Courtesy Ciara Elwis
Ciara Elwis grew up watching One Tree Hill and Gossip Girl. Like many her age, it was the soundtracks of these shows that would ultimately shape her taste in music. They also laid the groundwork for Elwis to grow into the Emmy-winning music supervisor she is today. No matter the awards she accumulates or projects she works on, there will always be one Tree Hill.
“One Tree Hill was one of the first things I watched that gave music such a focus. To be honest, prior to that I had already decided that doing music for commercials would be something I would really like to do. The idea of music to picture was very much formulated in my brain as something I really was interested in. I used to watch Fantasia as a kid, three times a day sometimes.”
“In One Tree Hill, there’s a music venue with featured artists every week, so much of the script was baked around these big musical moments, which was amazing. Gossip Girl was another of those shows that exposed me to this music that I just wouldn’t have necessarily come across otherwise.”
Elwis’ most recent work is on the Prime Video series Sterling Point, which shares DNA with the teen dramas of yesteryear, the very ones she grew up loving. The series follows seventeen-year-old Annie (Ella Rubin) as her world is upended when she discovers that she has inherited her grandfather’s island in Canada. There, she meets Ramona (Amélie Hoeferle), her long-lost sister.
Sterling Point is a return to form of the teen dramas of the aughts, where technology played a limited role and parents were rarely anywhere to be found. The series is grounded in the dynamics of the teens and their relationships. As such, Sterling Point has garnered a passionate teenage fan base that allows Elwis to lean into the overt emotional feel of each scene.
“With the young-adult shows, it’s really nice to feel like you can just kind of go for a song that’s the most emotional response possible, because this is the time everyone feels everything most impactfully. Things are never as bright or as devastating as they were when you were in that time of life.”
“We want people to cry. That’s the name of the game. It’s emotional manipulation. We’re really trying to make the world feel colorful and bold, and music’s an amazing way of doing that.”
Sterling Point creator Megan Park is no stranger to the teen dramas of the early 2000s. Before she shifted into writing and directing, Park starred on The Secret Life of the American Teenager as a conservative Christian teen. When Park and Elwis would talk about the sound of Sterling Point, Park had ideas about the music, but also let Elwis surprise her.
“We had initial discussions around what was already working in the edit. I had some artists to go with in terms of tone. There are some scripted moments as well. ‘Off to the Races’ by Lana Del Rey was a scripted moment. We knew we were going to have some of these big musical moments, but I was very influenced by the nature of the show’s setting. I’m from Scotland, so it felt familiar.”
“It is trial and error, to be honest. You start sending ideas and you get feedback. One of the things I like about working with Megan is that she knows exactly what she likes and wants, but she’s also very, very good at letting creatives take something to her and explain why they think it’s right. She did this with the script as well. She would say, here’s the script, but if you don’t think that’s quite right and that’s not how you would say that, change it. She’s saying, this is what I think I want, but I’m really happy to be surprised. It’s quite freeing to approach a project that way.”
Courtesy of Prime Video
Throughout the series, there are a few covers of classic songs. One of the most striking is a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” by Maisy Stella. Elwis explains that the choice to use a cover in a show varies based on the project, but there was a very intentional decision to want there to be a musical voice for the sisters of the series. What better way to achieve that than by working with Lennon and Maisy Stella, who you may recognize from their viral cover of Robyn’s “Call Your Girlfriend” from 2012. Maisy previously starred in Park’s 2024 film My Old Ass, so the collaboration felt perfect for Sterling Point.
“We thought it would be nice to have these moments and songs that sort of spoke more to the sisters’ relationship. We have the duet in episode four that’s about the sisters’ relationship, but it’s also about the mother having a bit of a voice in the music.”
“We were speaking with Maisy and Lennon about songs to potentially cover. They were very much involved in the selection process because we wanted songs they felt comfortable with. We wanted it to feel like something that would be natural for them to sing so we’re not shoehorning anyone into doing a cover of a song they don’t feel like they can connect with. It was also a nice way of getting some older music into the series.”
In Sterling Point, Annie and Ramona could not be more different. Annie has spent her whole life living in New York City. She has a very detailed skincare routine, a twenty-year plan mapped out, and struggles to let herself go and live in the moment. Ramona is self-sufficient. She’s been taking care of herself for a long time. She’s grumpy, but unwaveringly loyal. Where Annie listens to pop, Ramona is classic rock. It’s this friction that makes for a compelling relationship evolution, but also allows Elwis to play in a grand sandbox of songs.
“At the beginning, there’s a conscious effort to move from a more New York poppy sound to a much more focused sound. By the end of the series, the music we’re using for both sisters is much more similar, and we have more covers because of that reason.”
“At the beginning, we don’t want it to seem like the sisters are the same. We want them to feel like distinct characters. It’s very much about Annie’s journey and the influence Sterling Point has on her.”
Part of the joy Elwis finds in her job comes from chasing the high she had as a young person finding a new song. Her favorite discovery from her time working on Sterling Point was Samara Cyn’s track “Sinner,” which plays as Ramona races away on a speedboat after discovering that Annie is her sister.
Courtesy of Prime Video
“I just came across Samara Cyn a few weeks prior and loved that song. I love her in general. I think she’s super talented. It was one of those nice moments where you hear something and then immediately get to use it, which, to be honest, in my line of work, doesn’t happen very often. A lot of the time, you sit on songs for 2 to 3 years and just hope no one else uses them.”
“The final track as well. Sarah Kinsley’s ‘Fleeting.’ I’d been listening to her for a previous project I’d been working on and trying to find a spot for some of her music. When Sterling Point came across my desk, I was glad I’d held off because she fits perfectly.”
With her work on Sterling Point, Elwis has found herself at a full-circle moment. A chance to give another generation a chance to not only fall in love with a new television series, but to be swept up in the emotion of it all by the songs. Music has such an incredible ability to make sense of our world and let us know we’re not alone. For Elwis, it’s always first about crafting an authentic sound for the characters and allowing that to be the guiding force for the character’s sound.
“If you just play music that’s charting, it’s going to feel super dated by the time it comes out. Things can become dated very quickly if you go about it that way. Also, that’s just not the way people consume music. We want it to feel natural. You want people to have that experience of feeling like, okay, here’s the song that was the song of the summer that everyone’s been playing the whole time. Here’s a song I heard when I was walking through a market in wherever. Having that playlisting experience when you’re watching the show makes it feel much more authentic.”
“You don’t want the audience to have a preexisting relationship with every song they hear. In fact, arguably, I think it’s better for there to be hardly any preexisting relationships at all because you want to be immersed in the world. If you’re listening to something and you’re being taken out of it by saying like, oh my gosh, that song was huge last summer, then that’s not necessarily the experience we want people to have. We want people to feel completely engrossed by what they’re watching, and the music is a huge part of building that world.”
“We have a few tracks from much bigger artists. Olivia Rodrigo’s team was very generous in playing you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love before it came out so we could put that song into the series, which was an amazing coup for us. We also have the Lana track, ‘Off to the Races’ which is obviously a lot more well known. Then it’s about building the world around that.”
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