Cleopatra in Space is out TODAY Nov 25 in ten countries served by DreamWorks Asia - Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, the Philippines, Pakistan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. New episodes are airing daily at primetime - woo!!
We’ve been working on the music for this series the past year, creating an epic cocktail of electronic beats, Egyptian melodies, and orchestral dramatics, with a sprinkle of traditional Middle Eastern instrumentation and pop-rock drums/guitars to boot.
Here’s the official description of the show:
Cleopatra in Space is a comedic adventure focusing on the untold story of Cleopatra’s teenage years. Viewers can follow Cleo as she is transported 30,000 years into the future, to an Egyptian-themed planet that is ruled by talking cats and where she discovers she is the prophesied savior of the future world. In order to prepare for her role and mission, Cleo is sent to an elite academy where she has to train to take on the bad guys, figure out how to eventually get herself back home to Egypt, as well as tackling the highs and lows of being a teenager in high school.
Badass women, talking cats, space - we’re here for it!
Our hero Cleo (center), with best friends cyborg Brian (left) and alien Akila (right). Who’s that in the back? ;)
Cleo ready to kick some Xerx butt.
The series is based on the best-selling Scholastic book series by Mike Maihack. It’s a six book epic, five of which have been released, with the grand finale slated for 2020. Check em out on Amazon here.
The television adaptation was lead by Executive Producers Doug Langdale and Scott Kreamer. When we started in post production, as composers do, Scott had already moved on to another DWA series and our leaders for music direction were showrunners Doug [EP] and Fitzy Fitzmaurice [SP].
You can feel all three of these incredible creators in the show. Mike’s fantastic imagination, Doug’s effortless comedic ability, Fitzy’s massive heart and attention to detail.
In terms of how the show compares to the books - I think the characters personalities have been amplified. Cleo is more “15” and reckless, something she has to overcome to be a leader. Brian has more anxiety about being part robot. Akila is pretty close to the books, extremely energetic and positive. I’d totally be BFFs with Akila. And there are a lot of new-for-the-series guest stars that appear as the gang travels the universe to take down Octavian.
The overall vibe is classic Saturday morning cartoon, with extremely quotable moments. I personally liken it to Invader Zim, one of my favorite childhood toons, which lead to me writing “doom doom doom-doom doom” on all of my notebooks for the entire length of high school.
The gang with their teacher Khensu, one of PYRAMID Academy’s educators and cat who can talk.
*friendship chords play softly in the background*
And now for the music!
We received the score brief for this series in January 2018 and spent an extreme amount of time researching the books, obsessing over the details of what this electronic, pop-rock, 80s, Egyptian, orchestral musical cocktail would sound like. Some of the references were Paramore, MIA, and the score of The Prince of Egypt.
Here’s what we came up with for track one:
Also this bonus song inspired by “The Scarabs,” a band from the books that appeared to be stylized like the The Beatles. This is what we imagined they’d perform at a party:
Overall there were about 20 tracks in our pitch, about half custom and half existing examples. We sent them off into the ether and…didn’t hear back! Spring and most of summer passed, we moved on to other projects.
Then July rolls around and we receive a request to meet with the studio, holy crap! The meeting was about three test scenes which we had a week to score. There was a bad-guy chase where Cleo has a stylized battle moment, a comedy dialog scene introducing the characters, and a heartfelt conversation where Cleo misses home.
Test scenes
You can start to hear a sound-of-show developing, this is the first iteration of “bad guy” sounds, low growling synths, big taiko drums and dark whispers. Followed by a butt-kicking Cleo moment which are usually visually styled with 2D color card backgrounds:
And then a dialog scene. Here Cleo meets Brian and Akila for the first time, its sweet and funny. She’s a human from 69BC and they’re a cyborg and an alien from 30,000AD - culture shock!
The light synths and finger cymbal stings came to be a mainstay of conversational scenes - especially the arps for Akila when her eyes blink vertically, one of the small recurring reminders she is not human.
As part of the test files we were provided the incredible theme song “Written in the Stars” by Jeannie Lurie and Gabe Mann. The melody is used here as Khensu councils Cleo about her role as prophesied savior. She’s a teenager and just wants to go home, that longing can be felt in the ney flute performed by Middle Eastern instrumentalist Danny Shamoun.
Throughout the series the melodies from “Written in the Stars” are quoted to musically highlight the prophecy and Cleo’s call to be a leader. The ney is the instrument of Khensu, playing softly during his teaching moments with some high register runs reserved for his more catty outbursts.
We got the job!
And around that exact time, we saw Cleo’s book author Mike Maihack post that he was presenting at a convention in Yuma, Arizona. The event was ending in five hours and it was a four hour drive, so we space-raced our way over there for the chance to meet the person who created the world we were about to live in…
With Mike Maihack, Cleo’s creator
Space cowboys in Yuma
Reference materials
Studio poster - she’s always watching over us
Mike was so awesome. It was the perfect experience to kick off the show. We got the personal run down of his inspirations, how the series started, and also some super secret tips about the future storyline.
We were blessed overall with the team that worked on this show, speaking of which, here are some credits:
Showrunners: Doug Langdale and Fitzy Fitzmaurice
Music supervision: Alexandra Nickson, Frank Garcia, Tasha Peter and Matt Manna
Series composers: Jay Vincent and Ryan Lofty
Staff additional music composer: David Butterfield
Additional music by: Steven Gizzi and Brandon Liew
Score production management by: Courtney Lofty, the person who writes these blog posts
Live instrumentation by: Danny Shamoun and Ryan Lofty
Post production supervision: Noelle Fuoco and Caitlin Walton
Sound services by Advantage Audio: including Melissa Ellis, Fil Brown, Heather Olsen, J. Lampinen, and David Bonilla
Executive in charge: Gregg Goldin
The music team with EP Doug, SP Fitzy and post supervisor Noelle at DreamWorks HQ.
A large part of the post, audio and music team at Advantage Audio’s soundstage!
There are obviously HUNDREDS of other amazing artists and producers involved in the show, the people above are the ones we were lucky to get to know and work with directly.
With that, we’ll leave you with this opening montage:
And the end credits:
Cleo!