Disney’s animated series, Elena of Avalor is reaching its culmination! With the finale coronation special airing tomorrow, Sunday, 23 August on Disney Junior, Emmy-nominated music composer Tony Morales is reflecting on his fulfilling musical journey with the series, which was his first venture into scoring for animation.
Morales has composed a total of 76 episodes which earned him three consecutive Daytime Emmy nominations and one Annie Awards nomination. The recognition gave him the validation that his music served the purpose he had hoped for.
As a Mexican-American composer, he is honoured to have had the opportunity to work on a show related to the Latinx community. A father to two young girls, it has been more fulfilling for him to create the score for Disney’s first Latina princess.
With Elena of Avalor, he was able to craft music which looked like a true cinematic production and highlights the exciting story arc of Elena’s journey to become queen. AnimationXpress had the pleasure to have an exclusive chat with Morales on his stint with Elena of Avalor. Here’s what he reflected upon:
1. Firstly congratulations on a wonderful journey with Elena of Avalor, and now it’s nearing its ending episode. How are you feeling? How has your experience been throughout this time?
Thank you very much. I’m feeling emotional. It’s a bitter-sweet end of what has been a really joyful journey of being associated with a project to be proud of for the past four/five years of my life. It’s fantastic that we have been working on the show consistently from the office and then home and involved with the very fabric of the show. This is my first animation project and I’m really proud of my work. It’s sad to let this go, but at the end of the day, I’m grateful to be a part of it.
2. Since this is your first venture into animation, how is it different than composing for live-action projects?
Well, stylistically animation projects require a little more attention. For Elena of Avalor, we needed more of an orchestral environment and feel especially coming from Disney. This particular storyline has classic Disney touch with orchestral pieces, with some Latin and Turkish words. The characters too belong to different worlds. The second difference is the aesthetics of the storyline. The nature of music can evoke many meanings for audiences to understand. It also helps a lot in pointing out many physical attributes going on with the characters – whether somebody falls down or a wink, if there’s an impending problem, music helps in giving cue points. So, we need to craft the music carefully to handle those emotions and matching critical actions with the characters.
3. What are the points that you keep in mind when you are composing an animated project, as there are so many edits and reedits and changes of script, dialogues and even the entire setup at times entirely in animation. Is it challenging?
Yeah that’s actually right. That’s usually a result of any animated film. Someone wants to hear the music before the sequence is ready or the vice-versa. It generally involves a lot of cuts. Fortunately in our case I worked for the picture edit parts like – for change in frames, structures and then put in the music accordingly. But in some sequences where animation isn’t fully complete or there’s a tight schedule, we have also composed music parallely. These sequences we added in the end after colour corrections and background checks. To fit in the music in those frames, I imagined these scenes in my head as how would these look like. Before I delivered the music fully I was fortunate enough to run through the entire thing and make necessary fine tunings for the next episode.
4. Is it more difficult to compose music for an animated feature film or an animated series like Elena of Avalor? Which one do you think requires more attention and dedication?
I think an animated series requires more attention but a feature is also no less, but the most important part is the production schedule it comes with. For an animation feature film, usually they come with a one year lease. For series there are multiple schedules so the work is comparatively tighter as we work on multiple episodes. We have much less time to work in television and more so when it is an animated musical. We are mostly the post production people. With Elena it was no exception. When I started working on it I was given a schedule beforehand so that I can get warmed up for the process. These schedules were obviously updated later and rescheduled. But it was a challenge for sure when the schedule gets shortened.
5. You have been working on this Disney musical for four years now. How has the experience been because Disney animated musicals have always created a mark with audiences all across the world.
I’m thrilled. I’m beyond proud and it still doesn’t seem real. It’s like a crazy dream come true. I never thought I’d be able to say that I have been a composer on a Disney project and now I can. Elena of Avalor will be implemented into the Disney parks like Disneyland (California), Disney World (Florida) and many more. When I’ll go there with my kids and see the character I’ll be elated as I was the composer for it, even for my daughters, and it’s just overwhelming.
6. The finale episode is tomorrow, 23 August. How was it like working on the finale episode, given the pandemic and most people working from home, was it a challenge to do music recordings or voiceovers remotely? How did you manage or did you complete some of the work pre-pandemic?
When I began working on Elena of Avalor, we had meetings at regular intervals between myself, the director and show creator to talk about where what kind of music should go. We started the finale episode one week into a pandemic, so I was composing the entire thing through the pandemic this April and May. My studio’s at home and I already had everything set up, so I didn’t have any sort of work transition and the pandemic wasn’t a big change. Every change or feedback happens back and forth between myself and the producers. I initially showed them what I wrote and played with the music. Then we talked about it and went over for a change if needed. And then finally mix it. I sent them the music virtually and then all of us would get on a Zoom call and talk about it and finalise everything. I was able to carry on with normal production and could record and mix with instruments in my studio virtually.
7. According to you, what role does music play in bringing the magic alive of a story or Elena of Avalor for that matter?
The role of the music for Elena has always been to support the storyline, characters, and the setting, so that audiences resonate with it. Music plays many roles, sometimes it amplifies things and sometimes it tones down things. For Elena my main aim was to charm the audience with magical Disney orchestral enchantments combined with a lot of mechanical instruments providing a unique sound experience, and a larger than life feel.
8. As a music composer and lyricist, where do you draw inspiration from?
I’m a composer for film and TV; that’s what drives me – visuals and storyline to create great and suitable music. Writing/composing music for any project comes with a deadline and that that pushes me to commit. I draw inspiration from different places and a lot of information that I gather. I talk to my collaborators and try to envision their requirements. I usually lock myself in a room and write music for several days and experiment with different ideas, instruments. I’m generally open to finding inspiration and in a variety of ways around myself.
9. Will we see you composing music for another Disney project after this very soon?
I hope so. I don’t have any plans with them right now. But I’m very close to everyone I worked with on the show and I hope to remain in the family.
10. How are your daughters reacting to this fact that you composed music for four years on this show?
Well, they are unable to forget that they are higher than the age of the target audience for the show. They were kids when I started working on this and now one of them is heading into high-school. They’re happy.
