Trailblazers of trailer music

2WEI and the art of composing an audiovisual allure

KARACHI:

Have you ever gotten pumped up over a trailer that teased the culmination of your favourite cinematic franchise? Do you ever feel goosebumps while watching good trailers, though you rarely ever question why? Well, then it's time to introduce German composer duo 2WEI—aka the masterminds behind many of the action-packed trailer audios that we all know and love.

The strength in trailer music lies in the blend between light and sound, in the collaboration that's made seamless through the incorporation of various elements. Combine two things as simple as stunt grunts and snappy drum sounds, and watch how magic unfolds before your eyes.

Undoubtedly, visuals are responsible for much of the overt magic, but music plays a stronger part in the evocative sense. Can you imagine the Avengers: Endgame final battle without Alan Silvestri's epic score Portals to complement it? Surely not.

Trailer music and 2WEI's journey

Being a subsect of music that rarely employs vocals, trailer music brings orchestral goodness to the forefront. Percussion instruments like timpani, woodwinds such as flutes and clarinets, violin and cello strings, and even the multi-purpose piano, all these and many more are combined to produce a mellifluous harmony that stands well on its own without the insertion of lyrics.

Now take that heavenly instrumental and sync it with a robust action sequence—perhaps, a strapping car chase or a sturdy hand-to-hand combat session. That's how you fuse an abundance of cinematic elements to horripilate your audience with the best of intentions.

In simple words, trailer music is what you get when you put together a choir kid and a jock. You'd think they won't get along, but you're in for a satisfying kick to the heart.

That's the kind of rhapsodic joy that 2WEI's music induces in fans of the action and thriller genres, such as myself. From the duo's epic cover of the Destiny's Child song Survivor for the film Tomb Raider to the original song Still Here overlaying a League of Legends cinematic video, the composer group has a hand in the orchestral recreation of many classics and the symphonious construction of several new tracks.

The composer group primarily consists of two musical aficionados, Simon Heeger and Christian Vorländer, who founded the group in early 2016. Hailing from Germany, the two became friends during their college years, after which they branched off to separate pursuits. Simon worked for advertising music houses, whereas Christian was employed by renowned composers Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL.

2WEI was created in 2016, and the two embarked on a flourishing journey together. Their compositions have been featured in trailers for popular films. For Wonder Woman, they produced the mettlesome track Catapult from their original album Escape Velocity, whereas for the 2019 film Hellboy, they took a portentous turn with their cover of Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple.

Their discography isn't devoid of vocal infusion, as in the case with their compositions for the video game League of Legends. They kick-started this venture four years ago with their call-to-arms cover of Warriors by Imagine Dragons, in which they featured singer Edda Hayes. This paved the way for multiple future collaborations with both the singer and game developing company Riot Games.

"In film scoring, the task of the music is to tell what you don't see or feel in the motion picture but is instead an underlying emotion or story," said Christian in an interview with Istrico Productions. "It's better to not just mirror what you see but to try to give it more depth."

"Sometimes, it's also dependent on the genre. For instance, in horror films, the music is meant to build up anticipation," he continued. "Similarly, with action sequences, there's a thing called Mickey Mouse-ing, where the music follows the scene exactly as it is."

Impact on popular culture

In 2018, the prolific duo won the Golden Lion in Cannes for Best Composition. They've also bagged a Webby Award alongside frequent collaborator Edda Hayes through their single Rise Up. But that isn't all there is to the group's influence.

2WEI's music has garnered the interest of many pop culture fans on YouTube. Several film edits have been made by MCU fans using the group's epic cover of Britney Spears' Toxic, a remix which has earned over 41 million views on the platform. The most popular Marvel edit video of the Toxic cover has amassed nearly a million views.

The duo's music also has a hand in influencing the animatics of YouTuber SAD-ist, who has often employed 2WEI's releases for her animations of the Minecraft server Dream SMP. The content's reach snowballed into an official collab between the two parties, resulting in the never-before-released 2WEI track Final Waltz against a SAD-ist animatic, which has acquired 12 million views.

It is refreshing that the duo dismissed a possible conflict over copyright issues by initiating a collaboration with their long-time admirer. That is a testament to the loyalty they have to their origins on the platform that skyrocketed their careers. This also stands for their enabling of the digital accessibility of music and its distribution across creative mediums to aid and inspire artists.

The rise in technological reliance may be an evolutionary setback in some cases. However, these online spaces have graciously allowed web-starter artists like 2WEI to express themselves and build a community around like-minded individuals. Since their inception, more such composers have cropped up like Tommee Profitt and Paul Ameller.

2WEI may have had big dreams, but it's doubtful they expected to inspire such unprecedented reach in the digital world of music composition. During the Istrico Productions interview, Simon summarised the origins of the two's precarious venture aptly, "It's as Jim Carrey said, you can fail at something you hate, might as well fail at something you love."