Disney celebrated its 100th anniversary with the adorable Once Upon a Studio and Wish.
For many members of the crew, working on a Disney project is a dream come true. That's especially true in the case of David Metzger, who has patiently waited his turn for a long time.
While Metzger has worked on Disney projects for years, Wish was his first chance to truly shine. He scored the film, as well as Once Upon a Studio, in his feature film debut.
Prior to Wish and Once Upon a Studio, Metzger worked on countless projects, from Diary of a Wimpy Kid to X-Men: First Class. His relationship with Disney dates back to Tarzan in 1999, and he has since worked on films like Frozen (and its sequel) and Moana for the studio, as well as the Broadway version of The Lion King.
Speaking to ClutchPoints before the release of Wish, Metzger spoke about his Disney career, the musical cues in Once Upon a Studio, and spills on Frozen 3.
David Metzger-Wish interview

ClutchPoints: Congratulations on Wish and Once Upon a Studio! I noticed you've done a lot of Disney projects, so I'm curious, did Disney mean a lot to you growing up?
David Metzger: It did. The first film I remember seeing as a kid was The Jungle Book and it's going to totally date me, right? [laughs] Because it was like 1967 and I was a kid then. I love the music in it. But I'd say I always have appreciated Disney.
I actually played at Disneyland when I was in my early 20s as a bass player, just a musician [at] the park, so Disney has always meant a lot to me, but I just have been very fortunate that throughout my career, I kind of fell into it and they kept calling me and I'm very appreciative of that.
CP: I saw that Wish now is a full circle moment for you and [director] Chris Buck. Could you talk to me a little bit about that journey you guys have had over the years.
DM: My first major film that I worked on that was actually kind of successful [laughs] — I worked on a couple that weren't maybe too successful before — was Tarzan. I was the orchestrator of the entire score and also all the songs. And so Phil Collins wrote the songs and Mark Mancina wrote the score, but Chris Buck was the director of that film.
And so that was 1999 I think it was, so 24 years ago now, and then in the interim, Chris and I have worked on Frozen. I was the arranger and orchestrator of all the songs in Frozen, including “Let It Go,” and also we worked on Frozen 2, where he was the director of both of those films.
I was the arranger and orchestrator and co-producer of the songs in that. So, this is actually the fourth film that Chris and I have worked on.
CP: You just mentioned the Frozen series and you mentioned “Let It Go.” And then of course, Frozen 2 had “Into the Unknown,” which have both taken off and are huge successes. For you, having worked on both those songs, what has that been like to see how both those songs have carried on such a life of their own?
DM: Yeah, well, I think that's honestly one of the benefits and joys of working on Disney animated musicals is that these films really last forever. They're generational. And a part of that is these songs, if you get fortunate enough to be involved in songs as fantastic as those are written by Bobby and Kristen [Anderson-]Lopez, you can't plan any of that, right?
I kind of fell into them and it's honestly a wonderful feeling. Knowing that the things you worked on will hopefully have a life and impact people's lives in a positive way. And I'm so very hopeful that these songs from Wish are going to turn out that way, too.
Julian Michaels and Ben Rice are the composers of the songs in this film. And I think they're great songs and I hope that they're going to have the same kind of a lifespan.
CP: Did you work on The Lion King at all?
DM: I actually did not work on the original film. That was sort of before I'd broken through in my career or whatever you'd call it, but, but I did orchestrate the Broadway version of The Lion King, which has been running for 26 years now on Broadway and 21 or something in London.
I was nominated for a Tony Award for my orchestrations on that. And then what happened is that was like 1997, and in 2000, they released an updated special edition version of the Lion King film, the animated film. And as a part of that, there was a special extended version where one of the songs from the Broadway show they animated and put in that special edition. And so then I did the arrangement orchestration for that song.
CP: Once Upon a Studio is something that made a lot of people emotional, including myself, and I am curious, what did it feel like when you were first approached for that? That must have been a lot of pressure.
DM: It actually came in conjunction with Wish. I was approached for both of those at the very same time. I don't know how much you know about my background, but I have always up until this point [been] put in the box of an arranger and an orchestrator. And even though I've done a lot of additional music composition on a ton of films over my career, I had never been given the opportunity to be the composer on a project before.
It's kind of amazing, Andrew — I mean, the whole way this worked out. I had given up the hope that I was going to get my own film about 10 years ago, I thought, Well, it was a dream that just wasn't going to happen.
And then about a year and a half ago was when I was approached to be the composer on both Wish and Once Upon a Studio. And it just fell out of the blue. I didn't lobby for any of it. The phone call just came unexpectedly.
[To] the first part of your question, it just was amazing to me that I even got this opportunity. And then to have it be a major Disney animation film for one, and then an homage [with] Once Upon a Studio, this homage to a hundred years of Disney animation, it couldn't have been more special to me and meant more to me. [smiles]
So there was pressure from the standpoint of, yeah, you always want to do a good job, but it wasn't really pressure, but it was just like a relief [that] I'm finally going to get this opportunity to be a composer and people are going to hear my compositional voice clearly. It wasn't so much pressure as [much as it was] just overwhelming joy, frankly.
CP: With Once Upon a Studio, becuase you're paying homage to so many different characters, how did you use different cues from different characters as they're shown?
DM: It was kind of a two-part deal in a way where in my first meeting with the directors, we talked through what the idea was going to be. And at that point, everything was still pretty storyboarded. It was still being formulated, the whole concept of the short.
So there were some scenes that they really wanted to use the original music from the films. An example would be from Aladdin where Robin Williams pops out of the screen. There's a moment where Cinderella and Prince Charming are walking down the stairway and they really wanted that piece of music from the original Cinderella film for like five seconds. And then the biggest thing, obviously, was “When You Wish Upon a Star” at the end.
They wanted to have that song, but I was able to put my spin on that one [with] my arrangement with the idea of it being scored as the way it really would have been from 1940. But the majority of the film was actually my composition, but I wanted to allude to the classic Disney sound on so much of the [score].
There's such a huge lineage of great music. So one of the things I did is I've worked on so many Disney things over my career — I have copies of scores of the original scores from Cinderella, [to] Peter Pan, I have the score from Snow White from 1937 — so when I first got called for the job, I went and we talked with the directors. I went back and looked through all of those scores to try to capture what the orchestral sound was of those original films and also the compositional arc of the melodies.
It's all original composition, but it's written in the style of what Disney would have been throughout all these. The short's nine and a half minutes, something like that, [I think when] you take out “When You Wish Upon a Star,” which is probably about two minutes, there's maybe seven and a half minutes of film. And out of that, I would say probably six and a half minutes was my original composition.
I've been very fortunate to be a part of the last 25 years of these Disney things. I think I've worked on 11 out of the 62 Disney animation films, historically, going back to 1937's Snow White.
CP: Just to make sure that I understand this correctly. When they wanted to use a sample from Cinderella, were you taking the original track from the film or arranging it yourself?
DM: “When You Wish Upon a Star” was my spin on that song, but when they were the two or four-second snippets, I actually just took the score and orchestrated with the instruments that I had. So the ones that you hear within the body of the film are pretty much direct.
There's “Trust in Me” from The Jungle Book, and I got the score of it and pretty much did an exact copy of that for that four seconds or whatever that is. It was from the original score from 1967, George Bruns, [who] wrote that score. And so for the four seconds of that, it was a direct quote of that song of “Trust in Me.”
CP: I was talking to a producer recently who was talking about how AI is a big topic of conversation. And he was saying how there's these things now where you can say, I want something that sounds like 10 seconds of “Hotel California” and it'll make it. Since you made a score that sounded like classic Disney, I'd like to hear your thoughts on that.
DM: I totally agree with you about AI. I mean, certainly, [a] computer can do it, but so much of music is the humanity, or any art, right? It's that human factor that gets brought into it. So if you're just having an algorithm creating something based on information that's been fed into software, to me, it's not the same at all.
And it can sound kind of like it, but it's just still going to be missing that humanity. Obviously, I would rather not have AI working on my work.
The way I looked at it is — again, it's kind of this library or whatever in my head of just I've worked on or listened to so much of it that it's where you're writing in the style of something, but it's still original material.
A person can write in the style of Beethoven, and it's not going to be Beethoven, but you will have the cadences that will hearken back to what Beethoven kind of did. So there's quite a difference there to me of when a computer is doing it, as opposed to a human doing it, because the human is still imparting their individual voice into this process and a unique and new spin on what it is, but it's not the same as copying.
I think that I'd follow that up with it's a unique creation that might have allusions to the original.
[Igor] Stravinsky famously quoted that he didn't borrow from Mozart, he stole from Mozart, right? [smiles] Any new art is being based on something. There's nothing that is really completely brand new original that somebody bolted out of a lightning or whatever, it all has some kind of a tie back to what's come before.
People might disagree with that, but I really believe that there's nothing [completely original and that] we're all building on what's come before. When you think about art, that's true, but it's also in other parts of society as well.
CP: When you were approached for Wish, what were some of the earliest ideas you had for this score?
DM: My Wish experience [was] I first [was] approached for the possibility of the job in probably June of a year ago, so like a year and a half ago, and then I found out I was brought into the project in September that year.
But the first eight months I was working on the film, it was all just on the songs — I was the arranger and orchestrator of the songs as well. The songs are kind of the most important part of a musical because you have lyrics, right? And so the lyrics are all part of the story arc [and] they're very integral to the arc of the film.
The score is kind of more of a narrational partner or whatever, but the songs are really [the] meat and potato story points. And so for the first eight months, I was working with Julie and Ben on developing the songs. So I'd already lived in Wish for quite a while before I started the score composition.
I didn't really start composing the score until this June and I composed the whole thing in six weeks. But I had the benefit, an advantage [since] I'd already been living for eight months in this world. So I already knew what I was going to be.
I'd already had a chance to think about what instruments I was going to use. I had a chance to kind of think of what my themes were going to be and stuff like that, even though I wasn't really directly working on it. It's just human nature that you know it's coming, so you start planning.
But really a lot of it in the conversations I'd [had] with Chris and Fawn [Veerasunthorn] about [the] direction of the film and when we got to the spotting, eventually, it was for the score. It was how I had to figure out what I was going to do to set the location of the film, and also the era of the film.
And so, [for] location, I knew that the kingdom of Rosas is this island in the middle of the Mediterranean, but the people came from all around the region to come and live there because of the benefits of it. When you see the film, you'll understand what those are.
So there were a lot of people coming from Spain. So I knew I needed to figure out how I [was] going to incorporate Spanish music into it. My first instinct was flamenco. I hadn't really known much about flamenco music before starting on the film, but I jumped into a crash course [over] a couple of months of just listening to as much flamenco as I could and studying what made flamenco music, and it's actually incredibly complicated and I had no idea, but they build the music on content, which are 12 beat phrases.
But to our ears, at least my ears, a lot of times beat 12 is actually the downbeat. I'd hear it as beat one, but it's actually beat 12 and there's a reason for that. I had to learn all that to really understand how it was built. But also then orchestrally and instrumentally, I [thought], Well, obviously, nylon string flamenco guitar is a big color, so I utilized throughout the score.
When you're listening to the score, you'll hear a lot of nylon string guitar all the way through. And that's a reason. I also use a lot of cajon, because that is a Spanish flamenco percussion instrument. But then for the North African aspect, I used a lot of percussion. Darabukas are there — [there's] a tambourine, but with the head.
If you [listen for] the percussion, you'll hear a lot of that instrument as well. And I use oud, that's a Mediterranean guitar. I tried to really establish the location of Rosas through the color choices that I use.
And then also, era-wise, I knew that it's not a modern, a current day thing. So [with] my score, I wanted to have colors that would allude to kind of Renaissance. And so I used an oboe d'amore that [was] a Renaissance oboe. You'll hear that especially in the beginning of the score. And I used a bass oboe and I used a dulcitone, which is a keyboard instrument that was built in the 1800s [that] hasn't been manufactured for 150 years, but there was one beautiful instrument in Los Angeles that I was able to bring into the studio to record with.
It's kind of my “Wish color,” but so it was a blast because I get to do all this research and thinking about how I want to kind of convey this film and make it not just an orchestral score and not make it just a synthesizer, even though I have synthesizer elements in the score, but what can I do uniquely to make it build this culture?
It's a make believe culture — [I'm] sorry to say there is no Rosas — but I got to build this [and] do my part to help build this land.
CP: So are any of the guitars [behind you] the ones used in the score?
DM: [laughs] I wish! I actually have all of these [guitars], but they were for me to help understand how the instruments play and are fingered and stuff so that I could write intelligently instead of just sort of writing random notes. So they were really for my education as much as anything.
But the guitar player who played most of the guitar parts is a guy named George Doering, who's a legendary Los Angeles studio musician [that] has probably played on 3,000 film scores or so over his career. If you've heard a film that's recorded in Los Angeles that has a guitar, there's a very good chance it'll be George.
We had a lot of individual recording sessions, he and I, where we would record him not so much with the whole orchestra, but just on his own so that we would have time to really develop the parts in case I'd blown something in the way that it would lay with his fingers. But these instruments were really essentially just to help me understand how to write properly for him.
CP: A lot of composers talk about research, but it seems like you really did go knee deep into the research process. Was there something that you learned and can now take with you going forward on other projects?
DM: I'll even say, I have no idea if I'll get another film. I mean, this was my first and one film — who knows, right?
Life is a constant learning experience, and one of the things that I love most of all about music is that you can never know it all, and there's always more to learn. And I just cherish these opportunities to learn new things. I look at this film, what I learned on it, [and] it's going in my toolbox. It's something that I don't know when I'll maybe pull them out again, but I'll be able to pull it out, hopefully, at some point.
When I worked on Tarzan, I learned a heck of a lot about African percussion that I've used all over the place in the 25 years since then or whatever it is. In my early 20s, I played at Disneyland, but I [also] played in a rock band in my 20s as a bass player.
And there's things that I learned then that I'm still learning now of pop music. I've had this wonderful opportunity to, throughout my lifetime, learn a lot about orchestral music, but also learn a lot about pop [and] jazz [music]. My first earliest compositions were really jazz things, and I lived through my 20s as a jazz [player].
Then I got to film music and I got to learn about kind of the specificities of the differences between film orchestra writing and classical orchestra writing. You can never know too much and I'm just hoping that I'll have a chance to bring what I've learned on Wish into some future project.
CP: We talked about Frozen, which had hit songs, but is there a song in the film that you have a lot of faith in to be that next big song, or that you hope is at least, in Wish?
DM: I'll say, Andrew — I'm not just saying this, because sometimes people will just say it, but this is truly how I feel — I think that all of these songs are great. I think that they're all really good, solid songs and they do a great job of telling the story and what their role is.
But if I had to pick kind of one, I think the one that is probably going to rise more than any, and I think it's already kind of showing, would be “This Wish,” which is Ariana's [DeBose] song where she's kind of expressing her dreams and [her] hopes. And so “This Wish” is the one I think that that probably has the most [potential].
I think the other alternative in my mind, the song that I think that is is extremely beautiful [and] is really well-crafted musically, [is] “A Wish Worth Making,” which is the end-credit song. I think Julia and Ben did [a] spectacular job of artistically crafting that, [and] musically, it really spoke to me.
The first time I heard it, it was like, Well, that's a really great song. I love them all, but those would probably be the two that if I had to give a shoutout to in particular, it'd be those.
CP: It's funny how the Frozen franchise has continued for a decade now. I know that a third film is being worked on — is this something that you're starting to at least get into the conceptual stages for?
DM: To be honest, it's all been about Wish for this last year and Once Upon a Studio.
I cleared my deck just to be able to focus on those two projects. [With] it being my first real opportunity [to score a project], I wanted to make sure I didn't have any distractions or whatever.
But as far as Frozen 3 goes, for me, I haven't even been brought into it yet. And I can't even speak to where the development is. I know essentially no more than you do about where it is right now. [smiles]
I expect it's going to happen. And if it does happen, I hope I'm brought along for the ride again. And that's the honest truth there. That's literally everything I know. I've told you everything I do know. [laughs]
CP: If they did approach you for Frozen 3, would it be a resounding yes?
DM: Well, I've been so fortunate to work with so many amazing songwriters in my career back to Phil Collins — I'm not going to name them all because I'm going to forget — Lin-Manuel Miranda, Alan Menken, Pasek and Paul, Bobby and Kristen Lopez, now Julia Michaels and Ben Rice.
Bobby and Kristen Lopez are incredibly special people to me, and all those folks I named are, but Bobby and Kristen are really great friends. And if they would ask me to be involved, there's no way I could say no, they're really special people and wonderful people and I just couldn't imagine not wanting to be involved.
I'm sorry man. You know, I'm an emotional guy, too. You can push my buttons about thinking about certain people in my life, but they're very special to me.
Wish is in theaters.