Award-winning film composer Christopher Lennertz scores Sony Pictures Animated film, Smurfs: the Lost Village. The new take on the Smurfs film marks the first collaboration between Lennertz and the film's director, Kelly Asbury. In addition to writing the score for the film, Lennertz co-wrote a song with Award-winning singer-songwriter KT Tunstall. Smurfs: The Lost Village opens April 7th; soundtrack is available on Sony Records. Lennertz stated, "Smurfs: The Lost Village was one of the best experiences of my life. From the beginning, Kelly wanted to approach the movie like a magical adventure ride. I was thrilled to be a part of it and so glad that he wanted music to be such a vital part of the storytelling." "In order to make things feel organic to the world of the film, I had an instrument designer custom build an array of Smurf style instruments to use on the score. We used visuals from the film as inspiration, building a mushroom drum, a flower horn, a toadstool marimba, and a set of hollowed out bamboo pipes that was built like the raft they use to escape from Gargamel."
Lennertz describes his musical collaboration with director Kelly Asbury, "For the main theme I wanted to show Kelly how I wanted to blend ethnic instruments and kids choir with orchestra. Kelly wanted a thematic score and I wanted to show him how all of the themes could develop and intertwine. Besides the main theme, there were themes for Papa, Smurfette, and Gargamel as well, and all of them can be woven together to tell the story."
"One of the most gratifying experiences of the film," Lennertz finishes, "was showing Kelly the song I wrote for Smurfette in the climax of the film. I had already written her theme and there's such an amazing pivotal scene at the end of the film, that to me, was just begging for an original song that came from her point of view. There was never a song in the temp, only score - so I wrote the song and without any advanced notice, played it for Kelly and he loved it. We played it for the producers and the studio and everyone just fell in love with it. As we tailored it for the scene and turned it into a full ballad, I brought in my dear friend KT Tunstall to co-write the rest of the lyrics with me. It just developed magically and now tells a whole new part of the story in a way that only a song can. I've had the amazing good fortune to collaborate with Alan Menken, Glenn Slater, and David Zippel over the last few years on Sausage Party, Galavant, and Agent Carter, so I've seen firsthand the special way an original song can touch the hearts of an audience like nothing else. I knew from the very first time I saw this scene that this was one of those truly amazing moments and I'm so grateful that Kelly was so open to the idea."