Better Man was co-written, produced, and directed by Michael Gracey, who was inspired to write the docudrama through his friendship with Robbie Williams and the singer’s influence on Hugh Jackman during the making of The Greatest Showman. Williams often referenced himself as a “performing monkey” and shared captivating stories about his life, which Gracey found intriguing. This unique perspective and Williams’ charismatic personality provided the creative spark for the film.
Better Man is based on the true story of the meteoric rise, dramatic fall, and remarkable resurgence of British pop superstar Robbie Williams, one of the greatest entertainers of all time. Under the visionary direction of Michael Gracey, the film is uniquely told from Robbie’s perspective, capturing his signature wit and indomitable spirit. It follows Robbie’s journey from childhood, to being the youngest member of chart-topping boyband Take That, through to his unparalleled achievements as a record-breaking solo artist – all the while confronting the challenges that stratospheric fame and success can bring.
Better Man is a song that has resonated deeply with audiences since its release. Its powerful lyrics, emotive melody, and impeccable production have contributed to its status as a beloved musical piece.
“I wanted to find a creatively interesting way into the story, but not for the sake of having a gimmick,” says Michael Gracey. “I wanted to honor the way Rob sees himself. In the recordings we did over the course of a year and a half, he mentioned himself as a performing monkey time and time again. Robbie was incredibly open and honest about his life. He shared stories that were both heartbreaking and inspiring. It was an honor to bring his journey to the screen “
“I trusted Michael with my story because he understands the highs and lows of fame,” says Robbie Williams. “He’s been through it himself in the visual effects world, and he gets the performing monkey analogy I often use for myself.”
“Better Man shows how I powered through challenges like childhood trauma, fame too early, mental illness, addiction, and rehab. It’s a raw and honest look at my journey. I didn’t derive any joy from all the success that I had. But now, I’m experiencing joy, happiness, and gratitude. These are my golden years.” Robbie Williams’ candid reflections add a personal touch to the film’s narrative
“The idea of portraying Robbie as a chimpanzee came from his own words. He often referred to himself as a ‘performing monkey,’ and I thought it was a perfect metaphor for his life as a performer. Working with Robbie was a dream, but it wasn’t without its challenges. We had to find the right balance between his real-life experiences and the creative liberties we took to make the film engaging.”
The creation was a collaborative effort, involving the talents of numerous individuals. Songwriters, musicians, producers, and engineers contributed their skills and expertise to the project. The collaborative process was marked by open communication and a shared vision, resulting in a cohesive and well-crafted final product.
Better Man represents a completely original, daring and innovative approach to the musical biopic genre. And its success hinged on a central character being stylized sufficiently to stand apart from the other characters, yet possessing enough humanity to integrate smoothly into an otherwise realistic live-action setting. It’s a miraculous feat of filmmaking that strikes the perfect balance between mesmerizing cinematic imagery and the grounded reality of one man’s life with all its highs and lows.
“This is a very honest account of Robbie Williams’ life,” says Gracey. “And there are things people won’t know. So from that point of view, it is very satisfying to share such a raw account of someone’s rise to fame. But for me, it’s perhaps even more exciting that audiences who don’t know Robbie Williams will be meeting him for the first time. If you know the songs, it’s a film where you will hum along to the tunes, and it will feel very satisfying. But if you don’t know the music and are hearing it for the first time within this narrative, then you will always associate these songs with these visuals. Hopefully, the imprint is so strong that people will never be able to hear the song again without thinking back to these moments.”
And so, as Gracey and the rest of the creative team prepare for this incredible labor of love to go out into the world, the director says that audiences should also expect everything that comes with an epic spectacle musical with song and dance numbers they will never have seen brought to life in this way before. “I want people to feel the joy and the excitement and how remarkable those moments are, but I also want them to experience the desperation, the sorrow, and the sadness that is part of this journey because that’s part of all our lives,” Gracey says. “And one of the joys of crafting these numbers is that you put so much up on the screen that you actually can’t see everything in one sitting, so there is a desire to go back. We have incredible music, an incredible narrative in Rob, and we have technology that is only just now able to pull off what we wanted to do. It’s a moment in time when all those things came together and that’s what makes Better Man so special.”
Davies thinks that’s exactly why audiences will be kept on the edge of their seats as they’re taken on this high-octane, emotional and euphoric ride. “I also think people will be screaming Robbie Williams’s lyrics for the next three weeks after they watch the film,” says the actor. “And I hope we see Robbie at the top of the charts again, where he belongs.”
As for the entertainer himself, Williams suggests that when audiences see the film, they may begin to view him in a new light. “Because people may think they know how things were, but they don’t know,” he concludes. “I want people to feel emotionally connected to what they’ve just seen. I want people to leave the cinema or leave their sofa or turn the TV off having thought that it was completely worth their time. This film has been a huge swing for me, for Michael Gracey, for the cast, for everybody. It’s a huge dream. And if it became the fabric of people’s pop culture lives that would be wonderful. If I could dream that big.”
The Genesis
Born in Stoke-on-Trent in England’s north, Robbie Williams has carved a unique path in the music industry since bursting onto the scene with boy band Take That in the early 1990s. After leaving the band in 1995, lightning struck twice as he embarked on an even more successful, chart-topping solo career. His debut album “Life Thru a Lens” was released in 1996 and showcased his gift for storytelling through music. In the years that followed, Williams evolved into a beloved entertainer known for his captivating stage presence and ability to connect with audiences worldwide.
One of the most decorated music artists in the world, Williams has had six of the top 100 best-selling albums in British history, a huge 85 million album sales worldwide, 14 number 1 singles and a record 18 BRIT Awards – more than any other artist. He secured his 14th UK number 1 album in 2022 with “XXV,” breaking the record for the solo artist with the most UK number 1 albums. His total chart-topping UK albums across his solo work and records released with Take That now stands at 19. It places him in the top two acts of all time with the most number 1s across their catalog. In 2003, his concerts held at Knebworth attracted 375,000 fans over three nights – a record attendance that has yet to be surpassed.
Over the years, Williams continued to show versatility as an artist, shifting his musical style to embrace the sound of swing and big band music artists like Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. His successful 2001 album “Swing When You’re Winning” featured reinterpretations of the classics and cemented his ability to masterfully blend his pop sensibilities with the timeless appeal of the standards, earning him a new legion of fans spanning generations. But through it all, Williams struggled with paralyzing anxiety, along with drug and alcohol issues fueled by rocketing to global stardom when he was still just a teenager.
Despite his extraordinary career, Williams is known for living in the present, rarely spending too much time taking stock of what has happened over the course of his life. Looking back, he says, only ever happens when he talks to someone who is asking the right questions.
Better Man’s origins can be traced back to when director, producer and co-writer Michael Gracey was in the midst of making The Greatest Showman in 2016, which starred Hugh Jackman as the American showman, politician, and businessman, PT Barnum. “Whenever Hugh referenced PT Barnum, Hughwould say, ‘Just like Robbie Williams,’” recalls Gracey. “And it became a joke amongst everyone working on the film that whenever he would mention anything about his character, he would reference Robbie Williams, whether it was about the showmanship, the swagger, his musicality or any part of the performance. Robbie Williams was always his North Star.”
And so when Jackman needed reassurance about the film’s music, Gracey knew there was only one person who could convince him that it was in great shape. “I got a meeting with Robbie on a Sunday and went to see him at his house in LA,” recalls the director. “He listened to the songs, and I could see that he was enjoying them, so I asked him to record a video for Hugh. I think Hugh loved hearing from the greatest showman himself.”
“We got on like a house on fire straight away,” recalls Williams of that meeting. “I was transfixed on this man and the story he was telling about his film. Then he played me all the music from The Greatest Showman, and song after song was phenomenal. I’m in awe of Michael’s capabilities.”
The pair gradually became close friends and each time Gracey spent time with Williams, he was reminded of the entertainer’s natural gift for storytelling. “His stories were amazing,” Gracey recalls. “It’s a story of rising to fame but what made it really interesting was the way he told it. He’s very good at remembering the details. So I said to him, ‘You should get these stories down.’ At that point, I didn’t know what it was for but I told him that the next time I was in Los Angeles, I’d come over and we’d hit record and talk. Over the course of 18 months, that’s what we did. There was always a sweet spot where the storyteller in him, the performer in him, loved recounting the life he’s led, and we captured that in a raw, very informal way.”
Gracey began to go back through the recordings, shuffling them around and editing them together to determine whether there was a narrative arc. “I would shut my eyes and imagine what the film could be,” recalls Gracey of listening to Williams narrate his life story. “And it got me excited because there were universal themes. It’s about following your dreams. It’s also about being able to look at yourself in the mirror and love what you see, and be able to accept the person you are. Rob was a kid from Stoke-on-Trent in Northern England, who is not a musical genius but he has ‘it,’ whatever ‘it’ is. And that took him from Stoke-on-Trent to the entire world.”
With his signature self-deprecation, Williams describes his life story as “very remarkable things happening to a particularly unremarkable person.” He continues, “But what I’ve managed to do, what I’ve managed to achieve, and what I’ve managed to overcome, is the equivalent of stretching an elastic band from Stoke-on-Trent to Mars. Hopefully, people will find that interesting. Everybody has a story in them. Everybody is interesting. Everybody has a hero’s journey. That’s part of being human. I just hope that mine, in particular, appeals to people. And musicals are powerful because of their transformative nature and the ethereal quality that music has. Music talks to you on a soul level, deeper than words alone can.”
In 2019, Gracey teamed up with longtime friends and creative collaborators Oliver Cole and Simon Gleeson to write the script, and together they developed the themes, added nuance to the characters, and expanded the story beats and key musical numbers of the film. But the script never strayed too far from its foundation in those initial voice recordings. “We discussed the recordings and picked out our favorite moments in the stories Rob was telling,” recalls Cole. “Michael then asked us to come to Sydney for 11 days and nights, and we wrote constantly. At the start, it was a bit of a whirlwind process, but it was refreshing to work creatively under that pressure.”
“We got excited about it very quickly because Rob is such a unique guy,” adds Gleeson. “His music is good, but he is flawed and he can be silly. His fallibility was the best part. He’s emotionally honest. He was courageous to say to us, ‘Go for it.’ Because we didn’t want to sugarcoat anything. We wanted to tell something truthful and emotional. You don’t get to the level of success Rob has had without caring. So what is his drive and where does it come from? It was really important for us to delve in and show what really motivates him. This biopic is not watered down at all.”
Williams admits that he isn’t sure where the compulsion to be equally open about both the good and the bad comes from, but at this point in his life he’s stopped questioning it. “For this film, I’ve revealed way more than I should,” he laughs. “But on a day-to-day basis, I also reveal way more than I should about exactly what’s going on in my life.”
As the trio of co-writers including Gracey developed the project, it quickly became clear that those early recordings should be utilized in the final film. “The majority of the time you hear Rob in the film it is from those original recordings because even when we tried to recreate them, we couldn’t,” shares Gracey. “There’s a certain delivery and conversational manner in which Rob talks in those recordings, which is different to someone being given a script and reading lines.”
Producer Paul Currie soon came on board and, having known Gracey for many years, the pair were thrilled that they had finally found a project to collaborate on together. “Michael has a unique way of telling stories,” he says. “And with Better Man, we were both at a point in our careers where we could give everything to this bold, amazing and ambitious story that we both felt had to be told. Michael has always loved musicals and his career has been about blowing out sequences and making them visually compelling, while also maintaining the heart and emotion. He has an edge and musicality about everything he does, but there’s also a sense of idealism in his characters. So in tackling a story like Rob’s, you knew that with Michael behind it, it was going to have all the grit and reality but also a sense of wonder and fantasy about the story as well. It has been the most challenging ride and journey of my life, but it’s something that we’re all very, very proud of.”
Originally from Melbourne, Australia, but now working across the globe, Gracey relocated back to his home country to make the film early in 2021. The majority of the project was shot in Australia over the course of four months, with the exception of some key sequences that took place in the United Kingdom and Serbia. “To go home to shoot this film with the incredible Australian crews and the talent we have there was a joy,” says the filmmaker. “And to have that many people rally around what is a very ambitious film, was really humbling. This movie would never have happened if it wasn’t for Screen Australia and VicScreen and what they allowed us to do. The epic scale of what we were able to realize is only possible thanks to them.”
“To have someone like Michael be able to return home is a special thing for the growth of the industry because he brings his skills back to the teams of people he works with,” says Currie, who produced the film alongside Gracey, Coco Xiaolu Ma, Jules Daly, and Craig McMahon. “And the ripple effects of what a large-scale film like this does for the industry are substantial. I hope that when audiences watch Better Man they feel the passion that everyone who worked on this film put into it. This is a movie of sheer defiance, energy, love, collaboration and craft poured into every frame.”
Fame Makes Monkeys Of Us All
As Gracey developed the film, he knew they had an incredible story, but he felt a certain amount of pressure to present it in a novel way. “It’s an original story and Rob’s a unique character,” he says. “And so I wanted to make sure that how we depicted this story and how we lensed it – in terms of where our focus was – was also creatively unique.”
Whenever Gracey returned to the recordings, he honed in on Williams referring to himself as a monkey over and again. “Rob would say things like, ‘I’m up the back dancing like a monkey,’ or ‘I was completely out of it, but they were dragging me up on stage to perform like a monkey.’ And after a while, I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be amazing to represent Rob as a monkey in the film?’ Because Robbie is telling this story – just as he was telling me the story in those interviews – and that’s how he sees himself.”
Given the way rock stars can shift the energy of a room, making it suddenly seem to orbit around them, the filmmaker also soon discovered that the monkey delivered that same captivating intensity. “When you put a monkey in a scene, you can’t help but be drawn to that monkey, even if he’s not talking,” explains Gracey. “And that captures what it is to be a star. You cannot keep your eyes off that person. So, to me, not only does the monkey satisfy the way Rob sees himself, but there is this other element to it, which is that it creates a real star in every single frame of the film that you become so compelled by. Wētā FX created the lead character of the film, and the work they have done and the passion they put into it is the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen. Long before he was famous, Rob has always been that person that when he walks in the room, he’s the center of attention.”
“My life always seems to be a tightrope act with no safety harness,” admits Williams. “I could fall off at any moment and a lot of the time I do. So when Michael came to the house and said, ‘Let’s have you be a monkey,’ instantly I felt that it was the biggest swing that could ever happen for this movie. I loved the risk that he was taking so much, and I knew we had to go with it. It made perfect sense to me, and it’s so exciting and different. There is a surrender to the machinery of the industry that requires you to be a robot or a monkey. And I chose a monkey.”
Another added benefit that unexpectedly arose from this creative choice was the natural human reaction we have to seeing animals go through challenges on screen. “Our hearts go out to animals as there’s an innocence to them,” notes Gracey. “And when you see animals in pain, or being hurt, it’s very confronting. So there was something really powerful about representing Rob as a monkey and watching him go through those darker moments when he is in pain, whether that’s self-harm or a situation where he’s being hurt. You feel so much more for him.”
But what is perhaps most surprising is how quickly you forget that you’re even watching a monkey. “The first five minutes of a film is where you set the contract with the audience,” explains Gracey. “You’re basically saying, ‘This is what we’re going to be doing.’ Then everyone connects, and you don’t think about it for the rest of the film. You buy into this beautiful character, these amazing performances and these very human qualities. There’s something primal about looking at a monkey and his experiences in a world, where he is quite noticeably different to everyone else. And as an audience, we can relate to that character. Because at the end of the day, we all feel different and often question who we really are. We all look in the mirror – particularly as teenagers – and we go, ‘I’m not this, and I’m not that.’ So watching Rob experience that as a character, as he’s struggling with who he is, is a very relatable and beautiful conceit.”
Casting Robbie Williams
For Robbie Williams, songwriting was something he felt he had an inherent ability to do – even before he’d ever tried to write his first song. “I wrote poetry when I was in Take That,” the singer remembers. “And then I’d recite my poetry to people, and they genuinely thought it was something that wasn’t shit. So then I thought, ‘Well, I’ve got to turn this into music. I’ve got to put notes to these words.’ And once I figured out how to do that, I didn’t want to stop. I’ve written about 800 songs, and I just constantly want to keep doing it. I’ve been incredibly fortunate that I get to be creative.”
When it came to bringing Robbie Williams to the screen in a dramatized telling of his life story, Michael Gracey always knew that a conventional approach would never work for such a unique individual. Instead, Gracey devised a completely original, somewhat audacious method that took advantage of a CGI monkey being the center of practically every scene. To start, Williams himself was digitally scanned and motion-captured while performing a song from the film, so production could authentically reference his facial expressions, mannerisms and performance movements. Gracey then cast two actors to play the younger Robbie Williams – Australian actress Asmara Feik and English actor Carter J. Murphy – with English actor Jonno Davies taking on the lead role of Williams as a teen and adult. After filming their respective performances via motion capture, Gracey and the groundbreaking, award-winning digital effects house, Wētā FX, fused all of these elements to create the monkey character and deliver a profoundly impactful portrayal of this once-in-a-generation performer.
“Casting Rob was really difficult,” admits Gracey of finding a lead actor who would carry the majority of the weight of bringing Williams to the screen. “There’s a lot that goes into the character – a lot of heart and a lot of showmanship – and there’s a lot of talent that’s required. Some people had the dramatic chops, some people had the amazing showmanship, some people had the ability to be witty and charismatic. But to find one person who could do all of those things to a degree that satisfied what and who Robbie is, proved almost impossible.”
So impossible in fact that ten days prior to the start of production, the lead had still not been cast. It was actor Kate Mulvany, who plays Williams’ mother Janet, who suggested Davies, who she’d worked with on the series, Hunters. Davies proved to be the ideal fit to represent all the complexities of Williams, delivering a remarkable performance that perfectly embodies his charisma and physicality with striking accuracy. “Jonno gave this film his all,” raves Gracey. “His commitment to portraying Robbie in a truthful, exciting, and energized way was so impressive. It blew me away. He did a deep study of what makes Robbie Robbie, including his relentless nature. Take after take, he always gave it 150%. This film is as good as it is because of Jonno’s dedication to that performance.”
For Davies, it was a role he knew he passionately wanted from the get-go, and he inadvertently brought a lifetime’s amount of research to the performance. “It was the lead in a Michael Gracey film playing one of the icons of my childhood,” he says of his excitement at the opportunity. “Robbie was one of the first people I saw live with my parents when I was about nine years old. It was around the time of his Knebworth shows. It is imprinted in my mind. Robbie is a person whose emotion has always been right on the outside layer of his skin and his heart is on his sleeve. We go very deep into that in this film. But no matter what Robbie puts other people through, we’re on his side.”
Williams was thrilled with the casting choice, noting that the young actor has something special that translates to not being able to take your eyes off him when he’s performing. “But first and foremost, Jonno is a fantastic human being,” says Williams. “He’s such a lovely person, and he’s immensely talented. Watching him do his thing – which is my thing – was very interesting, confusing, wonderful, and a weird thing to watch. He’s amazing.”
And while it isn’t Davies’ human face that we see on screen, the performance is very much his, asserts Gracey, with layers then added on top. “The animators created a digital version of Robbie as they had all of this footage of Robbie himself to incorporate into Jonno’s performance,” explains the director. “So there are moments, for example with ‘Let Me Entertain You,’ where there are iconic things that Robbie does – from the way he moves to certain expressions, even in the way he shouts out in the breaks of songs – and we got all of those from Robbie himself. And Jonno, to his credit, would study the way Robbie performs. It was amazing to watch just how much of Robbie was in Jonno’s performance. So it ended up being this beautiful hybrid in moments where we could bring in the real Robbie Williams when we needed to. But Jonno really nailed the performances, even in moments where it’s unspoken and he’s just doing a reaction, he reacts in the way that Robbie would. All biopics need an iconic central performance, and we’ve been so fortunate to have one in this.”
The amount of his performance that would come through under the guise of the monkey was something Davies himself had wondered about until his first meeting with Gracey made it crystal clear. “Michael assured me that I was the puppeteer, the person pulling the strings for this character,” he recalls. “They captured all my micro-movements, hence the 101 dots that I had attached to my entire body every morning. The monkey was the canvas, but I was the painter. So for the most part, I never played it as a monkey and although that’s the visual representation, I never wanted people to see Robbie as a Neanderthal or a primitive figure because he’s got so much heart, and he’s very complex. But I loved starting with the physical. Apes are chest-forward and have a ‘bring it on’ approach, which I think Robbie has an abundance of, especially when he’s on stage.”
The Power Of Family
At the heart of the film is a beautifully complicated father-son story between Robbie Williams and his entertainer father Peter Williams – who went by the stage name Peter Conway (Steve Pemberton) – as well as close and loving relationships between Williams and his mother, Janet (Kate Mulvany) and grandmother, Betty (Alison Steadman). Williams’ parents divorced when he was three, and Peter put all of his energy into stand-up comedy and singing rather than being fully present for his son. Pemberton’s portrayal of Peter infused the role with empathy, comedy, and showmanship; Steadman’s performance as Robbie’s nan added emotional depth to the film and symbolized unwavering love and support; and Mulvany captured the authenticity, heart, and humor of a single mother’s relationship with her son.
“In all of Rob’s stories, I was drawn to the father-son aspect of it,” shares Gracey. “Someone once said that all rock stars are sons on stage crying out for their dads. But in Rob’s case, he had a unique experience in that he had a father who idolized Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis, Jr., and his excitement and passion for that music was passed on to Robbie. Narratively, there was something beautiful about a father who doesn’t get to realize his dream, but his son does. And in Rob realizing his dream, he allowed his father to stand on stage in front of thousands of people and perform. It’s a very satisfying, unique, and true element to Rob’s story.”
“There were not many people from where I’m from who would even dream of being in the entertainment industry because it was not available to us to have that kind of dream,” recalls Williams. “But yet, my dad was part of that dream. He lived it. He was in it. So I could see that it was possible. The way my father talked about people in his industry that he admired and loved was like he was talking about the gods. My relationship with my father has been one with him as my hero. He’s charismatic, engaging, and wonderful company. Everybody loves Peter, and no one more than me.”
And no one could believe it when the production landed Pemberton, the beloved comedian and BAFTA-winning actor to portray the lovable rogue, Peter. “He had to be able to be the clown, but he also had to have heart,” says Gracey of what he was searching for in an actor to play the part. “He had to be the person Rob looks up to, but he’s also flawed as a human, as we all are. What Steve brought to that character was incredible. He’s a comic genius and an amazing writer, so his ad-libs kept the entire crew in stitches. It was pure joy. I remember those days because my cheeks hurt from smiling all day. The way he portrays Rob’s father is incredibly powerful and touching, and in some of the more unlikable moments, he still makes you care for him.”
“The story is told in an extraordinary way that makes you reevaluate everything you think you know about Robbie Williams,” says Pemberton of why he was drawn to the project. “It’s fun, it’s funny, and it’s dramatic as well. I firmly believe that any drama needs comedy in it and any comedy needs drama in it because life is funny one minute, and dramatic and sad the next. You’ve got to have all of that going on within your performance.”
In addition to Michael Gracey, the film Better Man was co-written by Simon Gleeson and Oliver Cole.
Michael Gracey is an Australian filmmaker known for his work in visual effects, music videos, and commercials before transitioning to directing feature films. He grew up in Melbourne and began his career at Animal Logic, an animation and visual effects studio, where he worked as an animator and visual effects compositor. Gracey gained recognition for his innovative and often viral approach to commercials, winning numerous awards for his work on spots like Evian’s “Roller Babies” and T-Mobile’s “Dance” flashmob. His directorial debut came with the 2017 musical film “The Greatest Showman”, starring Hugh Jackman, which became a global success. He followed this with producing “Rocketman” and directing “Pink: All I Know So Far” before releasing his latest film, “Better Man”, a musical biopic about Robbie Williams. Gracey is also set to direct the live-action adaptation of “Tangled”
It’s impressive how both Simon Gleeson and Oliver Cole have diverse talents and have contributed to different aspects of the entertainment industry
Simon Gleeson is an Australian actor, singer, and screenwriter. He is best known for his roles in musical theatre, particularly as Jean Valjean in the Australian production of Les Misérables, for which he won a Helpmann Award. Gleeson has also performed in numerous other productions, including Love Never Dies, Mamma Mia!, and Eureka. He has appeared in television series such as EastEnders and City Homicide, and released a solo album titled Elements in 2015.
Oliver Cole is an Australian musician and songwriter. He was the frontman for the bands Swampshack and Turn, and has released several solo albums, including Father, Brother, Son. Cole is known for his evolving musical style and has been involved in various musical projects3. He has also contributed to film and television scores, including The Wall and Tempvs.
The success of Better Man can be attributed to the dedication and hard work of several key contributors. The lead songwriter’s vision and creativity laid the foundation for the song.
The producer’s technical expertise and artistic sensibilities helped shape the sound. Musicians brought their unique talents to the recording sessions, adding depth and character to the performance. Engineers ensured that the recording quality met the highest standards.
Like any creative endeavour, the production of Better Man faced its share of challenges. Technical issues, scheduling conflicts, and creative differences were all part of the process. However, the team’s commitment to excellence and their ability to problem-solve ensured that these challenges were overcome. Open communication and a willingness to compromise were key factors in navigating these obstacles.
Better Man stands as a testament to the power of collaboration and the importance of meticulous production. The song’s emotional depth and musical complexity are the result of careful planning, technical expertise, and creative vision.
The conceptualisation of Better Man began with the songwriter’s reflections on relationships and personal growth
Drawing from real-life experiences, the lyrics encapsulate the emotional journey of longing, regret, and the desire for self-improvement. The heartfelt narrative is complemented by a poignant melody that enhances the song’s emotional depth.
The songwriting process involved multiple stages, beginning with the initial draft of the lyrics. The songwriter meticulously crafted each line to ensure the message was clear and impactful. The melody was then composed to align with the lyrical content, creating a harmonious blend of words and music. Collaborative input from fellow songwriters and musicians helped refine the song, adding layers of complexity and richness.
The lyrics of are characterised by their raw honesty and emotional intensity. The songwriter employed various literary devices, such as metaphors and similes, to convey the depth of their feelings. Each verse builds upon the previous one, culminating in a powerful chorus that serves as the emotional climax of the song.
The melody of was crafted to evoke a sense of melancholy and hope simultaneously. The chord progression plays a crucial role in establishing the song’s mood, with minor chords conveying a sense of sadness and major chords providing a sense of resolution. Harmonies were carefully arranged to complement the lead vocals, adding depth and texture to the overall sound.
The recording sessions for took place in a state-of-the-art studio, equipped with the latest recording technology. The process was meticulously planned and executed, with a focus on capturing the best possible performance. The sessions were marked by a collaborative spirit, with each member of the production team bringing their expertise to the table.
The instrumental tracks for “Better Man” were recorded using a combination of live instruments and digital enhancements. The production team employed a variety of microphones and recording techniques to capture the unique sound of each instrument. Special attention was given to the acoustic guitar and piano, which play a central role in the song’s arrangement.
The instrumental tracks were recorded using a combination of live instruments and digital enhancements. The production team employed a variety of microphones and recording techniques to capture the unique sound of each instrument. Special attention was given to the acoustic guitar and piano, which play a central role in the song’s arrangement.
The production of involved a blend of traditional and modern techniques. The goal was to create a sound that was both timeless and contemporary, appealing to a wide range of listeners. The production team utilized various tools and software to achieve this balance, including digital audio workstations (DAWs), virtual instruments, and effects processors. The mixing process was crucial in shaping the final sound. Each track was carefully balanced to ensure clarity and cohesion. Effects such as reverb and delay were applied to enhance the spatial quality of the recording. The mastering process added the final polish, ensuring that the song sounded great on all playback systems.
Sound design played a significant role. The team experimented with various soundscapes and textures to create a unique auditory experience. Ambient sounds and subtle effects were incorporated to add depth and dimension to the recording, making it a truly immersive listening experience.
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