicians playing. And so Alex Potsavas picking
(16:20):
those cues I think was not only influential of the
way that I approached the score, but really just with
each of those spots made us feel the way the
characters feel. I think what is so interesting is that
nobody heard any of this music while filming, the actors, dancers,
extras crew. What I loved about watching the show on
(16:43):
Christmas Day with everyone else here's Annabelle hood is hearing
the music for the first time, those now famous violin
covers of you know, Ariana Grande and such. Is that
we didn't have that while we were filming. They would.
They were different songs, so they were dancing to different tracks,
but they were still modern and they were still upbeat.
(17:03):
But you hear the song so many times over and
over again that you think, oh God, I hope I
never hear this song again. Then you think, oh no,
I'm going to hear this song when the show comes out.
And then when the show came out and it was
that incredible violin covers for some of the balls, I
was blown away. That was one of the things where
it was really special that I didn't know that that's
(17:24):
what that was. I have to say I inspired mister
Chris Bowers. I think, oh no, no, I was kidding.
I was kidding. I was kidding. That's Jack Murphy, the
movement director. I'm Bridgerton. Yeah, Jack's one of my favorite
people from the crew. Jack took just as many liberties
and the dance numbers as the soundtrack to show whif
(17:45):
the dating scene of the regency era. We'll find out
what music the actors and dancers were originally whilsting too,
and Jack will explain all of that later. Welcome back,
(18:05):
Hi again. It's me Annabelle. I'm a terrible dancer. There
was a point where Jack Murphy, our choreographer, was trying
to teach a few of us, Chris me Amy Mack,
the script supervisor, how to dance. I'm a terrible dancer.
I have two left feet. So whenever there was a
(18:28):
ball scene and I'd see the dances and they had
obviously been rehearsing, and the cast had been rehearsing over
and over again, I just thought it was magical because
it was something I could never ever do. And Jack
tried very hard to try and teach us how to dance,
and we're not very good. I can't imagine how grueling
it must have been for the introverts, you know, to
(18:48):
be pressed up on so many people, so many nights
a week. I mean those dances were literally twenty to
thirty minute physical endeavors. It's where suitors made their first moves,
you know, the young misses put their bosoms forward, which
makes me think about something that Hannah said about the
marriage market and dancing. Often we lose the sense of
(19:13):
how incredibly seductive the dance floor is at the time,
and just that chemistry and the electricity of that close
physical contact because people didn't have much body contact when
you're in the marriage market. You might take a man's
hand to get in and out of a carriage, but
dancing is basically almost full body contact, and particularly in
(19:35):
regency times when we have the Woltz, which is body
against body. If you do two dances or three dances,
that's half an hour altogether of absolutely electric flirtatious you know,
hot chemistry and body contact is incredibly exciting and romantic
(19:56):
and erotic. So the barroom scenes are really important. The
ballroom is a living, breathing fixture of the show's major
themes and events, and so was the act of presenting
oneself to society. The movement involved in all of this
has cultural and historical roots. For example, when Daphne presents
to the queen. She has to reverence. That became my
(20:19):
responsibility because of the wonderful work of Julianne Robinson and
Chris involving me. So we looked with Daphne at how
your reverence. Jack Murphy is known for his work in
British theater and his sweet spot the classics. What is
it to revere your head of state, your queen? And
(20:40):
of course then you've got the fantastic contrast to the Featherington.
So your polaric differences, polaric distances apart. But I have
to tell you Episode one I found glorious. I was ah,
I was on my breath with her, our wonderful Daphne,
because I had in a term world that's going on.
(21:00):
Does she believe in this whole setup? Does she believe
in all these protocols, these rules and regulations. But at
the same time, she's realizing that she's not wanting to
give too much away because of the complexity of that character,
which is just fabulous for such a young woman to play.
So I was thrilled to be there on set filming
the movement of the reverence, but the presentation the dead's
coming out to the queen, because I think it's paramount
(21:23):
that physically it's right, because just because you can't see
it doesn't mean it's not there. And by that I
mean the movement direction, the direction I gave to lovely
Phoebe who took it so well. And Phoebe, you know,
she has this facility that she can be very very serious,
but she can be very witty and very cheeky, and
she found the balance in that reverence. Jack, let's go
(21:46):
back to the beginning. Why don't you tell us how
you got involved with the bridget In I was in Spain.
I went to Spain with the scripts and I sat
on a balcony and the sun was shining and I
read those scripts and of course that's set in eighteen
thirteen summer, and it was just absolutely delightful. But I'm
very pleased of it was in Spain because I had
to go and have very long walks on the beach,
(22:06):
because it wasn't very long before I realized that this
was going to be possibly the job of my life,
because the involvement of a movement person of Chorogher was
evident from every single scene, whether there was a ball
or dance or not. There were many moments like this
that we're going to become my responsibility if given that opportunity,
(22:29):
because it doesn't always happen. I knew that it would
need the stars to align for me to actually realize
this job. It's just consummate. It's a consummate job for
a movement director choreographer like myself. Tell us how you
met Chris So. I first met Chris van Dusen on
(22:49):
the page and I found myself chuckling because you know,
I was the system choreographer on the very famous BBC
production or Pride and Prejudice and what I didn't read
back then, this dude walks into the room and you know,
checks out this chick. Well, I found the stage directions
on Bridget and so refreshing, so honest, so now so
(23:12):
fabulously witty that I kind of I They had me
at the stage directions before I even read the dialogue.
And that's all Chris. You know, I just thought, you know,
he's debunked so much about the myth. You know, it's
two hundred years and yeah, we could read the books
and red. So that's when I first met Chris. Okay, okay,
(23:35):
so the first time you met in person. The first
time I met Chris and the flesh was at the
Bloomsbury Hotel at my second interview. I mean, and I
knew from his handshake that I liked him, because I
don't know about you. A handshake is again, you know,
an action. You are making a connection and you're making
(23:56):
an engagement and you're investing your energy into that other
person and we shakes your hand. It's genuine. So after
this handshake, how did you all come together to map
out the movement of bridgertin like the shape of Bridgton
working on a script of this wit. The wit that
(24:17):
Chris has developed and realized with his team is really
the starting point for finding the style of our world.
In the first and foremost Julia Quinn, that comes from
her imagination, everything she invested into that book. So subliminally,
the world, the fantastical world, starts with the day that
(24:40):
Julia Quinn sat at her desk with a blank page
and then started to write. That's when the investment starts.
So it's a realization of her imagination. It's a realization
of Chris's imagination. So there are already two filters, and
then the third filter is of course the history what
(25:01):
can and can't you do? In eighteen thirteen? How do
you correctly? For example, if I wanted to do a
dance with you, Gabraelle, how would I ask you to dance?
So the etiquette, so the dances tell us very much
how to because in order to ask related to dance,
that informs me that outside of the ball, my approach
(25:22):
to certain ladies is not permissible. So when I am allowed,
when I am allowed to do something like would you
like the pleasure of this dance? I have to follow
certain protocols. So that becomes the real world of the regency.
And then the fantasy I have to say, is the
fact that that is so far removed from our own world.
(25:43):
And what rules did you bend? And why you know?
I didn't know a great deal about these novels, and
then when I researched them, I realize how many languages
they've been translated into. And then I realize, oh, my word,
a norful lot of people are going to watch Bridge
they speak another language, or English is their second language.
(26:04):
So that gave me a lot of inspiration to get
a little bit naughty, a little bit saucy with some
of the steps I used. How did I how did
I deviate from the historical to the fantasy. Well, that's
what you know, wouldn't it be lovely if you could
touch you know? How can you break the rules but
you're not allowed to touch their face? I mean, the
fact is you're only there's very little you're allowed to touch.
(26:26):
So it's this gesture. So I was playing with gesture
and the idea that instead of touching the face, I
can take behind because the statue is allowing me to
do so, and the inspiration comes from the classical, from
the Greek. So but that's where I broke the rules.
I broke, and I was happy to break rules. I mean,
(26:48):
I broke rules in the dancing, you know, with steps,
and I want to if I may lay a challenge
right here and now for our wonderful, wonderful viewers in Brazil.
There are two dances at the Trowbridge Ball and there
(27:08):
are two rhythms that they are dancing that are not regency.
So I kept the form of the regency dances, but
I changed the rhythms and those rhythms, my dear friends,
my our fans, our fans in Brazil will know what
those rhythms are there's a chatter cha and a samba
(27:33):
because because of listen listen, listen, listen, listen, listen. In
either a jig or a real step, you have a
triple step. In a chacha, you have a triple step.
It's called a chasse cyclos side, which is exactly the
same as a skip change of step in a reel
or a chig. The only thing is my my chacha
(27:55):
was done to originally, so before the amazing incomparable Chris
Bows got his hands on it and his genius on it,
I did it to blurred lines without lyrics, so not
to offend you were all dancing to music like storm Z.
(28:15):
Can you explain that absolutely? So I choreographed all of
the dances to modern music, having originally choreographed them to
reach the music, Chreer said, let's use music that has
soul and energy but still allows you to realize the
world historically, but finding the polaric with the fantasy. So
(28:38):
I use Rihanna. I used lots and lots and lots
of fantastic soul music. I use storm Z. I use Pink.
We danced to Pink and this is how it went.
I would find a link, send it to Chris and
say here's five tracks that I think are suitable for this.
(29:00):
Chris will come back to say I like three of them,
find me two more. I would go and find another two.
Going back, he said, like them, choreograph them. So I
did the job twice. So I did it in regency
and then applied the regency to the model and then
gave it the twist. After the break, we'll hear how
directors Tom Berica and Julianne Robinson can make magic on screen.
(29:33):
Welcome back to Bridgerton the official podcast I'm Gabby, and
we had a chance to hear from movement director Jack
Murphy and composer Chris Bowers about marrying the dance moves
with the score. Let's turn now to director Julianne Robinson.
I've thought of a decision that I made that I'm
really proud of. Robinson is a British television director. She's
(29:56):
worked on Masters of Sex, Nurse Jackie or Just the
New Black, and she co produced the Catch for Chandelan.
Julie's been with Chandelan for some fifteen years now, and
she directed episode one and six of Bridgeton Okay at
the assembly rooms. We were looking at the key room
where we were going to do this big ballroom sequence,
(30:18):
and I was looking at the chandeliers, and we were
told the chandeliers were worth five million pounds each each.
I think one of them was worth even more than that,
and I heard that they were on a pulley system.
So I spoke to Jeff Ja and I said, wouldn't
it be great if we lowered the chandeliers so that
(30:39):
they're almost just above the heads of the dancers, and
so that those chandeliers, which are worth so much money,
will be in every shot of the ballroom scene. We
lowered the chandeliers significantly. What's scary about that is we
had a technic crane in the room, and the technic
crane is a huge arm that could kind of sweep
(31:04):
past the chandeliers. And there were a couple of moments
where Jeff j wonderful crane operator. Jeff would be operating
the crane himself, but it would get so close to
the chandeliers. Five million pounds with chandeliers, no no, no, no,
no no oh. So you were just holding your breath.
(31:27):
Was there was a couple of moments where I was
holding my breath. There was very long lectures from people
about how we cannot swing that crane anywhere near the
chandeliers because the chandeliers are so so expensive. There from
the time period, I believe it's hard to describe how
dense and woven every decision is. I think a decision
(31:50):
that I'm very proud of was how we were to
go about shooting the ballroom sequence in episode. One key
decision that Jeff, Ja and I made together was to
spend most of the time shooting into the ballroom instead
of towards the walls. If you imagine filming from this
(32:11):
perspective this way, you've got to choregraph these dancers so
that they are doing the exact same move at the
exact same time every single time that you shoot seen,
so these dancers all know exactly what they're doing at
that moment, because obviously you shoot it again and again
and again, and so it's a very difficult and complicated
(32:32):
thing to do. You have to choregraph the whole sequence
as one, rather than being able to shoot a lot
of different separate scenes. So that was one that I
felt like it was really tricky, It was really difficult
to do, but it gave the ballroom sequences a sense
(32:53):
of movement and shape that I personally, I'm really proud of.
What it actually makes me wonder is how much of
it is like marching band. Was there some big metronome
in the ballroom or something like that where people knew,
okay when Daphanie says this, I am hitting this beat
(33:16):
and step over here. So that's a really good question.
The answer is all of the dancers had earwigs that
were hidden from the camera, tiny little speakers in their
ears so they could hear the music when they were dancing.
(33:37):
It was almost completely silent in that room because they
were dancing lightly, and we had timed out each interaction
that there's thirty three different interactions in that one ballroom scene,
the ballroom scene in episode one, the big ballroom scene
where the Bridgetons arrive and everybody's looking at them and
(33:58):
they promenade around the room and Anthony is already beginning
to turn people away, and the Featheringtons go over to
the Duke. So in that sequence there's thirty three smaller
little scenes that each need their own setups. They each
need to have their own unique shooting. So basically the
choreographer and me had rehearsed the whole sequence with all
(34:24):
of the acting and the actors the dancers had their
tiny little speakers in their ears, so they knew the
rhythm of the dance, how they were dancing, and then
we knew exactly where the actors had to be at
any given moment because we preplanned it. How long was rehearsal?
(34:47):
How long were you involved in rehearsal? We didn't have
that long. I think we had about We had a
couple of weeks maybe, but not every day. We only
had like a I would say a day on that
ballroom scene. But because leading up to that moment, we
had had a lot of dance rehearsals, so we decided
(35:08):
made group decisions about what the dancers would look like.
When I say group decisions, I'm including schandaland Chris obviously.
And we were already dancing to contemporary music as well,
because the fascinating things is that music is the same
rhythms now as it was back then. Sarada McDermott, every
(35:31):
single director had their own elements of balls and dancing.
Tom Berwicker had the most trick is because he had
the most like he had five balls, and he was
so brilliant at being pragmatic and making sure that all
of the flow was working between these different moments, because
of course you've got all different beads of storytelling in
(35:51):
each one of the balls, various different shapes of sizes
of dancing. All of them were themed differently. I mean,
you know we had a burlesque ball. I mean that
was pretty studying. My assistant Charlotte had to work out,
you know, which audition women in cages and magicians, all
(36:11):
sorts of things entertainers that we had to get for
that one. That was a Tom Verica, Tom Varka, and I,
oh my god, I think we should go into the
Guinness Book of Records for recording the number of balls
in only we did four balls. And of course the
brilliant Tom Bassett, the first assistant, I mean, my word,
(36:31):
can he ran a floor. We did four balls, three
in one building and the fourth one in another building
with only one day off. I mean, marathon, It's just
it's never been I don't think it's ever been done.
I really think there were many firsts on Bridgeton in
more ways than one. The balls were the biggest challenge
(36:54):
in blocking. Tom Baker directed episodes two and three. Bridgerton
you may know him as many things. Actually Tom is
an actor, he's an activist, he's a champion of diversity,
he's a director, and he's Chantaland's newest head of creative production.
Because you have seventeen characters, and one conversation will suddenly
(37:18):
go into another conversation in a different set of actors,
I basically have to lay out the plan of where
these actors are standing and how we're going to get
from one conversation to the next, whether we follow a
waiter with a drink tray that leads us to the
next conversation. So it gets very involved and very intricate,
and we didn't of course know what music or what
(37:40):
score we're going to use for these balls. But that
particular ball is where Simon and Daphne are dancing, and
it's probably the one that they have the most fun.
We are enjoying ourselves, as difficult as that. Maybe yes
quite in their their bouncing, he's doing a spin which
(38:00):
was not rehearsed, but it was really kind of this
them losing themselves in one another and part of that
courtship and falling in love with one another, and you know,
we had different songs we'd had playing, but because that
(38:20):
the energy of what I wanted, we had this library
of music and I picked this current day song by
Plan B that was just so fun and had this
energy and you even see Adua address like got this
little bop to her which she's you know, which is
probably not period, but again, we wanted to sort of
make that feeling of accessibility and a current and a
(38:42):
modern element to it. So we played this music that
I think everyone kind of kicked in the gear hearing that,
and then in post we lay in sort of a
fun classical piece, but that's what it probably felt like
to them if there was a classical piece back in
the time that was maybe a little bit more edgier,
and they probably you know, maybe had those moments, and
(39:03):
that's it's fun to sort of realize those moments and
you know, again to put that under underneath the scene
of what we actually played, because the music was very different.
If I may, I can honestly say that when we
were on set at the Hastings Ball in our studios,
so we weren't on location and it was the final
(39:25):
ball when Stormsy started playing and they danced its Storms
is the British rap Artists, and we danced to his
track The Crown. I mean that was that absolutely It
(39:45):
personified everything that we wanted to do. And we had
these twenty four dances, all of whom could have broken
out at any given moment into the most fantastic in
a lark or garage or popping, and there they were
fantastically restrained and they're being beautifully graceful to Stormsy's very
(40:06):
very beautiful peace. I'm thrilled with the dance that we
did to Storms, and I just knew by that point,
with costume, with set, with choreography, that we had nailed it.
It revealed itself to us that the choices we had
(40:28):
made were exciting choices. And that was a very very
beautiful moment. But I must say when the final dance
between Daphne and Simon, when they started dancing, I did
burst out crying because I did it. I did it
(40:49):
because it was the last dance and they danced so beautifully.
But then this extraordinary thing happened. Rains. I mean I
could rain now, but it was so so beautiful and
(41:11):
to be involved and to know that I was involved
with it, but also to watch the mover, to watch
the dancers, to watch you know, Nicola Reggae, to watch
the queen, to watch gold, to watch all these people.
And they run when the rain comes and it leaves,
and then there's this cleansing. Yes, And I actually I
(41:32):
knew the rain was going to happen because it's obviously
in the script and the final dance. Chris came up
with the music for the final dance, which is the
Max Ricketer and the spring and of the Vivaldi, and
I decided, because it was going to rain, that this
wonderful bounce in the music, I wanted them to be
(41:53):
like rain drops that actually they bring the rain. They
need the rain, they need the rain to move on.
So we do do a dance called a gallopade, and
it's a bouncing dance, and I said, I want you
to think that your rain drops hitting off the floor.
And that's how I got them to realize that. And
it's a very very I think it's a very moving
(42:15):
moment because you kind of get something's gonna happen, something's
gonna happen, something's gonna happen, and it does, and it's
the rain and so it's elemental and then there's extraordinary.
Do a lot between them and yeah and I and
my eyeballs rained all the way through it. We hope
(42:39):
you enjoyed this episode and that you'll come back to
hear more stories from behind the scenes of Bridgertin. Bridgertin
the Official Podcast is executive produced by Lauren Holman, Sandy Bailey,
Holly Fry and me Gabrielle Collins. Chris Vanduson is our producer.
Thanks for listening Bridgetin the Official Podcast. It's a production
(43:00):
of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get
your favorite shows.
Host
Gabrielle Collins
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