A Fairy Fail

Chapter One The Spark

A director found me

They found him on Backstage. A director found me??? It was his first comedy feature — but after twenty-six years of improvising music live at Four Day Weekend, comedy timing was home turf. The first interview set the tone: Stefanie and Kalani Hubbard were very funny, and they got along great.

And then there was the fairy herself. Anna Rudegeair was, in Ray's review, "just so delightful and funny. Very over-the-top fairy, which is exactly what it needed. If she lived in Texas, I would push for her to audition to be a Four Day Weekend cast member."

Chapter Two The Brief

Four themes, one mirror

Stefanie asked for clearly defined themes — for sure. So Ray built a web of them. A main theme that returns at the important moments. A friendship theme carrying the two friends. A Head Fairy theme for magical authority. And a villain theme built as the Head Fairy's darker, related counterpart — authority and villainy sharing musical DNA, so the audience feels a connection before they could ever name it. The villain's material threads through the film, all the way into the chase writing.

Chapter Three The Sprint

Double shifts

Three to four weeks. Sixty-two minutes. Some days, double shifts. The score had to shape-shift constantly: magical wonder in "Wonton a Wand and a Wish," a playful full-orchestra chase in "Why Are We Running?", sneaking and pranks, two dinosaur-guru fight cues, and — waiting at the center of it — heartbreak and sacrifice played completely straight.

Chapter Four The Jokes

The score learns to joke

It started small. Ray added little things here and there — and Stefanie loved them, so he kept doing them, until the score itself became a comic character. Lots of glockenspiel, for one: the fairy's wand has a voice.

In "Inner Makeover," two friends shake on a deal and settle into yoga — female vocal oohs, a sound Ray calls moon guitar. When the scene gets interrupted, he makes the guitar stumble, deliberately, as though the music itself is getting frustrated. When they abandon the yoga, the friendship theme walks in.

Then there's the matched pair: "The Fairy Best Plan," where the musical thought stays perfectly intact — and "The Fairy Worst Plan," where the music gets it wrong on purpose, malfunctioning in sync with the plan derailing. And in "Life's Got Ya Down?", Anna breaks into a full Broadway-style sung line; Ray backs her like the film became a musical for one shining moment. Then she coughs. (He still randomly sings the line.)

Chapter Five The Power-Up

Pom-poms, sold against picture

The rematch — "Dino Guru Duo Deja Vu" — revisits the first fight's musical world: the low piano ostinato, the brass stabs, the xylophone, the villain theme woven through. (The original "Dino Guru Duo" is one of Stefanie's favorites.) Then Ray pitched something bigger: an anime-style power-up. Big drums. Marching snare. The fairy with pom-poms.

Stefanie needed convincing — right up until she heard it against picture. "As soon as she heard it against picture, she was sold." The cue rides the power-up through victory into a sweet moment, and out on the main theme as the characters leave.

Chapter Six The Heart

The biggest heart

For all the jokes, the score's biggest set pieces don't wink. "Wings of Mercy" is innocence betrayed. "Torn Apart" — the film's biggest musical set piece — is two people forced apart. "The Ultimate Sacrifice" plays a main character's sacrifice on the largest possible scale. Because the whole film runs on Ray's rule:

"When to do what. When to be silly and when to be serious. The best comedies have the biggest heart."

His touchstone is Planes, Trains and Automobiles: "The laughs wouldn't be so big if you didn't care about these characters so much. John Candy's genius was his likeability."

The premiere was in New York, mid-week — Ray couldn't be in the room, so the score premiered without him while he hosted from Texas. It didn't slow anything down: the soundtrack album followed on August 22, 2026, Stefanie and Kalani praised the work — and asked about their next picture.

Premiere photos via Nick Del Bianco and Anne Marie Clores on Instagram.