Nathaniel Harder enlists Berklee Online peers for film soundtrack

Nathaniel Harder turned his Berklee Online education into a career-launching opportunity, scoring the dark comedy “Thank You, Places!” with the help of his former classmates. Despite a tight budget and post-pandemic challenges, their collaboration created a cohesive 31-song soundtrack that set the stage for Harder’s next big projects.

Nathaniel Harder enlists Berklee Online peers for film soundtrack

by Ale Gil via Berklee Online Take Note

When Nathaniel Harder graduated from Berklee Online’s Film Scoring graduate program a few years ago, he didn’t just dream about scoring films—he immediately jumped into creating a 31-song soundtrack for a dark comedy called Thank You, Places!, which premiered in November of 2024. Having a limited budget and post-pandemic logistics weren’t ideal, but he leaned on his classmates and the skills he honed in the program to bring the project to life. 

The opportunity to score Thank You, Places! came when Berklee professor Jessica Ray Huber introduced Harder to the film’s director, Timothy Mark Davis. Harder then brought in his former classmates Celisse Tan and Jameson Hedger to collaborate on the soundtrack, a process that began shortly after graduating, in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

“He didn’t have a lot of money. He didn’t have a lot of time. So he was a great palette for me to just write whatever I wanted within a set of parameters,” says Harder of the director. “It was a really cool opportunity for me to maximize as much as I could out of it.”

Thank You, Places! tells the story of a group of friends who try to save their film company during the pandemic, when the reality of its struggles seem to be geared more toward love affairs and betrayals. The movie’s name refers to a common phrase used in film, TV, and theater as a way for actors to indicate that they’ve heard the direction to take their places.  

Scoring a soundtrack for a film was not an ambition for Harder until later in his career. After obtaining a bachelor’s degree in film from Arizona State University, Harder intended to work on post-production audio. He started his career at Foster Group, a company responsible for generating audio effects for movies. Eventually, he realized that music was the aspect of film that he felt most passionate about, so he decided to expand his knowledge by studying film scoring at Berklee Online. 

“Berkee’s curriculum set me up for so much success,” says Harder. “It got me prepared in almost every aspect. I got out the door with a great skill set, a great musical sense, and I had a website ready to go; I was fully set for the opportunities that came my way.” 

When Harder was presented with the opportunity to score Thank You, Places!, he sought the help of Tan as co-composer and Hedger as the score mixer. The collaboration between Harder and Tan, as two composers with different styles, brought to light several challenges they needed to overcome, especially when working through online platforms.   

“It was a concern at the beginning: How are we going to make this sound cohesive? It’s two different people writing this score,” says Tan. “When we would finish music for scenes, we would send each other drafts and ask for feedback. It was very much, ‘you do your thing and I’ll do my thing’ but also we were going into it with the same mindset and the same approach and giving each other feedback” 
 

In the process of writing and producing this soundtrack, Hedger’s role as a score mixer was to listen to the composed pieces and mix the tracks to improve sound quality and make the piece sound cohesive. Hedger’s approach to mixing a composition generally involves thinking about how he can make the track sound better by adjusting the sound and texture of different instruments. Even though his job is more technical, he says that he seeks to connect with the emotions of the song, adding sounds and delays to express such feelings in a better way.  

“I’m just a fresh set of ears,” says Hedger, “For Thank You, Places!, my job is, ‘how do I make what these two people are writing sound exactly like one person wrote it from a sound standpoint?’ That was a thing that we were all proud of with Thank You Places!; just how it felt cohesive and not like people were dividing up work.” 

The soundtrack for Thank You Places! included world instruments as Harder has studied Middle Eastern music and likes to incorporate multiculturalism into his projects, while Tan enjoys writing for orchestras. Due to this mixture of styles, Hedger’s role while mixing the project was to make sure these both writing styles sounded cohesive and adherent to the movie’s dark comedy vibe.  

Harder emphasizes the importance of truly enjoying the music they created, making every step of the process a fun experience. Following this mindset, he was able to transform the process of writing the Thank You, Places! soundtrack into an unforgettable and valuable experience for him and his former classmates. 

“I know that it’s more valuable for me in long-term professional life to forgo a couple of extra hundred bucks and invest in my classmates and friends. That’s so much more valuable to me,” says Harder. 

What’s next for Harder? Scoring a short film called Road Trip, directed by Clare McNulty (who is best known for her role in HBO’s Search Party), a project by Brazilian comic book writer Felipe Cagno, and writing audiobook music for Audible.   

“If you’re having a really good time, enjoying your work, and having a healthy and communicative relationship with your team and director, what more can you possibly ask for?” says Harder.