Next Steps/Final Thoughts

On Monday after submitting the honours project hand-in I plan to conduct my experiments. Rather than hold a focus group I intend to send the guide to test subjects, have them attempt to use it, and finally have them answer a questionnaire. The questionnaire will include questions where answers will be given using rating scales from 1-10; they will also have space where subjects can comment on the guide, this will help to establish: the relevance of, the need for, the usability of and any issues with the practical framework.

Although my experiments seem to be running fairly close to the dissertation deadline I have several test subjects ready and available to take part, test subjects are from varied musical backgrounds including; a singer/songwriter; a DJ/music producer and a sound practitioner specialising in game audio, none of the test subjects have any experience in creating music for films and  I have explained that I need the questionnaire results back by Tuesday evening, which ever test subject has agreed to.

Other than conducting my experiments I plan on spending my time between now and the final hand in date writing up the dissertation using the information I have already gained. Once I have my test results I will include a future work section, and a conclusion/discussion.

Final Thoughts: Although the undertaking of an honours project has been stressful and at times overwhelming I have learnt so much about the process of creating film score, a subject I am actively interested in, and I can genuinely say that I have enjoyed the experience.

Practical Framework Final Draft

Since meeting with Laurie just over a week ago I have made all the changes discussed in the previous blog post and I am very happy with the guide that I have produced. See the updated framework below (The framework refers to video and audio clips; these have been included at the bottom of this blog entry).

Creating Film Score – A Musicians Guide 

Introduction

The following guide will take you through the process of scoring for film via several informed steps. On the attached DVD relevant video and audio examples have been provided so that certain stages discussed in the guide can be seen and heard. A video (entitled Example 1) containing some placeholder audio – to establish setting and emphasise key narrative points – but no music has been provided this will allow you to follow the guide step by step and create film score for yourself. 

The Guide

1. Establish the mood/feeling of the film – In order to write and produce a suitable score, the overall feeling of the film must be established. It is important to consider the character(s)/setting(s) and narrative of the film. Communication with the films director is the best way to identify the moods of the film; a good director should be able to communicate their creative vision and what they want from you. 

*See video entitles “Example 1”. As this is an example video the following will act as the director’s communications and requirements – melancholy and desolation are the key themes of the film, the score should reflect and support these. These moods can clearly be seen throughout the film, in the main characters expressions/actions and in the films narrative twist.

2. Find Inspiration – Finding inspiration is crucial and enormously beneficial when creating film score. This could involve looking at existing films and basing elements of your work on their scores or finding pieces of music that reflect the mood/feeling you have been asked to create. Having something to work towards will help keep you motivated and allow you to benchmark your work. 

*See videos entitles  “Example 2” and “Example 3”. These videos are both suitable forms of inspiration, they both centre on the desired themes of the video (melancholy and desolation) and a clearly distressed lead character, however inspiration should be about what inspires you personally, try to explore and find your own sources of inspiration.

3. Limit your sonic world – Establishing the atmosphere of the film and finding inspiration should allow you to limit your instrumentation/equipment choices. Narrowing your sonic world to specific groups of instruments should save time in the creative process i.e. stops you from browsing through hundreds of synth sounds and getting lost in the writing process.  

*See videos  “Example 2” and “Example 3” These videos are very minimal in terms of film score, and consist of what sound like electric pianos and/or organs, they will influence the sonic world of the following musical and video clips. However as previously stated try to find your own sources of inspiration, they may influence the sonic world in which you choose to work. 

4. Write a lot of music not to picture – By this point you have established the mood of the score you intend to create, identified the instruments you intend to use to do so and have found inspiration/something to work towards. At this stage of the process it is important to experiment, create interesting sounds and melodies. By writing a large amount of music you will give yourself options at later stages of the process. Take some of the skeletal ideas created and begin to build on them, take the interesting sounds and melodies you have produced and start to piece them together, figure out what pieces work together.

*See audio file “Example 4”. This excerpt contains a short piece of music written to suit the decided themes of the film; the instruments used have been selected because of the inspirational clips previously discussed. “Example 4” is a relatively simple piece of music based around a simple chord structure some ambient synthesizer sounds accompanied by a strong lead melody. 

5. Adding music to the film - Take the refined pieces of music you have generated and sync them appropriately with the films emotive key points. This stage of production should also involve a large amount of communication with the director; he/she will have a clear understanding of where they want music to be placed. At this stage of the process you may have to alter the music created in the last stage of the process in order for it to best suit the needs of the film/fit with narrative.

*See video “Example 5”. This video shows the progression and alterations of “Example 4” in the final stage of the scoring process. Again as this is an example video the following will act as the director’s communications – the emotive peaks of the film occur at: 00:00:11, 00:01:04, 00:01:18 and 00:02:01 the film score should reflect and support these. You can see that “Example 4” has been suitably deconstructed and placed into the film to best support these emotive peaks; the music has also been simplified in order to not take away from the visuals of the film. It is important to remember that the audio is not the main focus of a film. 


Example 1

Example 2

                                       

Example 3                        

Example 4

                                        Example 4 (Audio Clip)

Example 5

                   

Mentor Meeting: Discussion Of Practical Framework

Today is the first time I have been able to see Laurie since I blocked out the first draft of my practical framework as last weeks meeting was cancelled. Since my last blog post all I have done is begin to write up elements of the dissertation based on practical work discussed here. The main focus of this work has been my Practice Base Research section.
Laurie appeared impressed with my framework and said it almost felt like reading a module brief. While discussing how I should include the film work and scores I have created in the honours project hand in we came up with the idea of treating my framework as a sort of "idiots guide to creating film score" This basically means adding a DVD containing video/audio clips as well as writing a small paragraph about what each clip contained and how it was relevant to the process.
I love this idea and feel it will definitely make my framework more interactive and easier to understand/use.

Practical Framework First Draft

Below are the steps I have gathered through research produced either in the honours project or the dissertation. I feel these steps can be used successfully by musicians inexperienced in producing music or film to actively do so.

1. Establish the mood/feeling of the film – In order to write and produce a suitable score, the overall feeling of the film must be established. It is important to consider the character(s)/setting(s) and narrative of the film. Communication with the films director is the best way to identify the moods of the film; a good director should be able to communicate their creative vision and what they want from you. 

2. Find Inspiration – Finding inspiration is crucial and enormously beneficial when creating film score. This could involve looking at existing films and basing elements of your work on their scores or finding pieces of music that reflect the mood/feeling you have been asked to create. Having something to work towards will help keep you motivated and allow you to benchmark your work. 

3. Limit your sonic world – Establishing the atmosphere of the film and finding inspiration should allow you to limit your instrumentation/equipment choices. Narrowing your sonic world to specific groups of instruments should save time in the creative process i.e. stops you from browsing through hundreds of synth sounds and getting lost in the writing process.  

4. Write a lot of music not to picture – By this point you have established the mood of the score you intend to create, identified the instruments you intend to use to do so and have found inspiration/something to work towards. At this stage of the process it is important to experiment, create interesting sounds and melodies. By writing a large amount of music you will give yourself options at later stages of the process. Take some of the skeletal ideas created and begin to build on them, take the interesting sounds and melodies you have produced and start to piece them together, figure out what pieces work together.

5. Adding music to the film - Take the refined pieces of music you have generated and sync them appropriately with the films emotive key points. This stage of production should also involve a large amount of communication with the director; he/she will have a clear understanding of where they want music to be placed. At this stage of the process you may have to alter the music created in the last stage of the process in order for it to best suit the needs of the film/fit with narrative.

Syncing Music To Picture

Research uncovered in the literature review and the case studies highlighted the fact that without an experienced understanding of the aesthetics of film score an inexperienced sound practitioner would not be able to place score into film. However my case studies also revealed that where the audio is placed in film is usually decided by the director with some input from composers. This been said I  identified the emotive high points of my own film as: 00:00:11, 00:01:04, 00:01:18 and 00:02:01 and decided that the film score should reflect and support these. 

In the video below you can see the that the score created (discussed in previous post) has been deconstructed and placed back into the film to best support the identified emotive peaks. This process required a lot of experimentation and patience however I am fairly impressed with the results of my work and feel I now have enough information to create my practical framework.

Attempts At Writing Score

In my case studies I identified that writing a lot of music not to picture was a technique Trent Reznor successfully used to create his score for "The Social Network". With this in mind and the inspiration videos mentioned in my last blog post I begun to write music that will later be adapted and placed into the film I created.

Link To Created Film Scores

As you can hear the score's are quite reflective of the inspirational clips I selected. I opted to use similar instrumentation and aimed to create a similar mood/feeling; I found writing music of a specific mood and feeling quite strange, it took a lot of experimentation to find a strong or interesting melody for the score but I found that once I had one the easiest way to continue the writing process was was to basically build around the lead melody, essentially bulking out the track.

Inspiration

Today I found myself staring at an empty session file in Logic not knowing where to start when producing film score. As I directed the video I already knew the mood of the music I wanted to create so didn't need to go through the process of establishing that, however I couldn't decide how best to limit my sonic world (discussed in case studies) and found myself doing exactly what previous research said not to do; I caught myself browsing through several of the pre-set synth sounds in Logic.

Quickly realising the trap I was falling into I decided to give up on Logic for a while and take a break from the honours project. While speaking to a classmate over Facebook about the wall I'd hit they jokingly asked "Why don't you just copy someone else's music and pretend you wrote it?" 

This instantly led to the realisation that in order to create score I needed some inspiration. Suitable inspiration would provide me with something with which to benchmark my work. After sitting and considering what kind of score I was after I remembered the following videos: 

These videos are both suitable forms of inspiration for the film, they both centre on the desired themes of the video (melancholy and desolation) and a clearly distressed lead character. In the next couple of weeks I will try to create score using these two clips as inspiration.