20 Things You Didn't Know About 2021's Oscar Nominees

11. The Score Was Created On Period-Authentic Instruments Only - Mank

Carey Mulligan Promising Young Woman
Netflix

Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross received their second and third Best Original Score nominations this year for the superb work on both Pixar's Soul and David Fincher's Mank.

The two scores are incredibly different - Soul a gorgeous fusion of electronica and jazz, while Mank attempts to capture the orchestral sweep of a classic Hollywood picture.

For Mank, Reznor and Ross even imposed a fascinating limitation upon themselves - they could only use period-authentic instruments from the 1940s or prior to create the score.

But the recording methods were decidedly more modern, as due to COVID-19 the session musicians couldn't actually record their pieces together, capturing them instead from their own homes before being fused together digitally. The results, impressively, are absolutely seamless.

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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.