These funds will go to costs incurred during the production of the music for La Serenata feature film. I am planning on hiring musicians from L.A. and Mexico. Musicians like, La Marisoul from La Santa Cecilia, Los Hermanos Herrera, Alejandra Paniagua, and Octavio Vega. At times, I will need to rent a studio since I am based in Oakland, too far for these musicians to travel for a session. I will also hire local musicians for some string parts. I might also need to rent or purchase equipment for some field recordings in case there are no studios available near the musicians. I will probably also need some transcription services in order to help the on-camera actors learn their music using a local vocal coach. In the short film, I paid for an online service to do this. It’s more economical that way. I would also like to get the music mastered before laying it back to final picture. I plan to hire vocalists in case the actors are not up to the task of singing the songs in a way that sounds professional. There will be some fees paid to a musicologist to do some musical research in order to avoid any copyright infringement. In the event we use copy-written material, we would need to pay for research in order to get the proper clearance. I like the idea of tapping into an existing song since the film might benefit from using the equity that comes from a recognizable song. One song I have in mind is ‘Cien Años’, made famous by Pedro Infante. If the film calls for it, we would simply re-record the song, or license a cover of it.

The score will be comprised of background music and featured songs, which would be sung on camera. Since the film is about the hunt for a song in the style of traditional Mexican serenade music, I plan on using a primarily acoustic and folkloric sound palette. I plan on highlighting the beauty and complexity of Mexican music, using beautiful chord arrangements played on instruments like harp and jarana, a traditional folkloric stringed instrument. For the background music, I would like to use instruments like Mexican harp and requinto Jarocho in an inventive manner, in order to give the score a sense of unity with the serenade songs. I will be writing full songs for the actors to sing on camera. One such song, “Eso es Amor” is already written and submitted as part of the application process for this grant. I wrote the song in January 2024, before shooting has begun, since they will need the music in order to properly shoot the scene. There are 3 more songs that will be provided before the shooting begins, including the final song which concludes the film and carries through the end credits. That song is yet to be written, but it will be a song in celebration of queer identity. It will be a song that speaks of the importance of celebrating who you are and finding and singing your own song. In this final song, I would love to take the listener on a musical journey through Mexico: some serenade music, some son Jarocho music, and some Huasteco music.

I am inspired by traditional serenade music of Mexico from the 40s and 50s. Music by artists like Los Tres Ases and Los Panchos. I love the complexity of the harmonic structure and how it injected jazz-like chords into the Mexican musical vernacular. I am also a big fan of modern production techniques. In my personal studio project band, called Sistema Bomb, I took very traditional folkloric music of Mexico and re-interpreted it using modern production techniques. The album was called ‘Electro-Jarocho’ and it earned a Grammy Nomination for Best Album. This was the first time in the Recording Academy’s then 55-year history to recognize this little known genre, Son Jarocho, from the eastern coast of Mexico, the state of Veracruz. I also love music of a neighboring region of Mexico, Son Huasteco. It is a lively and energetic polyrhythmic form of music, sometimes characterized by a melodious Mexican fiddle.

I grew up playing “conjunto” music at quinceañeras and Mexican weddings with my father’s band in Los Angeles. I have a very personal connection to traditional music of Mexico. This is a further inspiration for the score. Combined with me being a father of a transgender teen, this connection to traditional music of Mexico gives me a sense of a life-long challenge I’d like to meet. I want to show that there’s value in this film’s topic by respecting both the creative process and the story being told. I don’t want the music to be a superimposed score, because I feel that it might devalue the content of the film. I’d like to create a score as powerful as the message, and as beautiful as the people it celebrates. It’s important to me that I do this right. It’s important to me that I write a score that highlights the depth of Mexican music and hire musicians who have a life-long relationship with their instrument in order to execute it properly. At the end of the film, I want viewers to feel moved by the message and feel that the music played an essential role in getting that message across.

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Héctor H. Pérez (he/him/his) is a Grammy-nominated Oakland-based composer, producer, and co-founder of Music Orange, a commercial music company specializing in original music for advertising. Pérez has scored music for companies like Apple, Salesforce, Google, Levi’s, Lego, and Toyota. He also co-scored Daughter From Danang, the 2003 Sundance Grand Jury selection, which was also nominated for an Academy Award. Pérez co-scored the HBO Sundance winner My Flesh and Blood in 2004. In 2013, he was nominated for a Grammy for Best Album in ‘Latin Rock/Urban/Alternative’ for his album ‘Sistema Bomb presenta Electro-Jarocho’. In 2019 he scored La Serenata short film.