Blink Twiceis a new dramatic thriller from the mind of first-time feature film director Zoë Kravitz. The idea, one in which cocktail waiter Frida (Naomi Ackie) is invited to the private island of tech mogul Slater King (Channing Tatum) began in 2017 based on Kravitz’s own experiences watching power dynamics play out in rooms of powerful people. Events like the #MeToo movement would only confirm the continued relevance of Kravitz’s idea, further encouraging the filmmaker to make the movie—even if she would go on to alter the original title ofPussy Island.
Among other things,Screen Rant’sBlink Twicereviewpraises the movie’s ability to command an audience’s attention. This is in large part due to the work of stars Ackie, Tatum, Alia Shawkat, and others as well as Kravitz’s directorial prowess, but much credit is also due to the movie’s composer Chanda Dancy. Dancy is a singer, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and film scorer, whose work onBlink Twicehelps to elevate both the film’s aesthetic and its growing sense of dread.
Blink Twice Soundtrack Guide: Every Song & When They Play
The Blink Twice soundtrack is loaded with recognizable songs and artists like Beyoncé, James Brown, and Chaka Khan. Here’s when each song plays.
In conversation withScreen Rant, Dancy reflected on her unconventional approach to scoringBlink Twice, which saw the composer working largely away from picture. She praised Kravitz’s directorial instincts and weighed in on the title change. Dancy is also Emmy-nominated for her work onLawmen: Bass Reeves, and touched on the possibility of aLawmen: Bass Reevesseason 2.
“Oh My God, I Have To Do This”: Chanda Dancy On Joining A Movie Called ‘Pussy Island’
Screen Rant: I’m excited to hear how this score came together. How’d you find your way to this movie?
Chanda Dancy: It was definitely luck. Something in the ether. Seriously. My agent just contacted me one day and said, “Hey, one of the music supervisors at MGM wants to put you up for a film. It’s called ‘Pussy Island’, directed by Zoë Kravitz.” I was like, “What? That sounds awesome.”
They sent me the script, I read it, and it just blew my mind. I was like, “Oh my God, I have to do this.” I had a meeting with Zoë through Zoom the next day, and we just instantly vibed. It was clear that we were on the same page, and then I was hired. Like I said, luck.
Were you sad about the name change?
Chanda Dancy: I was, a little bit. I was like, “Oh, come on.” But I am happy with “Blink Twice”. It totally makes sense. And there was a lot of fun interplay you can do with a title “Blink Twice”. It is what it is. It’s much easier to put “Blink Twice” on a gigantic billboard on Sunset Boulevard.
Dancy Details Working With “Super Brilliant” Zoë Kravitz
How is Zoë Kravitz as a director?
Chanda Dancy: She’s super brilliant. There was a lot of going back and forth and sharing ideas and she was so open and so creative. She would send me tracks of random things that she just heard out in the wild. She’s like, “This is mad cool.” Then, I would hear something, and I would text and share it with her. It was a lot of finding the sound together. She’s really collaborative. She has zero ego. It felt like creating something new and cool with a friend.
What were the things that you sent back and forth that you ended up referencing the most?
Chanda Dancy: From our first meeting we were shooting off ideas. I mean, I had everything from Japanese gagaku, which is court music, to the old school Fantasy Island theme, to Igor Stravinsky, to Indonesian drumming. We was just finding cool elements in the universe, starting from there, and talking. It started from there and kept morphing into this really cool thing.
Is there a movie you would like to see Zoë make next?
Chanda Dancy: I don’t ever want to put Zoe in a box of expectations for anything. I want to see whatever she thinks of, because I feel like what she thinks of, most people don’t think of, and that’s the thrill. So, I look forward to whatever she comes up with.
Dancy’s Blink Twice Score Is A “Culmination” Of Her Musical Past
I know you play violin, and I see a cello behind you, so you probably play that…
Chanda Dancy: Yeah, I play all the string instruments.
There is really beautiful string writing on this score, so that makes sense. But you also have really cool synth stuff as well. How did you decide to blend those in that way?
Chanda Dancy: Overall, I would say my composing influences have been shoegaze rock music—I played in a band for a few years—and sound design. I worked for a sound design company a couple of years after graduating from USC. From those two things, you just experiment with sound in general. With the band, it was with synthesizers, guitars, my violin running through a distortion pedal, and using my vocals in a weird way. And [for] the sound design influences, you can literally find anything in the universe and create music out of it.
For example, for Blink Twice, there was even a point where I was hitting the mic input on the pickup on a record player because it creates this interesting boom sound that sounds natural, but unnatural. [So] I would say that it’s just a culmination of all the activity that I’ve done as a sound artist, not just as an orchestral composer, and all of those skills came together for this film.
Dancy Reveals How She Wrote A Score To “F With People’s Heads”
Were there different things about the story that you wanted the strings to represent, or the synths to represent?
Chanda Dancy: This score evolved in the time that we were working together. The cut evolved as well, so we had ideas where certain sounds would represent Frida, certain sounds would represent the flower, a certain sound would represent the snake, or a certain sound would represent dread. The final product is essentially the dread sound, which is what people hear on that very first hit when you see the lizard on screen. You’re just like, “Oh, hell no. Wherever that is, don’t go there.”
Then, the strings represent different textures of panic, and there’s this Afro-Peruvian-Bach partita-inspired theme that’s Frida’s theme, and it’s a little playful and a little sexy. You have all of those elements throughout the film.
I saw you composed largely away from picture. Do you feel like that helped you, or made your job more difficult?
Chanda Dancy. It super helped, because the way that music is used in this film is so different from traditional film scoring or traditional horror scores. Typically, you’ll hear [something that signals] impending doom is coming, but this was just silence. You’re like, “What’s going on?” It was a lot more visceral.
There were some scenes that actually were scored. For example, the introductions at the gala where Slater is introducing Frida to everybody and there’s this Bach partita-like cue… that was a dance perfectly tailored for that scene.
But for everything else, I created this piece away from picture, because I wanted to focus on the feeling and not be distracted by what’s going on in the picture. In that way, I feel like we were able to create this dissonance where you see this beautiful image on screen, but you’ve got this weird bubbling volcano sound design thing that’s just telling you, “No, no, this is not beautiful at all.”
In creating the score, I created textures. I would create a string texture, a wind texture, a synthesizer texture, a percussion texture, and different types of colors, and send that back and forth with Zoe and Kathryn (J. Schubert), the editor. We would just play with placing things, like, “What happens if we put this here?” and when it hits, it hits. It was like taking gobs of different paint colors and then going “Pop!” on the canvas, and you’re like, “Whoa.” Which was very different from the way I am used to scoring. Traditionally, you get the picture, and you create this cue that starts and ends, and it has an arc. This was just [like], “We’re just going to F with people’s heads.”
Dancy Is “99% Sure” A Lawmen: Bass Reeves Season 2 Would Focus On Another Character
Congratulations on your Emmy nomination forLawmen: Bass Reeves. Is there anything you’d like to explore if you were to score a season two, and what do you think the odds are of getting to do that?
Chanda Dancy: I’m 99% sure that there might not be a season two of Bass' story, but there might be other stories of that time period. It just depends on, if there is a season two, what character that would be, and if I’m involved or not. We’ll see. But from what I know, Bass’s story is told in those episodes.
About Blink Twice
When tech billionaire Slater King meets cocktail waitress Frida at his fundraising gala, he invites her to join him and his friends on a dream vacation on his private island. As strange things start to happen, Frida questions her reality.
Check back for our otherBlink Twiceinterviews:
Blink Twiceis in theaters now.Blink Twice (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)is out on streaming platforms.
Blink Twice
Cast
Directed by Zoë Kravitz, Blink Twice is a drama thriller film, marking her first foray into the world of directing. The film follows a cocktail waitress invited to a tech billionaire’s private resort home to party with them - but after arriving, she begins to discover the dark truth behind the island.
