Hello Bradley (who goes by "Brad," but I called him Bradley for most of our time together on season one)! Tell us a bit about yourself.
Hello Brandon! Where to start? I’m a film, games, and television composer and music editor based in Chichester, U.K. I currently work with Guy Michelmore assisting on shows for Marvel/Disney, Netflix, ITV, and networks, but when I’m not working with Guy I like to pursue my own projects, which is where you come in!
Can you describe a little bit your process as a Music Editor? What are the sorts of things you look to enhance when you're working with someone else's compositions?
"Music editing" is such a broad, wide-reaching term that encompasses a whole load of different tasks/approaches to editing music. I actually did a blog post about this for ThinkSpace Education a little while ago that goes into a bit of depth on what I do on a day-to-day basis for Guy.
For this project it was really a case of identifying the lines that the composer had written and translating that on to instruments best suited to carry said lines. Starting there I then continued to orchestrate the cues (adding more instruments to fully realize the pieces) until we get the finished product in the show. Beyond that I always look to see how I can expand the harmonic expression of the score, without taking too much creative license over the source material.
After our original composer stepped away after episode 5, you stepped up to compose the score for episode 6, the season one finale. You did a terrific job with that score, and I know our audience is going to feel the same. How was that experience for you?
First of all, thank you for the kind words, and secondly thank you for the opportunity to write the score! It was a huge amount of fun to be "unshackled" so to speak, and really take the score in a direction that I felt helped enhance the gravity of the episode. I generally really enjoy writing emotive music, so I was in my element a bit here!
This is the first podcast series I’ve ever written for, so not working to picture was a big adjustment for me, which is backwards to a lot of other composer’s experiences! You were very kind enough to provide such extensive notes on what needed to go where and the sorts of tones required for difference scenes in previous episodes, so that when I came to episode 6, I had a pretty firm grasp of what you’d want. There were adjustments that were needed here and there, but it was a really enlightening learning experience and it resulted in a score I’m really proud of and a fanatically climactic, emotional episode!
What's next for you? That is, what are you working on now, and what do you hope to be working on in the future?
Next for me is continuing to work with Guy on the TV shows and films that we work on, but continuing to build my career as a composer in my own right. We’re working on Robozuna at the moment, which is a lot of fun, but who knows what’s on the horizon! Writing music for season two of The Ordinary Epic would be nice… ;)
In closing, what's a question that you wish people asked you more often?
“Would you like to do the music for my multi-million dollar feature film starring a whole host of Marvel superheroes” is up there around the top of my list I reckon. :P
Thank you, Brad/Bradley, for taking the time to give such generous answers and for your incredible work on The Ordinary Epic's first season! (And we are absolutely on board to work with you again in future seasons, should we reach that goal!)
If you're hungry for more, our Patreon supporters at the $5+ tier have access to an extended version of this interview with Bradley as well as a truly epic behind-the-scenes treat: Bradley's first passes as Music Editor on the original theme. Become a Patreon supporter today to get access to this and tons of other goodies, including high-definition ad-free versions of every episode released so far and season one's original soundtrack!
Bradley Jordan is a film, television, and game music composer based in Chichester, U.K. He has been writing diverse and professional scores for a wide range of applications for 6 years, working alongside award-winning composer Guy Michelmore. Through his work for Guy, Bradley has worked for companies such as Marvel, Dreamworks, DQ Entertainment, and many more. Most recently working on Robozuna, an animated children’s TV show for ITV and Netflix. In his spare time he likes to play video games, perform in his function band, and play D&D with his friends. bradleyjordancomposer.com