December 2015 – Alice Asbury AudioProject1

Music Composition Process

Alice Rose Asbury / December 30, 2015January 17, 2016 / Film Process

This blog is to discuss and explain the early decisions made by myself to do with the composition of music for George.

Starting the composition process was the hardest part. I found it difficult to create the music without seeing the visual layout of the film first. Perhaps this may have been helped by storyboards, however these were not provided. To start, whilst we were still filming, I came up with a short melody and key to work in. This enabled me create key features that would be apparent through out the film. As shown below:

This short section is set in G minor and plays about with Bflat Major chord as well (it being the relative minor). It contains some arpeggios and starts a main melody which will be recurring throughout the film as you can hear in the MIDI version I have attached:

Using a MIDI instrument reaffirmed my need for a real piano to record on – as you can hear it sounds quite robotic with little emotion. Having a short melody and key to go with helped me a lot when it came to later on in the process. I am also thankful I didn’t compose anymore music until after the film was shot as the script and film structure changed a fair bit whilst shooting. This obviously changed a lot of music cues.

Once we had some rough edits of visuals during filming I was able to see the structure of the film easily. This enabled me to devise a new music cue sheet (as shown on my music cue blog) of where I felt music was needed. This created four main sections of music for the film: Title sequence, travel song, dream sequences 1&2 and End credits. These pieces are to extend over the film to fit with the image.

For making these four pieces I re-recorded the original melody which became the opening title sequence, sticking to these melodies and arpeggios. However whilst watching the rough edits I felt it necessary to introduce another major theme right at the beginning before this starts. As shown below, it is a series of 3 chords:

Although simplistic I felt it important to attach this to George’s character as a sort of Leitmotif. This will occur when George is first on screen, when his character is sad and it also acts as a reminder of the George’s past. By doing this within the first 10 seconds of the film I have attempted to create a signifier for George as a person. Through also connecting this motif to other events it will hopefully begin to signify George’s story to the audience as not much of it is displayed in the visual.

The second piece is to go along with scenic shots of George travelling outside, the pace is a bit more upbeat and the key is very minor to signify George as being worried. For the dream sequence, what I came up with is at risk of sounding a little too dramatic for what the scene actually looks like. Therefor I have decided I will work on it further, then decide whether or not it is needed as we intend to do a lot with sound fx. This decision will also partly be down to the director. Finally with the end sequence I have decided to do a 4 minute section of music which is continuous until the end of the film. This piece changes pace quite a lot and attempts to display George’s changing emotions throughout these 4 minutes. Here I have played a lot with dynamics and tempo but still sticking to the main musical themes of the previous music. Then at the end, including the main credits, it concludes the way it began with the same arpeggios and slightly altered melody to conclude the film.

The next step from here will be filling out the pieces (if needed) using electronic sounds on Pro Tools. For this I had originally planned acoustic instruments but I know think electronic sounds will have the same impact in helping the melodies created by the piano fit the film.

Claudia Gorbman – Unheard Melodies

Alice Rose Asbury / December 30, 2015 / Research

Researching Claudia Gorbman’s Unheard Melodies

Like the previous research I have done this book talks about the power of music within film and the ways music can work within film. She begins by taking a semiological approach into music’s abilities within film. What I find particularly interesting about Gorbman’s work comes later when discussing music composition. Here are what she describes as principles to music within film:

I. Invisibility: the technical apparatus of nondiegetic music must not be visible.

II. Inaudibility”: Music is not meant to be heard consciously. As such it should subordinate itself to dialogue, to visuals – i.e., to the primary vehicles of the narrative.

III. Signifier of emotion: Soundtrack music may set specific moods and emphasize particular emotions suggested in the narrative (cf. #IV), but first and foremost, it is a signifier of emotion itself.

IV. Narrative cueing: – referential/narrative: music gives referential and narrative cues, e.g., indicating point of view, supplying formal demarcations, and establishing setting and characters.

– connotative music “interprets” and “illustrates” narrative events.

V. Continuity: music provides formal and rhythmic continuity- between shots, in transitions between scenes, by filling “gaps”.

VI. Unity: via repetition and variation of musical material and instrumentation, music aids the construction of formal and narrative unity.

VII. A given film score may violate any of the principles above, providing the violation is at the service of the other principles.

(Gorbman, 1987, 73)

This list of principles is a good way of knowing what music can do. All these aspects are important to take into account when creating music for film – as these are techniques are aspects which make film music great. However, I do find with Gorbman’s ideas don’t take into account that people perceive films differently at the end of the process; therefore I think it is better to look at the ‘principles’ as a focus when composing not when looking at the end product of a film. It is also a great example of what music can do – which is what interests me a lot, especially when taking the music supervisor role. I have noticed my music already uses a fair few of these techniques for example signifier of emotion, continuity, narrative cueing etc. However from reading this I want to try and include as many as possible. One particular one of interest to me is ‘invisibility’, this will be able to test how well my music goes with the visual, as some of it is not there to be noticed – just help move the story itself along. I also agree with principle number 7, that although all these principles are important that they aren’t all necessarily needed as long as it is justified.

I found Gorbman’s work very insightful in separating what makes film music great and the overall capabilities of what music can do in relation to film. I will definitely be using some of these techniques within George.

Gorbman, C. (1987) Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music. London: BFI Publishing.

Kassabian – Hearing Film

Alice Rose Asbury / December 30, 2015 / Research

Researching Anahid Kassabian – Hearing Film

For a large part of my research I have been looking into different ways music are discussed within film to help gain a greater understanding of what to do musically with George. For this part of my research I took a look into Anahid Kassabian’s ‘Hearing Film’. I have previously read her book ‘Ubiquitous Listening’ and therefore thought this book may contain useful information directed more towards film. Kassabian first looks into music and ideology surrounding it, discussing in detail theories of music itself and the language of it. She then goes on to discuss it in relation to film in more detail; talking in depth about music relationships with different components of film. She then furthers this through looking at a number of case studies; which lead to one of the main focus’ of her book – tracking identities. For my research purposes I will proceed to looking in-depth into her thoughts on what music can do to a film as this is most relevant to my research.

Kassabian explains music’s ability on it’s own. One aspect I found particularly interesting was her description of music here – “It crosses over boundaries between unconscious and conscious processes; it contradicts or shifts what seem like heavy-handed meanings in the visuals” (Kassabian, 2001, 89). This to me is a vital part of what film music is meant to be. It can carry a story along without you even noticing it. Coming in and out of a film effortlessly and unnoticed, thus smoothing over the images on screen. This is something which is of particular relevant to me when composing and placing the music within my short film. Not only should it be heard but it should also be discrete and help carry along the story, leaving less for the visual and dialogue to do on its own. I will go into these theories of what music can do in a later blog more focussed on creating the music for George.

Kassabian also takes the approach of looking into music in the following ways:

“ How is the music’s relationship to the narrative world of the film perceived?
How do we perceive the music’s method within the scene?
What does the music evoke in or communicate to us?” (Kassabian, 2001, 41-42)

These are of course important questions to the overall experience of a film. For me, making the music for a film, I think its important to keep focussing on what you want as an end product. Therefor these questions are important to ask when looking at the end product. People perceive films and music differently so what I am trying to do with the music may not always be the way it is perceived by a certain person. That is why it is important to follow certain guidelines to try and achieve music’s full potential; guidelines such as music as a narrative, the use of diegetic and non-diegetic music and also looking into pace, tempo and key. These questions are key when understanding what I want the film to do.

She also later goes onto discuss this idea of Leitmotiv which originates from Wagner music. This is a term used to describe a musical phrase which is connected to something like a place, character or idea. This is an idea I have taken up with George through attaching simple melodies/notes to the character through having them recur throughout the film. I will discuss this more on my blog about my methods used within the music.

I have found Kassabian’s insight extremely useful when thinking about the bigger impact music can have on a film and will continue reading this to further my knowledge. There is indeed a lot more Kassabian discusses in her book but these are a few of the aspects which I found particularly useful within this project.

Kassabian, A. (2001) Hearing Film: Tracking Identifications in Contemporary Hollywood Film Music. London: Routledge.

Meetings about Music

Alice Rose Asbury / December 29, 2015January 17, 2016 / Film Process

As Music Supervisor I have been arranging meetings with the directors/media group about the music itself. Here is a brief analysis of how both have gone so far…

Meeting 1

My first meeting with the group was to discuss the music cues I had planned for George; this was before the film and with the first director (Lucy). Lucy didn’t have a lot of direction when it came to music which gave me the advantage of being able to experiment and create all my own ideas for it. The main thing I took from this talk was is that she wanted the music to have this element of forgiveness. That at the end of the film we were left feeling sorry for George and not disgusted/angry/upset. With this I intended on making the music flow with the film; having changes in pace throughout to fit the on screen but all in all leading back to the way it started. With this I had the idea of creating a motif throughout the film that is set to signify George’s past and begin to make the audience’s feel something towards George as a character. However for me to create the music I found it hard to create something without visual guidance as the script and directors notes didn’t give me a lot of help creatively.

Meeting 2

The second meeting in relation to music was after most of the filming which enabled me to have a few rough edits of the visuals. This helped me substantially when creating the music (as discussed in my blog on my methods) so therefore was able to record and edit some piano. This helped me establish the main motif’s and structure to the piece. This meeting was with Charlotte, Angelin and Shaun who are now co-directing the film. I had to explain to them how a lot of my original music cues had been scrapped or replaced – mainly due to scene changes or changes in the script. Although this made my first set of music cues unusable, watching the visual and being on set helped me create new ones easily through watching and composing. I showed them the rough music cuts which can be split into 4 separate pieces:

Title Sequence
Travel Song
Dream Sequence
End Compilation

(Obviously these need renaming)

When I played these to the group with the visual they were really impressed with how it linked scenes together and portrayed George’s character. They had no negative remarks or any constructive criticism. I informed them of where the pieces may change and what other layers may be added of which they agreed. I also discussed with them the ‘dream sequence’ music; myself, Gareth and Rory were unsure whether it’s a little to dramatic or even needed at all. The directors however did say they liked the music for that section so I am going to keep working on it and see how it works with the fx in that scene. All in all the second meeting was a success and I know where I need to go from here musically, I also feel a lot more confident with the music as a whole.

Review of Location Recording

Alice Rose Asbury / December 29, 2015January 17, 2016 / Film Process

Location Recording

Whilst the filming was in process I attended the shoots and acted as a boom operative. Rory helped a lot with teaching me how to use the sound devices 633 mixer, which lead to me leading a few of the shoots. I have also had a look through the sound devices field mixer manual and now feel confident using it and will be sure to use it more for my semester B project. I enjoyed the role of boom operative and picked up some great techniques which I will use in future (for example boom and radio mic placement). Although there wasn’t a lot of dialogue within the film we tried to pick up a lot of ambient and movement sounds on set. Another valuable aspect I learnt from being on location was recording the shot and scenes that went with our takes – we set up the sound devices mixer so it would label the takes for us, but it was also very useful to take note of the location, date, microphones, take and scene when it came to post. This helped us find useful takes in post and all the takes for a specific scene’s easily.

I felt we worked well in communicating with the film crew, they always knew our needs and were told if we thought it would be a better to get another take. We also attempted to take care of the actor/s by making sure they were comfortable, this was what we felt a necessary part of filming as it made the whole process a lot more fun.

At the start of the process we did have some issue’s with the original director. A few examples being failure to give us scheduled breaks, then also failing to tell us when they were ready to start filming amongst other events such as lack of time schedule with shots and storyboards. However as a sound team we worked through this well by being well prepared with microphones and being set up before hand ready to record. This also led us to communicating more with the editor who was in charge of noting all the shots, scenes and takes to keep us informed of what shot we were on.

When the director changed and the rest of the group took charge there was a much better working atmosphere and with this we found it easier to communicate with the director.

All in all throughout the location recording I learnt a substantial amount about what it is like to be on a film set, how to use the field mixer and how boom op successfully. Although we had some challenging incidents within the filming process I felt we tried our hardest to help the film crew when needed through offering them our advice and opinions. As a sound team we worked well together all finding our own roles within the first couple of shoots and all performing to the best of our abilities.

Sound devices mixer manual http://cdn.sounddevices.com/download/guides/633_en.pdf