Rendra Zawawi is an award-winning music composer, songwriter, producer, and musician who has had his work featured on international shores including the US, UK, Japan, and the Southeast Asia region. The LA-based composer is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Berklee College of Music with a degree in Contemporary Writing and Production, with additional studies in songwriting and video game music.
As a composer, his scoring works include Tunku Mona’s “Uri” and commercial “Buli”, Danielle Rowlee’s “Enough” and Roger Liew’s “Nomad” (Hollyshorts Festival 2016). His upcoming works include Roger Liew’s and Meghan Weinstein’s upcoming web series “Autopilot” and “My Delivery Guy”, and award-winning director Thiyagaraja’s upcoming short film “Menunggu”. Rendra has also written and produced theme songs for Malaysian telemovies such as “Kalau Dah Perempuan”, “Ana, Aku dan Aiman”, “Pulang Sayang”, and “Tarbiah Cinta” featuring Dina Nadzir, runner-up of Malaysian Idol 2004.
His latest arrangement of “Arena Cahaya” was co-produced and co-written alongside internationally acclaimed award-winning singer-songwriter Zee Avi (Bitter Heart, Honey Bee, Concrete Wall). Arena Cahaya is the theme song for the highly-anticipated film “Ola Bola”, directed by Chiu (award-winning director for the highest grossing movie in Malaysia’s box office, “The Journey”). The song has since been awarded best theme song for the Malaysian Film Festival 2016. Rendra also collaborated with Zee Avi on the “Oreo – Sing With Me” jingle which has amassed widespread recognition in the Southeast Asia region. As a producer, he also worked on singer-songwriter Razlan Shah’s single “Seperti Baru”. Alongside “Arena Cahaya”, the production of “Seperti Baru” also features a collaboration with mix engineer Alvin Wee (Kungfu Panda 3, Metal Gear Solid 5, Final Fantasy 13-3).
Apart from working on his personal projects, Rendra also serves as an assistant to Emmy-winning composer and Grammy-nominated musician Mac Quayle working on shows such as USA Network’s Golden Globe Winner “Mr. Robot”, FX’s “American Horror Story: Hotel” & “American Crime Story”, as well as FOX’s“Scream Queens”. Rendra has also worked with Oscar-winning film composer Yuval Ron on several projects, including as a music editor on the international feature film “The Evil That Men Do” and as a music engineer for some of Yuval’s other works.
What projects are you currently working on? Which are airing or about to release?
Most currently, I am finishing up the score to this web series called “My Delivery Guy” directed by Meghan Weinstein and Roger Liew ("The Nomad" - Official Selection Hollyshorts 2016). The show is written and created by Danny Macdonald. You can check out the website at http://inbobbowetrust.com. It’s a 7 episode comedic series revolving around the world’s greatest Chinese food delivery guy named Bobbo - and this two roommates who idolizes him! And the music I’m doing is “Chinese Electronic”, where I work closely with sound designer Azrul Saleh to achieve that oriental sonic space. So you’d definitely want to check that out when it premieres on October 16th on Youtube, Vimeo, and Facebook.
Other than that, I’m also in the beginning stages of scoring award-winning director Thiyagaraja’s short called “Menunggu” which translates to “Waiting”. And in the spirit of the film, the release date is still ‘awaiting’! There is also an animation that is still in it’s pre-production phase called “Lei Gong: Chronicles Of The Sword” produced by Elliot Herman and Kevin Chua. I’ll be scoring the music to this action-packed animation!
What is the coolest or most unique sound or instrument that you have used in a score?
This is going to sound a little self-serving, but it's my voice! I'm actually a vocalist, so it's pretty much my default way of expressing musical ideas and later assigning it to various instrumentations. But in some cases, it stays on as my voice, which I later use various audio plugins to process it and make it sound to the desired effect. With my wide vocal range, I'm easily adaptable to any score that requires any droney or paddy effects, to obscurish and organic sounding beats. It gets pretty fun! (and can get carried away too sometimes)
What do you wish you knew in the beginning of your career about the entertainment industry or being a professional composer, that you know now?
That everything in professional music writing these days requires computer knowledge to that of a hacker! Okay not that extreme, but well enough to be at least troubleshooting tech issues on your own. I think a big chunk of music delivery in Hollywood is dependent on how efficient and reliable your music workstation can produce. It's till you get to the point where all tech are seamless that you're able to really be in the zone for creative writing. I'm a pretty good tech person myself, and I owe it to my ability in learning fast (also to my once-upon-a-time Civil Engineering background). But if I could go back in time, I'd tell my kid self to pick up some computer programming skills so that my music can just write itself. Lol.
When you are given a project or scene to score, what is your process like? How do you decide how to score something?
It all depends on the project. Sometimes it is dependent on how involved the directors would like to be, which can alter your approach to a score. But first things first, you both must agree of the mood and tone of the film. Generally once I have that down, I would watch the scene a few times with dialogue just to fetch the mood, pace, and rhythm that it needs. Sometimes you can already hear the music it needs. And from there, I would try to sketch it out in my head - and then with a combination of vocalizing it out and noodling it around on my sequencer. When the scene is screaming for something melodic, I would usually get that down first and build everything around that. And vice versa if it needs a sort of beat or pulse to it. The rest will just follow through, When I'm stuck, I sometimes play around through my sounds and let that inspire me instead (if I haven't had any specific sounds in mind already - you gotta be flexible in these things!)
Who are some of your musical influences?
I grew up to a lot of the classic films with John William's magic wand-ing on it. So he has definitely played a huge role influencing my writing - especially in writing top liners, as my writing is pretty much melodic driven. During my singer-songwriter days, I was very much influenced by Damien Rice, where he taught me the value of dissonant music. I believe some of those inspiration rolled over to my composer life. Most recently, due to my work as an assistant to composer Mac Quayle, the electronic guru Mac Quayle himself has been an influence in my writing. I've learned a lot by simply watching him score, and that has given me great inspiration and confidence in my electronic writing and production. Lastly, perhaps one of my biggest influence in my musical life is my dad who troubadour-ed himself back in the day as a folk singer-songwriter when he was not teaching Anthropology in a university. He got me to pick up the guitar and singing, and that has spelt out the rest of my musical life to now.
Where can we follow your career?
Website - www.rendrazawawi.com
Twitter - www.twitter.com/rendrazawawi
Facebook - www.facebook.com/rendrazawawimusic
Youtube - www.youtube.com/rendrazawawi
IMDB - www.imdb.com/name/nm7393386/