THE SONIC WORLD OF BOETIE BOER
If you’ve had your head out of the sand the last few weeks you’ve surely heard about ‘Boetie Boer: Inside The Mind of a Monster’ now streaming on Showmax. This 5 part docu-series is Directed by Jasyn Howes and co-produced by Stage 5 Films and depicts the shockingly disturbing story of serial killer Stewart ‘Boetie Boer’ Wilken.
Pressure Cooker Studios handled both the Music and Audio for the entire series. The score was a combination of original composition and music specifically sourced from our Pressure Music Catalogue.
Jasyn answered a few questions for us so we could gain a deeper understanding into his approach for Music and Audio on this spine-chilling show.
What was your brief to Pressure Cooker Studios?
My brief to Pressure Cooker was to find a sonic language for this series that honoured the themes within this dark story and created the right amount of tension that helped to elevate our dramatisations. The music needed to elude to the harsh tone of the story, the madness and the depravity whilst also being delicate in moments to pay tribute to the pain and suffering that so many people went through in this story.
How did Music and Audio influence your filmmaking process?
Music and audio play a massive role in any film project, and this was certainly the case on Boetie Boer. I personally rely heavily on music and sound design to inform my process as a filmmaker. During the course of production I was regularly recording ambience tracks on my phone in different locations and listening back to them so that the real world environments that the series inhabits were close to my reference and for setting a mood/tone for myself when considering my choices. I would also listen to various ambient music tracks whilst filming the dramatisations as it helped to keep me in the moment and almost live through it with the actors.
How do you feel Music and Audio elevated the storytelling of the final series?
The music and sound design that was developed for the series elevated the imagery and the storytelling so vastly. It created the tension, it brought to life the lifeless and it became its own layer of the story. The editors who worked with the footage identified themes in the music that became synonymous with certain scenes and gave the 5 part series a level of consideration that has only enriched it further.
What was your experience working with Pressure Music Catalogue?
We were very blessed to have access not only to original composition but also the Pressure Cooker catalogue that really helped us work with what we had in terms of budget without sacrificing quality. This approach meant that we could find the voice of the series through the original composition and then embellish with the catalogues tracks. It’s a wonderful process that worked very well.
We’ll be digging deeper into Jasyn’s experience Directing the show in the next article.
The season finale was released last week and all episodes are available for streaming on Showmax. We strongly advise viewer discretion.
Watch the trailer here.
