Category: Film Process

As we are well into the post-production process and nearing the end of the project I thought it would be useful to reflect on what has happened so far and also where we are in relation to our aims and learning outcomes. By doing this I can learn where I need to focus a little more and what we as a group still need to achieve.

My own personal aims have been achieved to a certain extent however do still need work. With the location sound – all that we collected was usable and there was no need for ADR. This is because we were prepared and worked hard to ensure we were efficient  – but also still got all the takes we needed. The post production process is also well on the way to being a completed, polished piece of sound design. This is because we prepared as much as we could before hand, by creating a session that would work with the audio lay out of the film – basing it on Grant Bridgemen’s template. However some sessions haven’t been as productive as they could have been. This is because a lot of time was spent moving our work around when we got new visuals, we have now learnt from this and come up with efficient ways of move the audio to fit the new visual’s. From now I think the way forward would be to work on getting all the sounds in there by doing any final foley and then try and work on making them sound how we want and then begin the mix down process. This may be better to do scene by scene, to make it a less time consuming process. The music is also well on the way to being completed. I have completed the core work for all but one section of music. I have also had frequent meetings with the directors to discuss my thoughts and ideas which they have agreed to. The only piece of music that is still yet to be near completion is the piece of source music. This has proven to be a longer process as I have had to get in touch with PRS. We now have most of the information we need however we now need to create it and give the director options.

I have also already achieved many of my learning outcomes. I now know and understand how a film production team work as a whole and how we as a sound team lease with the film crew. This is through being on set and through guest lectures. I also now feel confident with post work within film, I have managed to devise a routine and now realise my preferred methods of working (even if they haven’t been applied within this film). I have already researched extensively into how music works within film through various academic writers, this has enabled me to create my own ideas when it comes to what a score should do and sound like. This has also allowed me to attempt to capture the emotions and narrative through the use of music successfully. Through researching other compositions for film I have learnt what music suits our type of film and I now also feel confident in my own methods of composing music for film. However to achieve all of these learning outcomes I think some more research into the actual music supervisor role would be helpful in seeing whether I have achieved the role well.

As a sound team I feel we have worked well in communicating with the film team and have worked efficiently amongst them. Our sound design is also now feeling like it is coming together and making the film as a whole better. There is still a little way to go in all aspects, but I do not doubt we can achieve this by the deadline.

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.

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.

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