“Nainita Desai’s score builds little symphonies out of ambient noise” Indiewire (film review of ‘The Reason I Jump’)

"The editing is fluid and dreamlike; and the soundtrack of rhythmic noises and atonal music both soothes and startles." The Boston Globe (film review of ‘The Reason I Jump’)

"Quick cuts, predominantly in close-up combined with a gorgeous soundtrack put you in an alternate headspace... a viscerally stunning documentary." Reel News Daily (film review of ‘The Reason I Jump’)

“Nainita Desai’s score does impeccable work reflecting the complex interior worlds of the on-screen subjects…Desai’s score can shift between various tones with ease. As a result, the score is just as versatile as people like Amrit or Ben. The editing and score reinforce The Reason I Jump’s central theme about the versatility of the autistic community”
The Spool (film review of ‘The Reason I Jump’)

The Soundtrack is as magical as the film. Like all the best soundtracks, it more than stands up on its own” Electronic Sound Magazine

“Despite the time of year, we’re already confident enough to call it one of the year’s best soundtracks.” A Closer Listen

“There are beautiful sequences of slow motion and composer Nainita Desai does a remarkable contribution with the powerful and moving score, creating the right atmosphere”.
UK Film Review (Film review of ‘The Reason I Jump)

The film really satisfies when it comes to the music, as Nainita Desai’s magical score washes over you in a really satisfying, enveloping way. geekvibesnation.com (Film review of ‘The Reason I Jump)
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Like the book upon which the film is based, the score opens a door to a constellation of divergent ways of experiencing reality. The aim was to evoke the intense sensory worlds of the book using score and sound design.
Impactful moments in the lives of the characters are woven together with passages from Higashida, the 13 year old Japanese boy’s writings, creating a sensually rich tapestry.
I hope that the audience experiences an array of intensity, richness, and beauty within the interwoven sound scape.
I started work during the shoot and wrote a lot of material based on the key ideas in the book without seeing the film, which was a very liberating process. Bringing in musicians throughout the year of production, I also held semi-improvised recording sessions which then helped inform the music writing process.
Having written many musical ideas, the director and editor temped the edit with my musical experiments.
We wanted to blur the lines between music and sound design to create a cinematic immersive aural experience mixed in Atmos 360. The music and sound design had to interweave and work hand in hand, illustrating and amplifying what it actually felt like to be autistic for the contributors in the film.

Autists perceive the world in a different way. So the challenge was to create an aural landscape that felt cohesive and worked harmoniously – this process resulted in a very experimental journey. Over the course of the year we debated and experimented with various approaches culminating in a Dolby Atmos dub where occasionally, we shaped and constructed musical cues from the music stems such as the forest cue talking about Nazi experiments during WW2.

The sound palette consists of manipulated found sound taken from the film’s location sound, vocals, strings and other organic and treated elements such as the ‘Halo’ (a hand pan), prepared clarinet and saxophone. All the sounds are created from organic sources – treating and manipulating sounds working in tandem with the sound designer.
I also wanted authenticity towards Autism and Neurodiversity. Elisabeth Wiklander, cellist with the LPO is autistic and a cultural ambassador for the Natonal Autistic Society and her contribution has great sensitivity and perception particularly in the Forest sequence.
So for example, in the scene where artist Amrit rocks to the movement of ceiling and table fans, the sounds of the fans and other percussive found sound elements from the location create a rhythmic foundation out of which grew a musical piece. Where the book describes the calm created by repetitive movement, I created oscillations and repetition in the score to evoke the sense of cathartic release.
Elsewhere, treated vocals represent the non-verbal world of the characters. she worked with treated vocals (using original Japanese words from the book) to represent the internal world of the characters. For example, Naoki’s phrase ‘we are outside the flow of time’ is broken up into its vowels and consonants, sung in a fractured way as the boy journeys through a remote landscape.
We wanted to have a distinction between the musical worlds of the different characters, using different instrumentation. Jestina’s sound is the playful Halo Handpan, the cello worked for Joss and Ben and Emma share the double bass and guitar between them.
The challenge was to create an aural landscape that felt cohesive and worked harmoniously – this process resulted in a very experimental journey, sometimes constructing sparse musical cues from the music stems in the original compositions.
The section I am most proud of: “The opening lighthouse with its interweaving oscillations and strings is a personal favourite, and the end cue, which has Japanese flavoured vocals with a cyclical quality, that brings us back full circle to the beginning of the film.”

MIXED BY NAINITA DESAI , STEVE PARR
VIOLIN: DANIEL PIORO, SARAH HARRISON
CELLO: ELISABETH WIKLANDER, MARION LONG, MATT HAWKEN
DOUBLE BASS; MALCOLM LAWS
VOCALS: NAINITA DESAI
TENOR SAXOPHONE: BEN VINCE
CLARINET: HEATHER ROCHE
GUITAR: ARTHUR DICK