At the heart of The Vale – Origins, an animated action short film centered on a Silicon Valley family navigating grief with a virtual world, is a score designed to support the story. Starring Robert Palmer Watkins, Egan Xander, and Grammy-nominated Tony Award winner Lea Salonga, the film serves as a prequel to The Vale, a novel about the 13-year-old son who begins to encounter glitches in his AI-generated virtual world.
All of the music—10 minutes of the 13 minute film—was composed and directed by Andromeda W. ’26, who has been composing since she was four.
“[Composition is] always something that’s been at the center of what I do as a musician,” Andromeda said.
Andromeda, who has been improvising music since early childhood, was recruited to compose the score by her mother, Abigail Hing Wen, the film’s director.
“[The Vale] is close to my heart, because it was a novel she wrote when I was in middle school—one that I read all the early drafts of,” Andromeda said. “Now, I get to actually be a contributor on the project, which is really fun.”
Between November of 2024 and the following summer, she composed 12 cues, or pieces of music. Her process began at the piano, improvising while watching scenes unfold onscreen.
“Usually around 90% of it is completely unusable,” Andromeda said. “So I spend some time finding my favorite pieces of that, and then [use] those to arrange it with the picture.”
From those fragments, she gradually incorporated other instruments, including many that she plays herself: saxophone, piano, clarinet, drums, and bass. When selecting which instruments to use for which song, she was careful to choose sounds that wouldn’t overwhelm the film. For example, for one song, she combined digital string instruments, piano she recorded herself, and one live oboe player.
“The goal is not to dominate the scene, but support and bring out the emotions I see on screen,” she said.
That emotional focus guided the entire score. “[The film’s] fundamentally a story about healing and coming back together. So, that is the goal of the music, such that when someone listens to it without the context of the film, there would be a reasonable chance that they might say the same things to describe it,” she said.
After revisions, she worked with main post-producer Spencer Patzman—an industry native with experience with Chlöe, Beyoncé, and Adidas. Along the way, Andromeda also had the opportunity to work with actress Lea Salonga on the end credit song, who recorded the vocals over Zoom from a studio in New York. After just two takes, the final version was complete.
Beyond just the technical challenge, Andromeda says that the project has reshaped the way she thinks about composition.
“It’s very different to think about the emotional core as the first part rather than an emergent property of the music. With film, the emotion has to come first,” Andromeda said. “[When I’m composing,] I’m trying to get at the emotions that aren’t on screen. Focusing on that as the core of the music was really interesting and a different way of thinking.”
Though The Vale – Origins marks her first film score, Andromeda doesn’t believe it will be her last. Whether she’s writing for a classical concert or the bustle of the film industry, she’s eager to keep exploring how music can shape and deepen storytelling.
