Composer Sally Chou (left) poses with a guest.

This Post is in a series of posts that is directed at the members of the IAWTV/Streamy Awards. The content will highlight different members of the Compulsions team. These are meant for both awareness and as a guide to showcase what each individual brought to the project.

From Creator Bernie Su: I’m going to start this off by saying that all the music in our series is original and is not sourced. Different members of our team have been asked “Where did the music come from?” and there is one answer, our Composer Sally Chou.

Sally is probably the least recognizable member of our team. In fact, there are members of our principal team that have yet to even meet her in person, and that’s entirely Sally’s own design. Sally isn’t on Facebook or Twitter and is naturally very private, she doesn’t even have a bio on this site. Thus it’s up to me to tell you about Sally and just how immensely skilled she is. I’ve known her all my life and she continues to be one of the smartest, most talented, and most reliable people that I know.

I am going to set this up by starting with what Director Nathan Atkinson wanted from her as for music. When you watch the series you’ll notice that most of the episodes have no composed music except for the last few scenes in each episode, this was done by design to add punch to those heavy hitting ending moments and lines of dialogue. Each episode ends with unique tracks, while Episode 5: Only I Can See and Episode 7: Obsessed with a Crush feature a track throughout the episode.

Now let me tell you about the constraints that faced Sally. Typically the soundtrack process comes at the end of post-production. Scoring can’t really start until after you lock picture. This is because the composer is generally required to hit certain moments with specific instrumentation. Now here’s the kicker, we didn’t lock picture on our episodes until Late October 2009 and if you remember we launched on Dec 1st, 2009. Thus Sally had a little more than a month to compose and produce 8 original short tracks to use in the show. Merely completing her task alone is an incredible feat, but I’d like to highlight a couple of moments where she absolutely rocked it.

Episode 6 – From what I hear, this is one of, if not the most memorable sequence of the season. Listen and watch as how the music begins as Sara calls for Mark, watch and enjoy the scene, but listen for that transition at that devastating sequence with the screams by Sara, the door slam, and the roll into credits. I remember when this episode aired, I received several specific inquiries on this musical track.

Episode 8 – In our season finale, we wanted to end with a great final track and I have to really praise Sally for her work in this one. This track was immensely complex and features full on instrumentation as well as vocals. Fun Fact: It is Sally herself singing the vocals in track. I really don’t know how else to highlight this. I just think it’s awesome and I hope you enjoy it as well.

Personally this is the fourth time I’ve done a project with Sally and she always comes through. Back in early November, with less than a month to go, I remember nervously asking her if she had enough time to finish the immense load that we had given her. She responded with full and total confidence, “Don’t worry, it’ll get done in time.”

So please consider Sally Chou in Compulsions for Best Original Music in the 2010 Streamys.