‘Saturday Night’s Jason Reitman & Jon Batiste On Why They “Threw Away The Orchestra” & Made Music “The Villain In The Film” — Contenders Los Angeles

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Saturday Night director Jason Reitman and music composer Jon Batiste said at Deadline Contenders Film: Los Angeles that music is the “villain” of the Columbia Pictures film.

Batiste said during Saturday’s panel that after several conversations with Reitman, “it became very clear” that Saturday Night’s music “was not going to be a traditional score — it was the anti-score.” The composer created the score during the filming process capturing the vibes in the room. “First decision that we made was that we would throw away the orchestra.

It would not be an orchestral score,” Batiste said. “And we started to talk about what the music represents, and it really is the villain in the film.

The music is an allegory for the clock, and the clock is the pressure of time.” One request that Reitman had for Batiste is to not “make it like it’s resolved” as they “know how it’s going to end,” adding, “We know that this [show is a] great success, it shouldn’t ever feel like there’s a moment of resolution, even by the end.” RELATED: 2024-25 Awards Season Calendar: Dates For Oscars, Grammys, Tonys, Guilds & More After the score was conceptualized, Batiste noted that he thought of capturing the music “in the room where everything is happening” and “if we get the energy of the space and the pressure of time on the musicians who did an incredible job.” Reitman added that “the entire cast and crew would stay because they knew they were about to get a free concert” when Batiste created the music live. RELATED: The 2025 Oscars: Everything We Know So Far About The Nominations, Ceremony, Date & Host “It was like a second shift,” Batiste said. “We’d be on the set and the film … we’d watch a few clips that the incredible editing team put together