The Lesser Dead - The Lesser Dead - Bonus Episode - Confronting the Past

Episode Date: August 1, 2023

A behind-the-scenes look at the making of The Lesser Dead, featuring the team of directors, producers, and writers who helped create the series. In this episode, the team discusses the importance of each character's past and how it informs their stories. We also hear from the show’s composer, Benjamin Sturley.

And now, for a behind the scenes look at the making of the lesser dead, featuring the team of directors, producers, and writers who helped create the series. Every action our characters take in the lesser dead has an equal opposite reaction. Consequences affect the entire group, and though many consequences can happen immediately, it takes longer for others to arrive. We initially see Joey as an aimless, carefree, young vampire, happy to be living in the moment, enjoying cheap thrills, and thinking only about his own needs, director, Dan Blank. But as the story progresses, we realize there's more beneath him, things that even he hasn't fully confronted.

Family is something that Joey desperately desires but always seems to fall short of playing a full and useful role in. Christopher Buelman, author of The Lessor Dead. Joey had a strain relationship with his mother, particularly, and he played a very nasty trick on their house keeper Margaret getting her kicked out of the house. She lost her position as the cook, based on Joey's irresponsible and criminal actions.

That's Josh Mauer, executive producer of The Lesser Dead. This sets Margaret off into a cycleogue, both depression and poverty, of which she then loses her son. And then that causes her to be in a position in the wrong time, in the wrong place, in the wrong spot, in which the Hessian then does what Hessian does. Joey had no idea as no one would, that the firing of this maid would result in a series of unfortunate events, so to speak, which will lead to her becoming a vampire. Joey had no idea this would happen.

Is Joey responsible for his actions? Yes, but there's consequences. My betrayal would end her life as she knew it, and by extension mine, and there's consequences. There are layers of guilt for the sins of his past. There's the loss of innocence for money was turned into a vampire against his will, his lack of meaningful long-term relationships, the way that he hangs with the bakers. You know, and he sees the like Mikey almost as a brother, or the bakers' is this comforting, family lifestyle you sit on the couch together, he TV dinners and much television, or the way

that he has his relationships with Svekko or Margaret. He's formed a family out of these other characters, you know, and has a connection to them. His personal failings have already caused him to destroy his own family. And his later failures cause him to destroy yet another family. Margaret lost the sum and Margaret made the choice of being a vampire or dying, right? The Hessian gives her a choice.

It's very interesting in the story, characters are given choices. Right? Now one could say those are choices going to rock in a art place, right? But there's still choices. If you were to ask Joey, would you have rather stay the human and not be the vampire? You know, not rat it on market,

or do you prefer where you are right now? I don't know what Joey's answer would be. Joey is a man outside of time, but music is his connection to his past and his present. To highlight Joey's humanity, the creators of the show used music to bridge the emotional gaps for him and other characters. Scoring and composing was also crucial in this in terms of finding the right instrumentation, the right tone for Joey, the right thematic, for Margaret. They each of them had different themes,

so there is an emotional Joey theme. There's a, what we call the walking theme for Joey, which is when he's walking us through his world. There's obviously, Margaret has the same themes as well. There's this very big operatic theme for her when she gets turned by the Hessian. And then there's also this really warm emotional family-driven kind of theme that represents Joey's yearning for connection and family that comes into play particularly as you get deeper into the series. It's called Blue Skies.

And Blue Skies is an old song. I think it's even 1920s or even earlier that has been done multiple different times. We found a great recording of it that we loved. And then the composer took that and turned it into score and played with that theme as well. What that song symbolizes as it shows up or thematically shows up a few different times throughout the show, what that symbolizes is Joey's freedom. Benjamin Sterley is the composer of the music you hear in each episode. I guess with its thematic purpose, I always saw it as this is basically the goal of Joey's evolution as a character, as a character arc, to be free, to find happiness, to find

contentiveness, and this is symbology of that. Music is used in the way that can help propel the story forward, whether it be emotionally or maybe it's an action scene or something, but to be able to uncover a different layer of depth that maybe isn't as easily attainable or accessible solely through dialogue or through acting. And so we did spend a lot of time solely through dialogue or through acting. And so we did spend a lot of time looking at different music cues that we could, songs that we could license and put a lot of those in the end credits. Again, one of my favorites is the cue that we use at the end of episode six when Joey gets shot in the head. And it's this great mom-of-kiss song about

a new day's coming. And obviously lyrically very appropriate, but also there's this kind of like charm to it. It's almost like a sweet song, which I just again love because it kind of cuts against this horrific moment. you