LOST DREAM: Creating the Sound

By Nima, Composer

When I was approached to compose the music for Lost Dream, I was both excited and I felt extremely challenged. I was excited as this would be my second collaboration with Asif Ahmed. I met him when I scored his experimental short film, Thinking About Evolution. The challenge with Lost Dream was to capture the musical voices of the two leads, Perry and Giovanni. Asif suggested from the beginning that each character might have their own discordant theme that would highlight the struggles and experiences in their life. As the story develops Asif wanted the discordant theme to eventually come together as a harmony would. My challenge was to capture the two character’s emotions and not go too dark or too melodramatic. I started to think about the voices of Perry and Gio, their struggles they face and what they might experience in their darkest moments. I decided Piano and Guitar would become their respective sounds, piano for Perry and guitar for Gio.

There was also a lot of inspiration from Ilyas Ahmed, Asif’s brother. Ilyas is an upcoming guitarist, musician with several CDs released by independent labels. His music worked beautifully for the voice of Giovanni. In some scenes I would add tracks combining both our scores to match the character or emotion of the moment.

Throughout the film, we used a 5.1 surround sound mix to highlight the darkest moments of the film and capture the aural experience of a drug trip. Music, instruments and pads systematically swirl between the five channels highlighting these moments. Many of these key sound moments bring the audience inside the heads’ of Perry and Giovanni creating a unique intimacy with the characters.