Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids’ TV exposed hard truths about shows beloved by an entire generation. Centered around allegations of abusive conduct by Nickelodeon producer Dan Schneider, Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids’ TV features firsthand accounts from the actors and writers on some of the most iconic kids’ television series of the ‘90s early 2000s as they recount their experiences working with him. The series was directed by Mary Robertson and Emma Schwartz.

In addition to the work of the filmmakers and former Nickelodeon child stars who shared their stories about what happened at the studio, Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids’ TV moves along in part thanks to composer Ian Hultquist. Hultquist’s work as a composer is wide-ranging, with other recent and upcoming projects including Turtles All the Way Down and The Walking Dead: Dead City. Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids’ TV required a unique approach that mostly saw the composer writing music away from picture, which is not typically the norm for media scoring.

Screen Rant interviewed Ian Hultquist about his work on Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids’ TV. The composer spoke on the challenges of finding the right tone and atmosphere for the series and discussed his other recent projects.

Ian Hultquist Shares Why He Joined Quiet On Set: The Dark Side Of Kids’ TV

Screen Rant: How did you find your way to Quiet on Set, and what made you want to jump onto the project?

Ian Hultquist: It was a couple of things. Mary Robertson and I had been looking for a project to work together on again for a while. We did Tricky Dick together back in 2018, which was a CNN show. She had pitched me on things over the years, and nothing quite panned out. So, I was just happy to hear from her, and then she told me about the project and it sounded really, really interesting.

I grew up with some of the earlier shows like All That and, obviously, was familiar with a lot of people that are talked about in the series. What they cover in the show had been whispered and talked about for so long for so many years without any clear facts and clear answers. I think getting to really see the true story, as awful and hard as it was to hear… I think it’s important that we hear and know that that’s what was happening. I thought it’d be a really important project to be a part of.

Quiet On Set: The Dark Side Of Kids’ TV Required A Unique Musical Approach

How do you feel like your role as a composer on this compared to your other work? I know you’ve done a lot of fiction work as well, which must be a different approach on some level.

Ian Hultquist: It definitely is. It was also a bit different because a lot of the music for this project wasn’t necessarily written directly to picture. It was a bit more open and freeform. It was really about capturing the emotions as best I could and thinking about how to tell the story through the music without going frame by frame, which I usually do on a narrative project. It was interesting. I’ve done a lot of documentaries as well, but this one really felt a bit more open and collaborative because everyone at Maxine Productions was like, “We trust you to tell the story with the music. Let’s see what you do,” basically.

Without doing it to picture, did you find yourself writing more or less music than you normally would?

Ian Hultquist: It was difficult at first because I’m very visually motivated. I really do need a story in front of me to draw the music out, so it’d be really tricky to start a new piece of music for them without something specific. I would put the episodes on and kind of let them play in the background on mute, just to get some sort of wheels turning.

Once I got moving along, I would just keep going. I think they appreciated that, because originally, they came to me basically saying, “Can you just write a handful of cues?” I was like, “A handful of cues is not going to get you very far on a four-part docuseries,” so it ended up being a handful of theme suites, and each suite would be about seven to 12 minutes long.

How much were you concerned with staying out of the way of the story? Is it more making sure your writing isn’t too busy?

Ian Hultquist: It was a little tricky because you want to write pieces that are exciting, keep things moving, and have momentum, but you also know that it’s going to be playing under a lot of dialogue. It would be it was a matter of finding the right palette and mixing things a certain way so that the voice human voice could still come through without being tampered with too much.

The Music Couldn’t All Be Heartbreaking

How did you land on the tone of the score?

Ian Hultquist: I came into being like, “It’s a really upsetting story and we’re going to need moments that are a bit darker.” But I think most importantly, it’s an emotional story, and we want people to connect with it. Also, there are moments that are not necessarily all bad—especially when they first start going or getting started. There are moments where things are kind of fun. We needed the music to reflect all that at the same time.

I tried to keep things broad, and each time I would do a theme suite for them, it would have a different range. We’d have a piece that was, like, really fun and poppy, we’d have pieces that are a bit more somber and emotional, and we might have a really intense piece happen at some point. It would be kind of like having to write to the wind, in a way, to be like, “I need to find music that can really kind of cover the gamut of emotions.”

Episode 3 Hit Hultquist The Hardest

Was there any particular part that surprised or affected you most as you were working on it?

Ian Hultquist: Episode 3, “The Darkest Secret”. Even having worked on the show, when the episode aired, I was crying. It’s really strong, powerful, and deeply upsetting. It still had an impact, even after having worked on it for a couple of months. It’s a really powerful story.

There Are More Stories To Be Told, And Not Just About Nickelodeon

It’s impossible to sum up every angle and twist of this situation in a four-part—or five-part—series. Was there anything you saw that didn’t make it in, or anything you wanted to know more about as you were doing this?

Ian Hultquist: There’s nothing I saw that didn’t make it in. If anything, it was a matter of tightening things up so that each episode could really flow into the next. Actually, it’s funny you say that because originally we were only going to do three episodes. When I first got hired, it was just a three-part series, and then as we were working on it, it turned into four parts. Then, the fifth part came out of nowhere that. That kind of happened behind the scenes—I didn’t even know about it.

I think even just with what we’ve started with, there has been a lot that’s been touched upon. But I know there’s more. There are other networks and studios that are famous for kids’ TV shows and, I hate to say it, but I can’t imagine that similar things were probably not happening over there. I think it’s fairly likely that this might not be the end of this kind of story, unfortunately. I wish it was like, “…and it never happened again,” but I don’t know if that’s the case. I’m curious to see, over the next year or so, how the story expands, because I think it definitely can.

Would you be interested in seeing a similar project about the music industry? I know you’ve been in many parts of that world.

Ian Hultquist: Yeah, of course I would. I feel like it’s been touched upon a little bit, but it’s usually focused on a single artist. We’ve seen so many biopics at this point, or documentaries about artists who have gone through some really, really dark, tragic times. But as a whole, there’s definitely a story to tell there, and [one that is] still ongoing.

There’s so much mistreatment in different ways, too. It’s not necessarily just physical abuse. The devaluing of music is abuse in a way, which we’re all really feeling lately. From a film composer’s standpoint, it’s kind of like, “Woe is me,” but on some projects, there can be a real lack of communication, which is an insult at times. There are a lot of stories that can be told in different ways. Obviously, someone not answering an email doesn’t quite match up to the things we’re talking about, but there are different forms of abuse happening all the time in the music industry.

Hultquist Reflects On Working With Hannah Marks On Turtles All The Way Down

On a happier subject, the last time I spoke to you, Turtles All the Way Down was finally coming out. John Green has such a devoted fanbase, who even make playlists to go along with his works. How did that level of passion affect your approach to the music of that movie?

Ian Hultquist: I think it’s good that I didn’t realize how big the audience was when I was working on it. I knew his books were popular, I knew the movie adaptations had done well, and I knew just by reading the script—and I also read the book as well—that it’s a very personal story and it was going to have a far reach. But I didn’t necessarily think too much about the wider scope of it. I really just was focusing on Aza as a character, the emotions, the story, her friendship with Daisy, and things like that. I tried to drown everything else out.

But that was another one where, at first, it was very open-ended. I had some talks with Hannah Marks, our director, I’d read the script, I’d read the book, and she was like, “Can you just write some music for me?” [while] and they were literally still shooting the film. I asked her to send me some stills from set so I could see what it looked like, and she sent me a big folder of pictures from what they’re shooting. The footage looked so beautiful, and the casting was so perfect, and the way they were shooting had a really nice artistic sensibility to it.

I just started writing, and one of the first pieces of music I wrote ended up being the end piece of the film, which is “Love is How You Become Real.” It just went straight in. Hannah is funny because once I did it, it was like, “Well, this is the demo. I’m going to go back in and mix it and record stuff and change things.” Hannah goes, “Do not change anything. This is the cue as is.” And anytime you change anything, she’s like, “Hey, stop it. Go back to how it was,” because she really liked it. There are live strings on there and some live drums, but for the most part, what you hear in the film was what I did early on.

About Quiet On Set: The Dark Side Of Kids’ TV

Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids’ TV is a five-part docuseries that unveils the toxic and often abusive culture behind iconic children’s shows from the 1990s and early 2000s.