The music of “Shark Tale” is a combination of songs and score, with the score composed by Jeffrey Katzenberg’s longtime collaborator Hans Zimmer. “I have such a long and amazing history with Hans Zimmer,” Katzenberg states. “He came on board this film and once again was worth his weight in gold.” Bill Damaschke comments, “Hans did amazing work to make sure all the music felt cohesive. Our movie is a collection of styles, from the urban setting to the top of the Reef and from a mob comedy to a love story. We have big orchestral moments mixed in with a lot of different songs, and Hans was able to glue it all together.”
The music of “Shark Tale” is integral to the telling of the story, which is not unusual for an animated film. But the “Shark Tale” soundtrack is not your traditional animated movie music. Music supervisor Darren Higman says, “Taking it from the standpoint of the story’s location, which is very much an urban center like New York, we wanted music that would give the film that kind of urban feel.”
Damaschke agrees, “We wanted to use music that felt appropriate to that world, to give our Reef a contemporary urban sound, and that’s hip hop, R&B, rap and pop music. It’s the music of this generation and it’s what dominates the charts every week.”
“Some people might think that urban music—even though it’s the most popular music of the day—is still somewhat edgy when it comes to animated fare. But the great part about it is that no one had ever mined that kind of music for a movie like this. We were able to experiment and be as creative as we wanted to be in terms of the soundtrack,” adds Higman.
The filmmakers reeled in a remarkable roster of contemporary recording artists to contribute to the musical sound of “Shark Tale.” Music supervisor Laura Wasserman says, “It’s really incredible that we’ve gotten this group of artists together for an animated film, and the artists themselves have said that. They’re very excited about it because no one’s ever done this before, and they had so much fun with it.” “It is a great line-up of talent,” says Katzenberg. “There are a handful of songs that we went back and repurposed for our film, and then we have another group of songs that are fresh and original and were written just for the movie.”
The first song that was reworked for “Shark Tale” was the disco classic “Car Wash.” Higman notes, “In the story, Oscar works at a Whale Wash, so how could we not? I mean, how many songs could fit the story so perfectly? I think it was even written into the script.”
Wasserman points out that “Car Wash” is more than a song in the film, saying, “It is a huge dance number, too, so we had to record it early on so they could animate to the song. It’s not like a live-action movie where they can edit it to make it fit. Animation is more intricate than that.”
To create the dance number, the animators were enrolled in dance classes, in a manner of speaking. Although they didn’t actually have to learn how to dance themselves, they needed to learn how to make their characters step to the beat of “Car Wash.” The filmmakers brought in Nadine “Hi-Hat” Colquhoun, who is best known as Missy Elliott’s choreographer, to teach them all the right moves. Supervising animator Fabrice Joubert notes, “Hi-Hat designed the dance moves for the characters in the film, which was an amazing reference for us. It really helped us to capture that hip-hop feeling in the dance.”
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