Red Stewart chats with Roger Suen about Justin Chon’s Gook and the 2019 Sundance selection Ms. Purple….
Roger Suen is a composer who has been working in the television and film industries for almost a decade. He is best known for his contributions to Daredevil, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and The Shape of Water.
Credit: Impact24 PR
Flickering Myth had the chance to interview him for his work on the independent drama Gook and the 2019 Sundance drama Ms. Purple and I in turn had the honor to conduct it:
Mr. Suen, thank you so much for speaking with me. You’ve done work for some of my favorite TV shows and movies.
Oh cool.
To start with, I’ve talked to several composers who have spoken about the need to self-promote, but that’s been more limited to having your own website and being on social media. With you, I noticed that you have your own film score company, El Cap Productions, which is something that even a lot of big composers don’t have. What inspired you to create one?
You know, it’s just nice to have a name for my organization, for a lot of reasons. People respond well to having the sense of an organization and knowing that there’s a team helping you out. It goes back to that old saying that no man is an island, that sort of thing. I think it’s nice for everyone to know that there’s a team.
That definitely makes sense and gives greater credibility to new artists. I remember back in film school a lot of students created their production companies as a way of establishing their brand name. Have you found that it’s made a difference in your career since you founded the company?
It’s hard to say at this point, but, like I said, it definitely seems to put some people at ease, which is helpful in making your clients happy.
Now, you’ve done a ton of assistant composing over the years, and I noticed that you started doing that alongside your main composing career in the early 2010s. Did you find having this assistant or additional composer experience helped you with your projects where you were the main composer?
Oh yeah, 100 percent. The two of them go hand-in-hand. It really reminds me of the more traditional ways of learning things, like an apprentice where you’re learning with a master before you can go out on your own. The nice thing about it is, not only are you learning and then able to apply it to your own projects pretty much at the same time, you’re also making sure that you’re building relationships when you’re apprenticing for somebody. So, at least for me, it was a wonderful way to start my career.
That’s great to hear, and fostering those connections and having that work experience has been directly helpful with your success as a main composer.
I’m also lucky that the people that I’ve worked with have been amazing composers. The things I’ve learned from them are just….you can’t learn that in school. I’m lucky in that way.
And speaking of collaborations and connections let’s talk about Gook. It’s an independent drama written, directed, and starring Justin Chon.
Yeah, that was a great film and the first project I worked on with Justin. We worked together in December of 2016 and then it went to Sundance. It was one of those movies where a friend put us in touch with each other.
Justin sent me a link to the film and it was one of the few times where I went “Wow, this really is special, this is one of the best things I’ve seen in a long time.” From there, I went full-on.
I’m definitely happy to hear that. It’s interesting though, I know you’re very active on social media raising awareness for Asian Americans in the film industry. It definitely seems like the past few years have been pretty big for that demographic. Crazy Rich Asians takes most of the attention, but you also had Gook, you had Searching, and they also brought up the diversity aspect at the Golden Globes this year. I’m wondering, do you think it can only grow bigger from here, or is it just a phase in Hollywood at this point like the western?
I definitely think it’s going to be an onward trend that’s going to get bigger and bigger. It’s one of those things were money talks, and with the success of a lot of the larger films, that’s definitely proven it to people. Justin as well as other filmmakers out there have also shown, on the artistic side, that it’s also very lucrative. Not to mention, I believe the statistic is the Asian American community is one of the fastest-growing in the nation at the moment.
That makes sense, and it definitely proves that this is going to be a burgeoning market. To go back to Gook, in an interview I read, Mr. Chon said that you actually took a pay cut to help with the production of the movie. Was this a project where, as you were composing the score, you found it to be a different experience from your usual works?
Yeah, the terms “labor of love” or “passion project” truly comes to mind. That’s something that happens a lot with independent filmmaking where their resources, financially and otherwise, just sometimes aren’t there, and it’s a real challenge to produce the best work possible. But it’s also what makes it cool, and ultimately the finished product and music of the film sets it apart from what may be more mainstream. It gives a special uniqueness to it.
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