As part of my primary and secondary research in week 1, I have compiled a shortlist of possible clips my partner and I could work on for this project.
Together, we browsed the internet for contrasting movie scenes and wrote down our favourite contenders: Including, but not limited to, the ones shown in the picture (left).
Some of the ideas we compiled are:
Saving Private Ryan- End scene
Casino Royale- Parkour- Chase scene
1917- End Scene
My Best Friend's Wedding- 'Choose me' scene
The Great Escape-
Travelers (TV show)- season 2 ending or Beginning scene
RESEARCH
From 'Overtones and Undertones',
“In silent films, in which the music generally runs nonstop, cues, if they are used, simply run into one another, changing in mood, tone, character and so on according to what is happening on-screen rather than according to purely musical logic. In sound films, however, the nondiegetic music track almost never runs nonstop. Therefore, a decision must be made not only as to what kind of music is to be composed and/or chosen to interact when given a segment of cinematic action but it must also be decided as well when and whether non-diegetic music is to be used and how long it is to run.”
This particular quote from this book intrigues me as it suggests that I do not need to be composing for the entirety of the film scene and should select carefully with cues. This I feel should be extremely useful when it comes to writing music in a specific tempo, I should try to line up bars along with screen cues. This has always been easier when in free time as I do not have to follow musical logic at all when it comes to time signature and when certain parts should be played.
For our first movie clip we ended up going with the ending scene from 'The Shape of Water'. It has romance, twisted fantasy with an air of mystery and poetry. This contrasts greatly to our there contenders and stuck out to us as an immediate choice.
composing for the scene:
I was greatly inspired by the widely known opening scene for the animated Pixar movie 'Up' called Married life.
I decided to look at this scene from this particular film because it was one of the first and best examples of romance in a movie that I, personally, actually felt something. I know from a previous study into 'how Pixar makes you cry', that 'Up' is extremely good at making the audience respond with a rollercoaster of emotions. Also, It is said that 'music can evoke emotions in the absence of dialogue'. Since both the beginning of 'Up' and the ending of 'The Shape of Water' feature absolutely no audible dialogue between characters, the soundtrack becomes vital to expressing the atmosphere of the scene and emotions the characters may or may not be outwardly expressing. I was not only inspired by the use of music when no dialogue is present but also the actual musical content that plays during sections of the scene. Being as the emotions throughout that beginning sequence of 'Up' shift around dramatic from shot to shot, the overall theme stays consistent but changes mood throughout. For example, during the part of the scene where Ellie (the wife) is at the hospital, presumably being told she is unable to have children, the mood is sombre and the music reflects that by slowing down and being played with just the main melody soloed with lots of space.
The 'married life' theme has one of the most recognisable melody lines: F, B, f, E, E, G, E, C. taking inspiration from this I decide to use a similar melody line except starting on the E note instead. So it goes... E, G, E and then works down then up chromatically but the main theme is that bounce between E and G. When this is first introduced in my composition, it is very slow and spacious for the beginning, thinking about surface water ripples spreading, trying to create this sense of water and shapelessness yet have some structure to the piece.
In relation to clip one, this idea of playing around with melodies (no matter how short or simple), can greatly change the atmosphere of a scene which could be utilised in composing. In the scene, the woman is underwater and is not breathing until a few minutes in and it leaves the audience wondering if she will be ok. Hoping to revive her and for her to live, she is saved by the fish-man and they embrace. The mood is slightly upsetting, tense at first perhaps and then moves to more calm and tender, all the while keeping the air of mystery surrounding it all as it's still a fantasy movie and some theories going around speculating and debating the end of the movie is: "it was a dream', or perhaps 'she was in fact dead".
This shift in mood, I have been thinking, could be conveyed by using a more sad and spacious/ simplified melody for while we (as the audience) are unsure about if Eliza is all right. In contrast to this, building up the left hand on the piano and using harmonic techniques to isolate notes. Show the love between them with a sweet mostly major melody and the main hook has leaping intervals which shows playfulness and joy in itself.
When the music builds,I wanted to match the scene as perfectly as i could and using small cues such as when he fist touches her face and arm, when they kiss and when they hug tightly. Not only thinking about this, i also consider the camera angles and positioning. For example, when the camera zooms out and shows the spaciousness of the water and how they are floating there effortlessly as one, the composition follows and brings back the original theme with the tension note as they are so small in such a large body of water and its quite mystifying. This tension note, Ab, is hit once together with either D, G or a high C to create that sense of wonder and also weightlessness. I explain and expand some more in a short video with demonstration when we were in the midst of composing the Shape of Water ending scene music (Below)
NOTE: The A♭ note is borrowed from the C minor scale, whilst our composition is in the C major scale. (unlike what is said on accident in the audio clip)
The fuller and later updated progress on the composition posted below:
W9 UPDATE:
Both the interview with a music production student and my independent research helped my project parter and I to decide on our set up and ultimately how and what we would record to get the foley sounds we wanted instead of relying on online sound libraries.
I discovered that it is entirely possible to do a DIY foley pit at home using resources around the house. This was especially useful as not many stores are currently open. We decided to borrow equipment from college in order to record out foley work and that included:
• Computer
• DAW
• An audio interface
• USB B(MIDI) Male to USB A Male
• A cardioid condenser microphone
• A microphone stand
• An XLR Cable
Intrigued by the new concept of Adding realism to the movie scene, I decided to listen to this TED talk. These are my findings and what I have taken from this research
It's not that easy- much more complicated than it may seem to the average viewer. Creativity and technology come together to create an illusion by creating sounds to live in the story. Tip: add reverb for realism! Space is between the listener and the source of the sound for example the space between the camera (audience's view) and the on-screen characters. Emotionally intimate moments are often heard with no reverb, -as if someone is directly whispering into your ear.
Silence is extremely important- a few moments of 'silence' will make the audience pay attention and silence proceeding loud noises can create tension. Cinema traditionally there was no silence because of the constant sound of the projector. Even now there is no such thing as silence there's always something to listen to.
Industrial sounds often carry negative connotations. Sound effects can appeal to the emotional memory and become extremely significant to the audience and level of connection
The idea is that seeing cause and effect is ubiquitous in a way and gives a greater sense of presence despite visual evidence. Referring back to sound in movies, it serves to build the entire picture and creating the world not solely based on what you can hear but also based on what you can perceive you should be able to hear. hearing a sound without knowing its source creates tension but also can minimise the visual limitations directors have with cinematography and can suggest the presence of something that wasn't able to be there at the time of filming or seen in the shot.
Here is some technical language and their definitions I had not understood before until listening to this TED talk:
Reverberation:- the persistence of sound after the original sound has ended.
Ambiences:- the unique background sounds that are specific to a location that gives character to the recording.
Room tone:- (same as above but for smaller-scale location) usually to do with amount and intensity of reverb. . Acousmatic sounds:- sounds that are heard without the cause of the noise being seen. (e.g phone ringing in a bag)
It is fascinating how sound can transport us and change our emotion. This has inspired me to really take into consideration the ways to tell the story through sound design in this project.
For the secondmovie clip, the parkour chase scene from the bond film 'Casino Royale' was chosen for its genre juxtaposition next to our first clip and therefore a shift in technique would be needed. The scene is quite long but as stated in my planing and production notes, we wrote down key events to decide a roughly 4 minute chunk of the scene to use. Starting from when the guy starts running ontop of the cranes at approximately 3:08 and finishing when bond is surrounded by soldiers (for a tense and ambigious ending) at exactly 6:57.
decided to do some listening to how other composers use the bond theme in order to help us with how we should implement it into our composition.
"Bond soundtracks sit at the intersection of two traditions. They combine the extensive orchestral scores of Hollywood’s golden age with popular music that keeps pace with changing tastes.
Behind the classic signature sound was British composer John Barry, who assisted Monty Norman in scoring Dr. No and provided incidental music and title songs for a further 11 Bond films. Barry combines jazzy, big band brass and sweeping, romantic string lines with timeless songwriting structures. His mixture of classic and contemporary styles has continued to influence recent Bond composers including David Arnold and Thomas Newman."
Instrumentation:
The orginal James Bond theme cmposed by John Barry includes a guitar to play the most well known main riffs. This has inspired us to keep guitar in our instrumentation.
Taking the above into account, the guitar parts composed will use minimal of the james bond theme and instead insert it duing significant moments of heroicy using what i refer to as 'hinting'. Hinting is taking a short section perhaps only two or three notes allong with the orginal recognisable pattern of those notes and placing that within our music. This meant in order to be easier and sounding nicer, the composition would ideally already be ain a key or keys which involve thse notes in their scale or could eg. its in a minor key but can shift into major when notes of the bond theme are introduced. This adapabilty needs to be thought about very carefully and choices when it comes to musical logic (timing and tempo) will need to be calcualted in order to work together seemlessly at the right point in the scene. This for me included a lot of maths. I used lots of bits of paper to help right down the cues whch would work. If we centralised manly in 4/4 or at least kept the basic theme in common time signature, this would mean we would only breka where it feels natural or works best in the bar. This meant searching for the point in the scene where we would want something to chnage and then working out the closest avialable bar number for timings as well as the end of the pattern so that it does not soud accidental.
The composition itself has evolved from a basic pattern of 4 or 5 to include one of 6, 5 and 4 played simultaniously. My reasonung behind this choice was that this is a chase scene and the music should reflect that bu having fast paced (140bmp to be exact) patterns. I tried to think about the rhythm of footseps and the tenseness of aproach.
Using what i called 'the bad guy theme' which is a main riff (played each note twice E F# G A) and bass note pattern (E A C D). The main riff idea stays constant throughout and sometimes disspears but comes back when necesarry in the logic of the scene. Each note is played twice in suceccesion The bass note pattern stays relatively similar throughout and is always in common time. The main riff however evolves to include a 5th note (D) and is then played in 5/4 whilst the orginal riff is still playing. This creates a polyrhythm which is meant to represent the who sides and the chase, the disjointed sounding patterns that cross over at some points and create harmony between themselves. The repeating ostinatos is played on piano but we had hoped to somehow implement it on strings slower but it didnt work out.
During the composition creation process for the chase scene, my project partner and I did a lot of experimenting and looping of the same ideas to try and add variation. Theres also an audio clip where he plays drums along with me on the piano to give an idea of what we could do.
This is all played with love real instruments when actually our composition is being programmed into logic. We used the practicing in real time to get used to the complicated polyrhythmic music and awkward bar timings. Also because our original pan was to try and perform a live version of this.
Here are those rough recordings of us in the rehearsal space over the course of two sessions:
I was searching for a good movie to critically listen to/watch, I was recommended Gravity. Looking at the tags of the movie on Amazon Prime, one of them read "suspense". I was wondering how exactly the movie's soundtrack complimented the on-screen action to create that tension as clip 2 has quite a lot of action and tension.
The soundtrack I found was mostly electronically produced and sounded realistic but lacked a human element, for example, the strings in 'Debris' have an almost identical pattern. This consistency of electronic sound in the music is broken towards the end of the movie to where the main character (Ryan) is coming home to earth in a very tense moment. There are hints earlier on with human voices integrated into the track and then they fully come to life. In the final song 'Gravity', a solo female vocalist sings louder and it has more human instruments come in such as the full brass orchestra, is probably the loudest song in the film and really appeals to the emotions.
Here were my notes taken down on my phone throughout the entire 1h 30min :
silence breaks- emptiness of space
Voices get louder as we see what's going on
Beeps
Jon diabetic radio music stops and muffled Foley gets louder as she touches apparatus
First actual movie score is introduced when the planet " view" is shown. Spacious music making you feel the vastness and how huge it is.
Music stops after when they cut to saying " I have a bad feeling about this mission" which seems significant.
Mission abort- tense music gets louder in background to create suspense. It swells along with the panning of the camera.
More sounds looping as the audience is wondering what's going it happen.
Music swells with the oncoming debris and loops over these quicker sweeps and more of a pulse.
Short often swells and modulation leading up to when she disconnects herself- returning to later theme.
Sound switches to inside her helmet, the music and everything is echoing and sounding backwards.
Heartbeat increasing with the music
Random soundscape over beat
New instruments occasionally get introduced with their own patterns and melody. Violins are strongest when the action is at its most tense moment.
Music doesn't stop being tense until 24 minutes in Ish.
(Angels are hard to find)
Non-diegetic and diegetic scores are played at the same time. The movie scores overlap until it takes the forefront as an emotional movement happens.
Whenever the planner us shown the music gets louder.
Biggest part of the score happens when Kawalski floats away. Sad violin as he is floating away.
She curls up like a baby in the womb with the tubes inside the space hub looking like an umbilical cord.
Violins are softer here on top and are very warm but do turn sombre as she realises, she's alone out in space.
Music cuts out almost entirely when the camera shows the outside of the pod detaching from base and her then builds back up
Warmness stays/- relaxing in contrast to the alarms beeping.
She hums perhaps "Angels are hard to find"
Space debris comes to wreck her stay and gives her no choice but to board the pod and go towards the Chinese station. The music is different here for a moment.
No fuel- distress. Calming piano, minimal and spacious at 56 minutes in. Nice imagery of the sunset over earth and aura borealis contrasts with the movie plot and the fact she is stuck and starting to freeze.
Comments to earth on radio- Man Singing a lullaby to his baby you hear crying. It reminds her of her own child she lost and references her own loneliness and that moment earlier on when she was curled up like a baby referencing life and death as the man sings in his native language (almost as if he's singing to her- "sing me to sleep, I'll sleep" - it's conforming) and she talks about coming to terms with dying. The music is very similar to that earlier point also.
She turned the knobs down so her oxygen levels decreased and she hallucinated Kawalski coming back for her and talking to her about what's she's gone through. I my opinion I think that represents her own want to not die just yet. When it shows him gone, she turns back up the 02 and music is suspense yet hopeful.
1h 8m Ish is the first time we hear some kind of vocals mixed into the score.
Robin talks 'to Matt' saying he will see her dead daughter "tell her that she's my angel".
The music swells happily for the first time with lots of strings during this moment.
Which may be referencing an earlier song that kept popping up.
The music is still hopeful but building to its climax as she gets into the Chinese station as it's dropping towards earth.
Cuts completely to an alarm beeping and then switches to more suspense before again turning hopeful as we don't know if she will make it to earth in one piece.
The strings well and there's barley any electronic use in the score for this. Brass instruments help make the heroic sound. Vocals re-introduced also when it is shown she's reaching earth.
The escape pod sinks, and she almost drowns. The music cuts in and out as the water crashes over the camera and then disappears.
High pitched frequency as she is in yet another tense situation- going to drown if she can't her heavy space suit off. Lots of nature sounds (fly buzzing, birds chirping).
When she finally reached land, the music has different instrumentation- electric guitar. Vocals swell over the top- human element which to me, signifies survival.
Strong female vocals persist and take lead in the soundtrack- continues till end.
As of W9, some of composition has been put into Logic and this is the bounced idea that we have so far:
W10 UPDATE:
Bibliography:
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