The recording of the soundtrack involved Graham Kennedy, now the senior technician at the New Zealand School of Music—Te Kōkī (NZSM), who worked as a score mixer and recording engineer. Also involved, along with around 35–40 musicians from Stroma Filmworks, were NZSM alumni as a soloist, assistant, and music editor.

“The first thing about a film score is you are always serving the picture. When we are recording, and when we mix, we are trying to heighten, to pull emotion, but always working with the picture,” says David, who learned early on, from working with choreographer Douglas Wright, to leave his ego at the door when composing for visual works.

“When recording for a soundtrack, we record music to metronome-like click tracks, which give the pacing for other elements that need to be mixed in later,” says Graham. “This means David can record his guitar parts listening to the click track, then we can record strings separately, and it lines up later on.”

“Everything is digital now, so Eleanor would be there with them in London, the main editor would send me a file at the end of their day, and I would get up in the morning and find a scene waiting for me. It might be like it was before or it might be completely new,” says David.

“I would finish working on it at the end of the day, upload and send it back to them, and then head to bed. Working this way, it made it feel like the pace was really fast. It was hectic at times, but Graham was alongside, keeping me calm.”

Once all the pieces were recorded, it was over to Graham to combine 200 tracks of music into eight or nine 5.1 audio stems to be delivered to the final sound mix where it would be combined and balanced against the dialogue and effects.

“My process is very much about making things stick to the screen. It makes sure nothing is distracting in the depth of the sound created,” says Graham.