How to Score a Neo-Noir, Paranoid Thriller Like ‘Gazer’

Steve Matthew Carter is a Nashville-based media composer working in movie, TV and promoting. He most not too long ago scored 2025’s Gazer, a neo-noir, paranoid thriller directed by Ryan J. Sloan that premiered at Cannes Administrators’ Fortnight and distributed by Metrograph Photos.It is a creepy film the place the music takes you thru the entire characters’ feelings and leaves you terrified.It was a pleasure sitting down with him to speak extra about his world.Let’s dive in.- YouTubewww.youtube.comNFS: Might you describe your major influences to your Gazer rating?Steve Matthew Carter: Gazer’s rating is rooted in Seventies jazzy paranoia blended with extra fashionable ambient textures. Taxi Driver and The Dialog have been massive influences. We selected saxophone to be a major instrument within the rating as an homage to Gene Hackman’s character Harry Caul, who iconically performs one within the movie, however it’s by no means utilized in David Shire’s rating. Director Ryan J. Sloan and I additionally spoke about Alan Pakula’s movies of the 70s like Klute, All The President’s Me,n and The Parallax View. For a few of the extra fashionable influences, I used to be fascinated about the textural work of Tim Hecker and Colin Stetson. I wished Gazer’s rating to have a sure lonely, inward vitality with a mix of melody and ambiguity.NFS: I perceive this movie was a labor of affection amongst you and several other New Jersey natives. What was it prefer to make a movie with such shut associates in your house state?SMC: It was extremely particular. I’ve recognized Ryan and Ariella for years, and all of us like to see New Jersey represented on movie. We wished the rating to mirror the working-class, industrial really feel of the Newark, Kearny, and Harrison areas the place the movie was shot. As a result of every little thing was so native and DIY, I received to be on set for a couple of days and cling with the forged and crew, which is uncommon for a composer. There’s such an amazing homegrown camaraderie between everybody who labored on this movie, and I feel that provides to the authenticity of it.NFS: How did your rating evolve all through the manufacturing course of, contemplating you and director Ryan J. Sloan started collaborating on sure cues earlier than filming even started?SMC: When Ryan shared some early drafts of the script, he gave me two instructions: he wished the music to really feel like a world you’ll be able to’t escape from, and he wished a melody that Frankie’s daughter may hum diegetically. That melody turned the principle theme, and a few of the early items I wrote made it into the ultimate movie. Ryan even performed my early cues on set to assist the forged and crew faucet into the environment of the movie. That helped everybody keep emotionally anchored throughout the years-long fragmented shoot.NFS: Have been there any devices or instruments that proved particularly essential in your compositions for Gazer?SMC: The Subharmonicon from Moog was large for me as a result of I may create polyrhythms that mirror Frankie’s fractured sense of time. Baritone and tenor saxophone, performed by my buddy Harrison Bieth, turned the emotional throughline. I additionally leaned into synths just like the Lyra-8 from Soma Laboratory and the Strega from Make Noise for texture and noise.I additionally introduced in my cousin Andrea Deeb on violin for the nightmarish flashback scenes that have been scored fully with processed violin to create a very distinct sonic world. Cinematographer Matheus Bastos pushed the movie inventory to a extra reddish, grindhouse look, and that impressed me to suppose in another way in regards to the nightmare scenes and make these really feel distinct from the blue-ish hues in Frankie’s actual life. We didn’t have an enormous price range, so we relied on sound design, tape hiss, analog degradation, and favors to provide the rating its gritty really feel.Steve Matthew Carter Credit score: Jaclyn AntonaccNFS: Gazer appears to be a notable departure out of your earlier work on the coming-of-age movie Escaping Ohio. How does your strategy differ or stay constant throughout various style movies?SMC: Gazer was undoubtedly a departure from Escaping Ohio, which had such a heat, heartfelt tone. I are likely to gravitate towards darker, extra experimental materials, however I like working with director/actor/author Jessica Michael Davis. She actually helped me discover my voice within the rom-com house, and I’ve additionally had a good time collaborating together with her on her darker work, like Betty Bites Again. Each initiatives pushed me in numerous methods, and I’m grateful for that vary. My core strategy doesn’t actually change; I at all times work with the director to seek out the sound of a world, no matter style or model.NFS: It’s uncommon for impartial movies reminiscent of Gazer to get a theatrical launch in in the present day’s cinematic panorama. What did it imply to you and your collaborators for audiences to have the ability to see the movie within the cinema?SMC: We at all times knew we wished Gazer to play in theaters, and we fought for that. Attending to lastly share that with an viewers was extremely gratifying. The 16mm movie inventory instantly influenced my decision-making within the rating, and to see it blown up at locations like Cannes or the Angelika in NYC was an absolute dream. We additionally hope this could encourage different younger filmmakers to make issues they wish to see as a result of that’s actually what we got down to do with Gazer.NFS: Due to its protagonist’s uncommon mind dysfunction, Gazer will be an successfully disorienting movie at occasions. How did you attempt to evoke this sense together with your music?SMC: Frankie’s situation makes her really feel like an analog particular person in a digital world. Her each day life is irritating, and I wished the music to reflect that. I used radio static and rhythmic instability to create a way of disorientation. Synths and performances from my dwell gamers helped me craft cues that drift out and in of sync, echoing her warped sense of time. There’s loads of noise and distortion, however we have now a major theme that’s hummed by her daughter, and that acts because the emotional anchor. And none of it could land the identical with out Ariella Mastroianni’s efficiency. She utterly grounds the movie.NFS: Is there anything you’d like to debate or share about your work or broader inventive philosophy as a composer?SMC: I beloved collaborating with Ryan and Ariella as a result of I’m at all times fascinated about character, texture, and tone, not simply scoring moments however serving to construct a world, which is how we discovered the sound of Gazer. I really feel extremely fortunate that this was my first theatrical launch, as a result of it gave me house to discover a few of my boldest stylistic instincts and actually lean into what excites me most as a composer. I hope my subsequent initiatives proceed to permit me to work with inventive individuals I’m impressed by.