Robert Kojder chats with Final Destination: Bloodlines composer Tim Wynn…
Not even Death can kill off a successful, entertaining franchise like Final Destination. A key component of that revitalization comes from the orchestra score courtesy of Tim Wynn. He is an accomplished composer across several media, ranging from film (Freaks) to television (Supernatural) to video games (The Darkness II), having studied under celebrated artists such as Jerry Goldsmith and contributed music to a documentary about Steven Spielberg.
Final Destination: Bloodlines is arguably his most high-profile project to date, and it was an honor to discuss the process with him. We get into instruments created specifically for the film (one that sounds just as threatening as anything in the movie), balancing humor and terror through music, favorite deaths from the franchise, his collaborations with directors Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein, and some gaming talk. There is also some conversation regarding the poignant, moving final performance from Tony Todd, and reflecting that through the score.
As mentioned in my review, the film is a demented blast with sick kills and sick humor, with a touching moment for good measure. That made it all the more rewarding talking to Tim Wynn, who offers valuable insight, cares about his craft, and was very appreciative to have this discussion. Enjoy the interview:
This movie is a blast. You did a good job on it.
Thank you!
Did you get to watch scenes before creating music for them? Or did you craft the score from the script, or was it a mixture of both?
I crafted the main theme before I read the script, and a couple of the cues to help envision the franchise moving forward. Then, once I read the script, I started writing a few more cues. From there, I wanted to wait until picture lock because, as a composer, you feel like you have a musical idea that would work perfectly, but until you see it with the film, you really don’t know 100%.
How did you approach scoring a film that wants audiences to feel dread and emotion, but also kind of cheer on these elaborate death traps and the violence? It’s doing a lot tonally.
You’re going back and forth, that’s for sure. You’re dancing a lot. I think with this movie, especially, it has a lot of ups and downs. It has a lot of comedy in it. I try not to play the comedy too hard. I try to push that Death is trying to kill the protagonists. So I want the audience to still feel scared the whole time, even though there are jokes here and there.
Part of the full orchestra contains the creation of a Bloodbox, built from a Yugoslavian military crate with strings and metal objects. What was the origin behind creating this?
I was looking for a unique sound to incorporate with the orchestra score. In Iris’s compound, to protect herself from death for over 30 years, she surrounded herself with tin cans, with metal, with all sorts of homemade burglar alarms. And I felt like I needed something you could scrape and make cool, dirty sounds to accompany the orchestra.
What was your favorite scene to score using the Bloodbox? Would you say the compound was one of them?
Absolutely! The compound was one of them. I used it in a couple of places. It has a real screechy sound in the main titles. We started with a New Line Cinema logo, and then I morphed into the main theme that played for a little bit. Then we went to the train tracks. And in all that, I had a very screechy sound made via the Bloodbox.
Sometimes licensed songs interrupt the action, including your score, and those moments are amusing and clever. Can you talk about how you prepared for that when composing music, and how it affects your score?
It was great to write in a movie that had the Isley Brothers Shout song. It’s one of my favorite songs from that era. I thought they did a brilliant job of using that. And the band members who performed it were absolutely electric in the Skyview. I let them do the work that the songs will do, and then I waited for the scary parts to come in and accentuate all the things that the characters are terrified of.
You did a great job. I think the movie balances all that really well. Also, I know you’ve worked with Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein before. Can you talk about what makes you you a great team for horror, and how scoring this movie was different than working on Freaks?
I know these guys are brilliant. I’ve worked with them for 10 years. And I’ve always known them to have a wicked sense of humor. So I thought they could really do a good job of revitalizing Final Destination and balancing the scary stuff with the jokes and really deep stories. Freaks had a compelling story and was strong on the drama. So they didn’t want just to create a slasher movie. They wanted to create something that could stand on its own if you remove the deaths. I thought they did a brilliant job.
Do you have a favorite death from the Final Destination series?
I mean, I think there are a couple to choose from in this movie.
Oh, for sure. That MRI scene is crazy!
Yeah, that was my favorite to score. The deaths from prior movies, I get really scared of not the big things, like seeing the Skyview fall apart, but something about Final Destination 5, where the gymnast goes all along the balance beam, and just that little thing, you know she’s gonna step on it. And I don’t know why that unnerves me so much, but it certainly does.
I like that choice because it’s not one of the common favorites we always hear.
I would say it’s not, but for me, it feels real and something that can happen every single day. Final Destination 1, with the plane blowing up, I always think that’s one of the best ones as well, because you weren’t expecting it. You knew something was coming because Shirley Walker’s theme was going, and you knew something was gonna happen, but you weren’t sure what. And when that plane exploded from the point of view of the airport, I just thought it was brilliant.
Speaking of Shirley Walker, how much influence did you take from previous Final Destination scores? Or did you do your own thing completely?
I started doing my own thing, and we were happy with recreating the My Name is Death theme. That was the first thing that I wrote for Zach, Adam, Craig, Sheila, and everyone at New Line. They ended up liking it a lot. And it didn’t really change too much. When we started working on the movie, we wanted to incorporate it for the Final Destination fans, who are just amazing, vocal, opinionated, and loyal. We thought adding her theme in a few special places would be very important. Offhand, Zach mentioned, “I think it would be great if we used her theme under Bludworth.” And I thought that’d be great. I hadn’t seen that part of it yet, sure, no problem. Then, when scoring that scene, I thought her theme was brilliant underneath Bludworth and Tony Todd and that whole scene. It’s one of the highlights of the movie.
The Tony Todd scene is very moving. Can you talk more about that moment and what you wanted to accomplish with it? The scene fits into the movie’s message, and it’s a terrific scene overall.
I 100% agree. When I was scoring the movie, I was told that Tony Todd was in hospice, and that he didn’t have a long time to live, unfortunately. So I knew that this was going to be his final moment on screen, and that I needed to hit the right tones, not just tell the story, but also give him the proper emotional sendoff that he deserves as a revered actor and such an amazing person. When we got to write it, I loved incorporating the theme that I had with Shirley Walker’s. It was a dance back and forth between the two. It was amazing when we ended up recording it at the Eastwood Scoring Stage at Warner Bros., we all shared it with the producers and directors. When we heard it with the live orchestra, we all shed a tear because we had the scene being played in the background. So we’re watching it the whole time and listening to the orchestra finally perform the piece. It was a moving moment for sure.
When scoring that, I did not know you knew he was in the hospice. Can you talk about what kind of pressure you felt?
I felt that it was important to help tell his story. I learned something recently that I didn’t know: he ad-libbed his final line. Zach and Adam said, “Hey, look, you’re going through exactly the same thing as your character. How, how does this make you feel? What would you like to say to people?” And I thought what he said was brilliant, and it really was important for me to score that moment not with an overarching, heavy-handed approach, but just something that would be subtle and poignant for the moment.
I’m a huge fan of both The Darkness video games. You created some haunting music for the second one. So if that is adapted into a film, would you be interested in scoring it?
That was one of my favorite scores that I did. It’s been a long time, but it’s definitely one of my favorite game scores. I love that whole story. It was an amazing time for me. They wanted me to travel to Prague and record the entire score there for 10 days. For me, I have my father, who’s close to hospice himself, so I got to take him to Prague. And so it’s a very kind memory I have, recording The Darkness II score in Prague for those 10 days.
That is a beautiful memory. You’ve done scores for films, documentaries, and video games. Do you have a preference? And how does your approach change between genres and mediums?
I don’t know if I have a preference. What I do love is bouncing from project to project. It’s important to be able to tell stories, whether it be games, TV shows, video, or movies, and then being able to create the music for that. As far as approach, I write the cut scenes and the video part of the video games I end up doing. So, it feels very similar to doing a movie. TV feels different because the schedule’s a lot more compressed. For Supernatural, which I worked on for 15 seasons, we had about a week and a half to do every episode. And so you write 30 minutes of music in five days, sometimes four days. You had to be quick on your feet for it. With films and video games, I feel like there’s a better correlation because you have more time to try out ideas, and sometimes you could try out bad ideas, and you learn from the negative, where this isn’t a great idea. Oh, I’ll go this way or go that way.
Back to Final Destination: Bloodlines, was there any particular scene that was proving difficult to score? And what were those challenges, and how did you crack the scene?
The opening scene of the Skyview was challenging because there were just so many twists and turns in the story. You have the themes going, a cacophony of special effects and sound design, buildings falling and people dying, the penny theme going on, and more. If I were gonna pick the most challenging scene, it would be that one. I overcame the challenges by working with the sound designer and communicating how well the music’s gonna take, the importance in this part, or if the sound design is gonna be more important here. So we had a dance between the two of us, who would lead in any one place.
Shout is in the middle of it, too. So, I knew that was gonna be a challenging scene to get right. I’m thrilled with how it turned out. Everybody who worked on it: the great mix by Jonathan Wales, Damon Tedesco did my music mix. They don’t always get a lot of shout-outs, but they did a brilliant job of weaving in and out of a very challenging environment, for sure.
So, are there any upcoming projects you want to tell us about?
They are filming Freaks 2 right now. Or they filmed it, and then they’re editing it as we speak. There may be reshoots, but it will probably be out in the first quarter of 2026. So I’m starting to work on that. I have a video game project that’s coming up as well. I can’t say anything about it, but it’s gonna be fun and exciting. They’re really tight-lipped with that one for sure. Those are the two that I can share. Other things are coming.
I’ll be looking forward to it. It was awesome talking to you.
Hey, Robert, I really appreciate it. Thank you for watching. I’m glad you brought up The Darkness; that’s a very special score to me. I appreciate that. It warms my heart that you’ve recognized it. Thank you.
SEE ALSO: Read our Final Destination: Bloodlines review here
Many thanks to Tim Wynn for taking the time for this interview.
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, and Online Film Critics Society. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews and follow my BlueSky or Letterboxd
