Brandon Keropian Olmos on creating mood and communicating heartbreak

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With more than 20 years of experience in the Hollywood film and television industries, Brandon Keropian Olmos, son of actor Edward James Olmos, was able to give what he calls a “fresh ear” and “fresh eyes” to Mutt Productions’ latest movie, Dani The Ranch Hand, as co-producer and sound editor. A recent San Antonio transplant, Olmos spoke with the Current about his work on the movie.

What inspirations did you draw from when composing the score for Dani The Ranch Hand?

A lot of times what will happen is that the editor will edit the movie and they’ll put music inside of the movie, either music that’s from another movie [or] music from whatever they have in their files to create the rhythm, mood, and feeling of the film. So my job is to take what they have already — say it’s music from another movie — I take it and what I’ll do is sort of copy the same mood or temper. We did that with Johnny V (2011). We had music in there from [Ennio] Morricone, and I just copied it. This was the same thing. We used a lot of music in the editing process from the Blow soundtrack. So, I listened to what [Graeme] Revell did for Blow and sort of tried to create the same mood.

What's the difference between this movie and your average drugs/guns/strippers movie?

This movie is not about drugs or guns or strippers. This movie is about this girl’s heartbreak. It’s the story of Dani and the heartbreak of her life and how she can’t seem to get a break. It’s funny, but it’s really a woman’s story. It just happens to be set in this South Texas town with drugs and a dysfunctional family. It’s established from the beginning that her whole perspective comes from when she was growing up inside the Waco Ranch and how it’s fucked up her whole life.