‘Exteriors’ is a poetic and experimental drama directed by Patrik Syversen and Marie Kristiansen that follows two young foreign actresses, Pearl (Ruta Gedmintas) and Skye (Gitte Witt), both struggling to find their footing in Los Angeles during pilot season. From Norway and the UK respectively, the two women are competing for the same part on the same day, living on friends’ couches, and tangled up in destructive relationships. Their parallel stories unfold as an exploration of the need to be loved, recognised and accepted, and of the sacrifices people make in pursuit of those things. It is, at its core, a film about what happens when the desire for validation starts to strip away your dignity.
Syversen, who had previously made the Norwegian horror film ‘Manhunt’ (2008), wrote the screenplay and brought a raw, unflinching sensibility to the material while Kristiansen, who also served as cinematographer, was at the time the youngest woman to ever direct a feature film in Norway. Her background as a photographer and conceptual artist, having studied at Central Saint Martins in London, gave the film a distinctive visual identity that blended naturalism with surreal, almost dreamlike compositions. The result is a film that sits somewhere between character study and art piece, with an atmosphere that reviewers noted was “well sustained” throughout.
‘Exteriors’ was nominated for Best Debut Feature Film at the Raindance Film Festival, which was a strong endorsement given the festival’s reputation as the UK’s largest independent film festival and its recognition by both the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and BAFTA. The cast also went on to notable careers: Ruta Gedmintas became known for ‘The Strain’ and ‘Lip Service’, Josh Bowman (who plays Adam) landed a lead role in the US series ‘Revenge’, and Allan Hyde had previously played Godric in ‘True Blood’.
About the score
When I came on board ‘Exteriors’ as co-composer alongside Theo Green, the challenge was that we couldn’t lean on conventional dramatic cues or follow a predictable emotional arc due to the film’s experimental, genre-blurring nature. Syversen and Kristiansen wanted something that felt organic to the film’s unusual rhythm, something that could sit comfortably alongside the naturalistic performances while also supporting the more surreal, heightened sequences without tipping the balance too far in either direction.
The dual narrative structure, following two women through mirrored but separate experiences on the same day, meant the score needed to find thematic connections between their stories without being too literal about it. I worked on creating motifs and textures that could weave between the two storylines, providing an emotional through-line for the audience even when the characters themselves remain unaware of each other. This was particularly important given the film’s relatively spare dialogue and observational style, where the score often had to carry the emotional weight of a scene on its own.
Much of my work on the music involved building atmospheric beds and layered textures that reflected the particular tension of the world these characters inhabit: the glossy, aspirational surface of Los Angeles set against the precariousness and loneliness of their actual lives. I wanted those contrasts to live in the music, so there are cues where the warmth and openness of the sound suggest possibility and hope, and others where the textures become claustrophobic and uneasy, mirroring the quiet desperation running through both women’s days as they prepare for an audition that could change everything, or change nothing at all.
Working with Theo on this was a productive collaboration. His strengths in electronic and textural composition complemented the subtle melodic and tonal elements I was developing, and the score benefited from that range. Over the film’s 80-minute runtime, every cue had to earn its place while keeping the flow of the film intact, so there were sequences where we deliberately pulled the music back entirely to let Kristiansen’s imagery and the performances breathe on their own. Getting that balance right, knowing when to score and when to leave space, was one of the more rewarding aspects of the project.
‘Exteriors’ was a formative experience for me as a composer. It was an early opportunity to score a feature that demanded subtlety and restraint rather than spectacle, and to work on material where the emotional register was genuinely complex. The film’s nomination at Raindance was a welcome recognition of the work the whole team put in, and I remain proud of the score we created for it.
