WALK-IN – Up Close with the Director Scott Blum

The film features an exquisite original soundtrack and song that you wrote, can you tell us more about the film soundtrack?

I had been a fan of Jeff Pevar’s for quite sometime before I began working on my film. His work with Rickie Lee Jones, Ray Charles, David Crosby, Donald Fagen, among dozens of others was legendary, and I had been fortunate to see him perform live on multiple occasions, which is always mind-blowing. I knew I wanted someone of his caliber to work with and had the intuitive feeling that he would “get” the film and would be able to express the secondary emotions that are not possible with visuals, dialog and acting. To my surprise, he responded immediately to an email I sent him, and after reading the script he said yes. He then began writing music based on my script and we began to shape the soundtrack before filming even began. Working with him was a dream come true because of how well it flowed and how immensely talented Jeff is. Simultaneously, I followed a gut feeling I had that the lead actor, Danforth Comins, could sing although he had never sang in public before. I was blown away by his voice and instantly knew I wanted him to sing in the film. So I presented a song that I had written with Kat Sanchez (a previous band mate of mine), and Jeff and Danforth breathed new life into the song at Jeff’s recording studio one afternoon. I then re-wrote the script to add a scene where Danforth sings the song as part of the story. I was also extremely honored to work with some of my musical idols including acid folk legend Bridget St. John, Cuban jazz pianist Omar Sosa and contemporary singer-songwriter Nathan Phillips who each contributed a song to the soundtrack.