Mentioned as Oscar candidates: Completely crazy

Emily Bear and Abigail Barlow have numerous awards, albums, and tours behind them. Bear has, among other things, toured with Beyoncé as her pianist.

We have dreams, we make sure they become reality. We are young, we feel good, and we love to work, says Emily Bear to TT.

As a mentor, she had the legendary Quincy Jones, a music producer who passed away on November 3 this year.

It was sad about his death, but at the same time, he had lived a long and very rich life, she says.

Took over from Miranda

This week, the duo Bear/Barlow is current with the animated film "Vaiana 2". They have written several of the songs in the film and collaborated with the main composer, a job they took over from Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote the lyrics to the megahit "Vaiana", which came out seven years ago.

We had a lot of contact with him in the beginning. He has been a great support, says Abigail Barlow.

In "Vaiana 2", the main character sets out on a new perilous voyage, where she encounters everything from a mighty storm to real monsters, a course of events that is now and then interrupted by song numbers.

The important thing was that the song numbers didn't stop the action, explains Emily Bear. There must always be a reason why they appear.

We worked closely with the screenwriters, who told us what they needed to move the story forward. There were times when we realized that it didn't work with songs in certain places, she says.

"Threw away the first one"

It was a give-and-take, notes Emily Bear, and gets backing from Abigail Barlow:

Some songs we wrote didn't make it. I remember that we threw away the first one we wrote.

The Vaiana films take place in Polynesia, and to get inspiration, they listened a lot to Polynesian music. A library of material from the first film helped them along the way.

Now, a couple of the duo's songs from the film are being pushed forward as potential Oscar candidates.