Matter of Time

Chapter One The Test Scene

A name dropped from a stage

My dear friend Oliver Tull — host and comedian at Four Day Weekend — started mentioning from the stage that I had been scoring films. One night, a producer from Mediajuice was in the crowd. He was a huge Four Day Weekend fan, and he told director Jeremy Snead about me.

They sent an email and asked me to score a test scene. I did. They loved it. Then they sent me scenes with a lot of dialogue — the subtle work, music that has to live underneath words without ever stepping on them. I thought the job was mine.

Chapter Two Twelve Months

The year of silence

And then — nothing. I thought I didn't get the job. Six months passed. I decided to email. No reply. Another six months went by.

Chapter Three Three Weeks

The counter-offer

Then the email came: could they license the music from that one test scene? They had three, maybe four weeks until the Dallas film festival deadline.

I said yes — you can have that music. And also: let me score some of the film's biggest, most dramatic scenes for you. The ones that need a full orchestra.

They agreed. So my music isn't the entire score — it's a huge chunk of it: the full-orchestra dramatic material, written at sprint speed against a festival deadline.

Chapter Four Flat-Six

A chord with mystique

It was in the test scene from the very beginning: a flat-six color in the harmony, and I added it everywhere. It gives even the tonic major chords some mystique and wonder — which is exactly right for a film centered on a magical ring.

And I got to score all the scenes with Sean Astin, which is still a highlight of my career.

"Those scenes were actually very easy because his acting is so fantastic. He made my job easier."

Chapter Five Legends Awaken

The chord that isn't there

Late in the film, the members of the lauded Onyx Guild are revealed: super nerds, every one of them — who each had struggles that the tribe, the group, helped them overcome. It's Gibbs's moment, Sean Astin's monologue about people brought together through illness, loss, and hardship who became a family.

And in that cue — "Legends Awaken" — the flat-six disappears. The color the audience has been swimming in all film long is simply gone. In its place: a direct melody, root-position block chords, choir, and low brass. Arrival. Unity. Belonging. I'd had the idea from the beginning.

"I am always looking for that moment for the music to change and signal to the audience that something is different."

Chapter Six Premiere Night

Six hundred people, and a pipe-dream ending

The premiere was at DIFF, at the Texas Theatre, and the people just kept pouring in — hundreds of people, all about to listen to my music on a seriously professional sound system. That always helps. My entire family was there.

"My dream of being a film composer was actually happening, not just a pipe-dream anymore."

The film went on to select theaters nationwide on February 27, 2026, and to Apple TV that April. Jeremy Snead said it publicly: "GREAT work Ray Sharp! Our film wouldn't be the same without your wonderful score."

Ray's own last word belongs to the whole army of them: "I know how difficult it is to make even a bad film. But to make a really great film like Matter of Time took an army of very talented and dedicated people — and it was extra special that we were all based in Dallas." Editor Patrick Riley — one of the people Ray really clicked with — was one of them.