Jeff Toyne on how ‘Palm Royale’ music was ‘an effective way to do comedy’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
“She has this relentless positivity,” reflects Jeff Toyne about the character of Maxine, played by Kristen Wiig, in the new series “Palm Royale.” In our recent webchat he continues, “She’s a really a fun character to go on a journey with. I laughed out loud when she said ‘your yanking my beehive.’ That’s a good line. I’ll try to work that into my own conversations moving forward.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.
The Apple TV+ period comedy was created by Abe Sylvia and tracks the ambitious Maxine trying to navigate the social politics and treachery at the exclusive club in the 60s. The show also stars Carol Burnett, Laura Dern and Allison Janney. Toyne composes the music for the series. He explains, “We had comedy behemoths on this show. When they are being hilarious, we don’t need to put a hat on a hat. I don’t think we needed to give the audience permission to embrace the comedy. It was there. What we did with the music instead was focus on the stakes for the characters. I think it’s an effective way to do comedy. Stay with the perspective of the character. Even if they are doing something objectively funny, the characters don’t think they are.”
On capturing the 1960’s Palm Beach club world, Toyne reveals the decision “to have the underscore be rooted in the sound of the music these women might be listening to on their record collections and radio. The other side of the coin was the show was going to look and feel like it might have been made in the 1960s. I was thrilled to be deep diving into these original sources.”
Capturing this sound required a big band and orchestra. The composer admits, “One of the biggest challenges was the technical side. We wanted to do it in an authentic way. We had a lot of live musicians to bring to bear. On a television schedule it’s terribly ambitious to even consider recording a big band and orchestra. It adds a lot of steps in the process.”
He adds, “The jazz in particular is not the kind of music you can mock up with computers. It doesn’t really exist until all those musicians assemble in the room and create it in the recording stage. It took a lot of trust on the side of the filmmakers who have to approve ahead of the recording session.”
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