Tuner is a propulsive heist thriller that intertwines romance and drama in a tense, charming story about identity, creativity, and resilience, marking the narrative feature debut from Academy Award-winning director Daniel Roher, who co-wrote the film with Robert Ramsey.

It was conceived as a film that fully embraces cinema’s sensory nature — not just visually, but as a deeply auditory experience where sound is as crucial to the storytelling as image.

Sound in Tuner is integral to the story’s emotional and psychological texture, explains Writer-Director David Roher: “I designed this movie for the sound. It is a sound designer’s movie. I want the film to be immersive. I want the sound design to put us into the subjective POV of Niki White. I want to hear what he hears.”

Tuner follows Niki White (Leo Woodall), a talented piano tuner with a unique and meticulous auditory condition who crisscrosses New York City’s streets and hallowed concert halls with his blunt and charismatic mentor Harry Horowitz (Dustin Hoffman). When security contractor Uri (Lior Raz) learns Niki’s hypersensitive hearing is worth more for cracking safes than for opening Steinways, he offers Niki a risky opportunity that could help Harry and his devoted wife Marla (Tovah Feldshuh) manage their mounting medical crisis. As Niki is drawn deeper into the propulsive criminal underworld with Uri and his crew, his budding relationship with Ruthie is threatened, entangling him in a dangerous dilemma.

“I really wanted to make the type of film that I would have wanted to watch when I was 15, 16, 17 years old…’ says Roher. ‘I wanted to have a crime film, with stakes, and music, and romance, something that was propulsive and montage-y.” Adding, “Robert and I, we probably spent about a year spitballing it back and forth… we were really able to use that time to keep honing it and workshopping it and getting it to a place where we were really excited about it.”

Dustin Hoffman with Writer-Director David Roher. Photo credit: Alan Markfield; Courtesy of Black Bear

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The decision paid off. “When I first read the ‘Tuner’ script, I was impressed by how well-written it was,” declares Dustin Hoffman. “What particularly struck me was the original way the story evolved into a
heist genre; it felt fresh and compelling.”

On Hoffman’s reaction, Roher says, “When Dustin responded positively to the screenplay, it was like the greatest endorsement of my work that I ever could have imagined.”

JoAnne Sellar, who found the project and shepherded it from script to screen, said, “I hadn’t seen a film about a piano tuner; it just sort of jumped out at me. I also found it very humorous. It was a really good read.”

Reflecting on the script’s momentum, producer Lila Yacoub added, “You just couldn’t put it down. The dialogue was very witty, and it was exciting to see such a genuinely refreshing idea unfold as a narrative.”

From the start, the sonic environment is treated as a character in innovative and immersive ways. The team involved in crafting this vital aspect of the film includes Marius de Vries, who served as Executive
Music Producer and composed all the music performed on-screen, including the big orchestral piece,
“Pearl Watch Rhapsody.”

Steven Gizicki served as Music Supervisor and handled all source music in the film. Will Bates composed the film’s original score. Notes Yacoub: “The music is quite beautiful; they spent a lot of time practising so that it looks authentic.”

The sound design culminates in a visceral auditory experience that allows the audience to feel what the protagonist feels, whether in moments of intense silence or overwhelming noise. The film’s Sound Designer is the Academy Award-winning Johnnie Burn, most known for his sound work on The Zone of Interest.

“When it comes to artistry and sound design and excellence in that field, there’s no one, for me, who’s greater than Johnnie Burn,” exclaims Roher. Producer JoAnne Sellar agrees. “He was integral to it all. He brought an incredible amount of [expertise and real-life relevance] to the project.”

For Havana Rose Liu, the story beats landed immediately: “When I first read the script, I was initially impacted by the way that it felt like three different worlds of film… brought together by a single
character.

Marius de Vries was on set during production and worked with Leo Woodall and Havana Rose Liu to make their piano playing as authentic as possible. Roher points to Woodall’s commitment, noting:
“He learned a three-minute piano piece starting from zero.”

Describing the preparation, Liu recalls, “We did daily lessons for an hour and a half, and I would go home and practice for another two or three hours to get the pieces where they needed to be.” That preparation was underpinned by a personal connection to the material for Liu: “I had just lost my grandmother right before reading this… and I felt there was some sort of deep, painful, but beautiful, kismet relationship to her as a character.”

Having attended the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music with hopes of becoming a concert pianist before finding his calling as an actor, Dustin Hoffman, who portrays veteran tuner Harry Horowitz, was well-versed in the skill set. “The role of a piano tuner immediately resonated with me on a personal level. Having spent my life playing piano and taking lessons early on from teachers who were also piano tuners, I’d become aware of how these craftsmen are often quite accomplished pianists themselves yet remain underappreciated.”

Tuner also uses sound to draw parallels between two seemingly unrelated skill sets: piano tuning and safecracking. They are both tasks rooted in tactility and sound, requiring acute sensitivity to touch and acoustics, which helped the film form its narrative connections between plot and sonic language.

Connecting the link, Roher says, “Tuner is a propulsive, jazzy film about a piano tuner who comes to realize that the exact same skill set required to get pianos in perfect pitch, all feeling and touch, can equally be applied to cracking safes.”

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David Roher’s tonal vision that guided the script

I was 29 when I won the Oscar, and honestly, I had no idea what came next. The anxiety hit hard, along
with this weird depression I wasn’t expecting. You know how creativity usually just flows? Mine completely dried up. It’s like when athletes get the yips and suddenly can’t perform – except this was my whole creative process just… gone. Nothing. And that terrified me. It forced me to face this existential question: if the creative part of me – which had always been who I was just well, disappeared, then who the hell was I? That question wouldn’t leave me alone. It kept gnawing at me until it became Tuner.

It’s a film about creative paralysis. About what happens when the thing that defines you just stops working. It’s about that terrifying space between who you were and who you might become when your identity gets pulled out from under you. If someone’s value is predicated on their art, what happens if they can’t make art anymore? This question was circling in my head when I met Peter White, a piano tuner in Los Angeles. Peter’s poetic and almost spiritual relationship to sound was fascinating and directly inspired the character of Niki. Soon, I was off and writing.

With Tuner, I wanted to invite viewers into a world where music, sound, and silence shape a man’s identity. Niki, played by Leo Woodall, is a gifted pianist who no longer plays after developing hyperacusis, which is a painful disorder related to loudness perception in one’s hearing. The film examines two core themes: the fragile nature of identity and the struggle to reclaim joy after loss. It’s a story about fear and courage, but, more than anything, I wanted it to be a lot of fun. I wanted to make a film with romance and music. A film sizzling with the kind of moral ambiguity that percolates out of crime stories. A movie with a comedic backbeat.

Though deeply personal, I believe this story resonates universally. Everyone has faced moments of doubt, burnout, or reinvention. Tuner is about the human experience of grappling with change, grief, and the hope of renewal. It’s about the invisible battles we fight and the unexpected ways we move forward.

As a filmmaker who has spent years telling true stories, Tuner was an opportunity to step into fiction to explore emotional truths with a new toolkit. My hope is that it sparks conversations about creativity, identity, and resilience – especially as millions grapple with these questions while new technology fundamentally changes our relationship to creativity.

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