Musical odd couple nominated for Daytime Emmy
Composer, rocker a winning team for cartoon show
Local score composer David Burns and Ottawa rock ’n’ roller Matt Ouimet have a chance to share the stage together in Pasadena this weekend as nominees for a Daytime Emmy.
Strangely, for the musical odd couple, it will be about the longest period of time the two have spent in the same room together.
Burns, who has worked for years as a composer with BartMart Studios in the Glebe, and has about 850 television episodes under his belt, and rocker Ouimet, who plies his trade with the likes of Hawksley Workman and Jeremy Fisher in his night job, now share their first-ever Emmy nomination for outstanding music direction and composition for their work on the oddball Nickelodeon children’s show, Pig Goat Banana Cricket.
“Here’s the hilarious thing — we never did anything together. We only spoke, maybe a handful of times, through the whole production, and even then it was only about logistics,” says Ouimet, who composed and performed the songs, including those voiced by the show’s Goat character, while Burns composed the score.
“When my stuff went over to Burns, it was up to him to fit the music around the characters.”
Burns said it’s customary for the songs to be composed remotely, allowing animators to sync the character’s motions with the words. The score comes later, once a rough cut has been assembled.
“It worked quite well,” said Burns. “I would be aware of Matt’s work when I got the final episode, so I would be spotting the show while seeing it for the first time. So we had to make quick decisions on what needed to happen musically at any point. I would see a rough cut, and I had the benefit of seeing that, while Matt was sort of working from the outside. It’s an interesting way to work.
“Matt had the unenviable task of having to write a song without having anything in front of him. So you’re always running uphill.
“So then they take that song and they animate to that. They have to sync their lips to the words of the song, and in that show, there were some really crazy outlandish things they were doing. And part of the fun of the show was the absurdity factor.”
Both Burns and Ouimet were brought into the production through a mutual contact in noted Ottawa animator Dave Cooper, the show’s co-creator.
“Dave Cooper realized we needed to have songs written, and I’m not a singer-songwriter. I don’t sing, I don’t write lyrics,” said Burns.
Enter Ouimet, who says the transition from the Friday night bar circuit to Saturday morning cartoons wasn’t as much of a stretch as you’d think.
“I was already making silly songs anyway,” Ouimet said jokingly.
After he was approached by Cooper, he had a script in hand around 3 p.m. and an order to submit three songs by that evening.
“The turnaround was way faster than what I’m usually accustomed to, but with Hawksley Workman or Jeremy Fisher, I’ve played every instrument in those bands, so I know where things fit together as a rock ’n’ roller,” said Ouimet.
The producers liked what they heard, and from there, the rest was up to Burns.
“Matt would have about a minute or two per episode, and the rest was score,” said Burns, saying the two musical elements were the product of nearly opposite creative processes.
“We would sit through (a rough cut) and hit what’s going on screen, so you have to match tempos, and in scoring you’re making things fluid and malleable so it’s always in sync with the images. That’s part of the challenge. There could be 30 to 40 ‘hit points’ within a minute.”
Both Burns and Ouimet were in disbelief when they learned of the Emmy nomination.
“I was just working away and got an email from Matt, and it was a very cryptic email saying, ‘Hey did you see this?’ And I thought he was pulling my leg.
“So I went to the website and stared at it for 10 seconds, thinking it was a misprint. And I went a grabbed some colleagues just to make sure, and they were all staring at the screen. We were really in disbelief. I hadn’t expected it in the slightest,” said Burns.
“For me, this is really a culmination of the last 20 years of my life, where it’s nice just to be given a nod. No one can take an Emmy nomination away from me, and I’ll take that. We gave it everything we had on that show. It was labour intensive and a challenge, and I wouldn’t trade that for the world.”
For Ouimet, who also scores a Teletoons show and has recently started work on an HBO production, the nomination is a feather in his cap.
“I’m super honoured, it’s bananas,” he said. “I totally work in my underwear, so it makes no sense that I should be noted, anywhere.” Aedan.helmer@postmedia.com Twitter.com/ helmera