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. 

Logic Pro X

Today I downloaded Logic Pro X and in the next couple of days I plan on using the software to attempt to create film score using the steps identified in the projects case studies. Hopefully this practice based research will generate information the case studies did not.

Film

The past 2 weeks seem to have passed in a blur. I have spent most of my time either writing notes for my short film or contacting friends i.e. finding actors, arranging dates everyone is free to shoot etc. This frenzy of work seems to have paid off though as today I shot and edited a short film. (Using a Canon 550D and Final Cut Pro)

Obviously this quick turn around meant that I faced a number of issues, the biggest of these issues was the diegetic audio. The day I chose to film was unfortunately very windy meaning the audio captured was totally useless. As I don't have time to waste conducting Foley work (it is not particularly to the aim of my project) I have added some simple placeholder audio where it is necessary to the films narrative. As for dialogue any relevant conversations have been subtitled in.

Footage?

It has now been over a month since Laurie advised me to get a copy of the footage I plan on using to experiment with in order to generate practice based research. I have contacted James several times over the past two weeks and he appears to just be making excuses at this point. I now plan on writing and shooting my own short film. I realise this is a big task but I don't have to waste waiting for James to get back to me.

Case Study

The past two weeks have seen a huge change in my plans for the dissertations case study. Rather than email composers who have worked on low budget films and discuss their process's I decided to examine the film scoring methods used by traditional film composers Thomas Newman and Hans Zimmer and compare them to methods used by Trent Reznor - who is still very new to scoring for film and has therefore has developed his own unique process.
Examination of methods used by all three composers should provide information which can be used to generate steps for the practical framework I intend to create. I have posted the case study below, this may change as the project grows as there is plenty of room to discuss other composers; Ideally I would like to add a section discussing Arcade Fires work for "Her". I am currently trying to find enough information to discuss their process in detail though.

Note to reader: throughout the case study below there are links to websites and youtube videos in brackets, these are personal reminders of where I need to add references later.

Case Studies

In order to realise the aim of this project the following case studies will analyse the scoring process of classically trained composer, Thomas Newman in comparison to composers Hanz Zimmer and Trent Reznor both of whom originate from a “pop” background. The purpose of this case study is to highlight the overlapping and most relevant elements of production that can be adapted and applied to the creation of this projects practical framework.

Case Study1: Thomas Newman

Thomas Newman is a classically trained composer who has established a name for himself in the world of Film. Newman was born into a family of composers, his late father Alfred Newman was the musical director of 20^th Century Fox and his two uncles - Lionel and Emil Newman - are classically trained composers and conductors. As well as his father and two uncles Newman’s siblings – David and Maria – are also classically trained composers. When Newman was young his mother would take the children to violin lessons every week, he later went on to study composition and orchestration at USC and Yale University. (http://articles.latimes.com/2009/dec/03/local/la-me-newman3-2009dec03) 

Although the scoring process necessarily differs between each Film a composer works on there are a number of elements that remain fixed in their creation process. Below are elements of Newman’s process that repeatedly appear when researching his score development. Listening to temp tracks and spotting the film are usually the first step in Newman’s work. Spotting sessions exist so that the composer, director and editor can select where the music will be placed within the film, Temp tracks refer to pieces of existing music that are placed in the film before anything new is composed, temp tracks are used so that the director and composer can develop a clear understanding of the main theme and mood of the film. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg7dzJgljqY) This brings us to advice given by Newman’s; Get the director involved early, he says that by involving the director early he can avoid the hassle of having to make multiple changes or having a director not think he made the right choices. (http://www.aintitcool.com/node/38356) Newman discusses sending his early musical ideas and sounds to the director in order to make sure his work is in keeping with the themes and mood previously established. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg7dzJgljqY). These early ideas and sounds are perhaps Newman’s most important step as a Film composer. His work is well known for been quite sequenced; he creates a skeletal idea, a key theme or melody and then works with a small group of musicians in order to flesh it out.  (

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/38356) although he is a classically trained composer Newman frequently discusses his love for and the necessity of improvisation in his process. When discussing the fleshing out of his skeletal ideas he talks about working with a small group of musicians 

“I’ll improvise, I’ll take out instruments, I’ll have players come over. I like the beginnings of processes because anything goes, anything’s possible.” (http://www.thedolphinlmc.com/arts-leisure/2013/03/14/film-composer-thomas-newman-discusses-the-art-of-film-scoring/) He discusses working with other musicians and how he remains in control of the project by working in a measured way; Newman has players experiment with ideas he comes up with. (http://www.aintitcool.com/node/38356) Traditionally Newman likes to create a large amount of Pre-Lays (work typically recorded in a multi track fashion in the studio before a composition it is taken to a full orchestra) he records in patterns and adds to these as time goes on, he later refines them to image deciding what needs to be added to and or taken away so that the score maintains suitable placement and themes. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg7dzJgljqY)   

“I want to lay back and not take centre stage a lot with music. You want to make the actors look good. You don’t want to steal from these people.” - Thomas Newman

“The image tells you when you are right and wrong. You can say, “OK…here’s an idea and here’s someone playing to this idea…Oh that doesn’t work because I can’t hear the dialogue now. It’s more fool proof because you go over the material a lot and you are constantly looking at the material and you aren’t trying to close your eyes and jump in so much.” - Thomas Newman (http://www.aintitcool.com/node/38356) 

The next important step in Newman’s method is taking the Pre-Lay recordings to be overdubbed by a full orchestra. Newman discusses the transition of working in a small studio to recording with a full orchestra as a “wonderful thing” claiming that working in the studio allows him to place musicians within a sonic landscape in his sense of stereo whereas recording a full orchestra is very set and structured providing an almost proscenium setting and a real classical sense of what a real orchestra would sound like and that even in this process of recording small issues may be realised and altered the example provided is noticing a Clarinet been played in the wrong register and becoming distracting at section of the film.(http://www.aintitcool.com/node/38356)

Several of the steps provided by review of Newman’s process can be adopted and adjusted to suit the aim of this project; his process of experimentation and recording large amounts of work in a studio before recording with an orchestra can be compared to that of film composer Hans Zimmer. 

Case Study 2: Hans Zimmer

Hans Zimmer is a well-known German composer who has composed Film score for over 150 films. Unlike Thomas Newman, Zimmer is not a classically trained musician, when discussing his childhood Zimmer claims he briefly attended piano lessons but stopped, as he disliked the idea of formal music lessons.  "MTV biography – Hans Zimmer (in German)". Retrieved 2014-02-22. Zimmer’s career in music originates from “pop” backgrounds, he played synthesisers in several bands throughout 1970-1990, his career highlight at this time was the single “Video Killed The Radio Star” with new wave duo, The Buggles. http://www.spectrasonics.net/company/artists/artist.php?i d=11                               Although Hans began his career writing and producing pop music he soon discovered he was far more interested in and inspired by Film Score, since then Hans has scored over a hundred movies including several of Hollywood’s biggest and most successful films. http://www.spectrasonics.net/company/artists/artist.php?i d=11 

As discussed previously, traditionally the first stages in a film composers process are  listening to temp tracks and spotting the film; yet Hanz Zimmer has stated numerous times that he hardly ever receives temp tracks for the films he is asked to work on. http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24544&start=35&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=&sid=a8b588779201cc6c5181f11eab984828 Rather than been restricted to temp tracks Hanz writes a large suite of music that will provide musical themes for the film, this suite replaces the temp tracks that would have been used in the spotting session. http://www.soundtracksandtrailermusic.com/2013/07/hans-zimmer/. However before writing a single note Hanz stresses the importance of limiting your sonic world, he says that limiting your palette to suit the sonic world been created will save you from scrolling through thousands of synth, getting lost and never writing a single note. Zimmer is a pioneer of synthesizers and they are used frequently in the early stages of his creative process to generate and express his thoughts. 

“The computer is a musical instrument and the more virtuosic you get on that, the better you can express your ideas.” Hanz Zimmer  

http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24544&start=35&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=&sid=a8b588779201cc6c5181f11eab984828. In an online article entitled “Why Hanz Zimmer Got The Job You Wanted (And You Didn’t)” Michael A. Levine describes the suite Hanz creates pre-spotting session stating:

“Oddly, this isn’t really about music – it’s about the essence of what the story and the characters are.” Michael A.Levine

Like Newman, Zimmer prefers to have the director involved in the early stages of composition, while writing his pre-spotting session suite Zimmer will be in constant contact with Directors, stating “You are trying to serve the directors vision” –Hanz Zimmer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYAZHJjLUwI. A Great example of this communication was Zimmer’s work on Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight”. Nolan says the key musical element of “The Dark Knight” was the sound of character ‘The Joker” Nolan and Zimmer regularly updated each other on their progress, for example Nolan would send Zimmer clips of the film or stills of Heath Ledgers portrayal of the Joker. From these regular updates Zimmer began to experiment and ended up sending thousands of potential themes to Nolan - based on the agreed theme of extreme tension – eventually these ideas were narrowed down and the most suitable theme was found.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt5_TB3mB2U. Once Zimmer has established initial ideas he begins to flesh them out, like Newman this stage of the process involves surrounding himself with a team of musicians. Zimmer describes his musicians as his actors.

"My players are my actors…I’m trying to get them to sort of spend some time with each other…we’re getting to know each other's strengths, figuring out what’s possible and what’s not possible." http://ccssarts.weebly.com/1/post/2013/06/lessons-on-the-creative-process-from-composer-hans-zimmer.html 

Once Zimmer and his team establish final ideas -fitting themes and ideas into a complete score that can be synced alongside the films visual - they are taken and recorded with a full orchestra. 

Zimmer’s creative process incorporates a lot of experimentation and the use of computers/synthesizers, which is well suited to the aim of this project. His communication with directors is also very relevant however as this study progressed it became clear that Zimmer’s process closely resembled that of classically trained Neman, using a team of musicians to flesh out ideas and recording a full orchestra. To establish a drastic difference between a classically trained composer and a composer originating from a pop background a musician newer to the world of film needs to be investigated. 

Case Study 3: Trent Reznor

Michael Trent Reznor is a singer-songwriter, composer and music producer most commonly associated with industrial rock project “Nine Inch Nails”.  Throughout his youth Reznor was associated with a number of bands but while working at Cleveland’s Right Track Studios as an assistant recording engineer/janitor (Huey, Steve. "Nine Inch Nails". Allmusic. Retrieved 2006-11-24) he found himself recording demos that would eventually lead to the creation and formation of “Nine Inch Nails.” (Fine, Jason (July–August 1994). "The Truth About Trent". Option.) “Nine Inch Nails” debut album was released in 1989 and in 2009 after 20 years of writing recording and touring the band announced they were going into a state of indefinite hiatus. (http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1605194/nine-inch-nails-go-on-hiatus.jhtml)  In 2010 David Fincher asked Reznor to score his film “The Social Network”, for his work Reznor won a Golden Globe and the Academy award for best original score. Since then he has scored Finchers “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” and is currently scoring contemporary thriller “Gone Girl”. 

Although Hanz Zimmer does originate from a “pop” background he has worked in film for a much greater period of time, Trent Reznor however has only worked in film for the most recent years of his career, for these reasons his process of creating film score differs noticeably from standard methods. 

In an exclusive interview for “Tunecore” magazine Reznor discusses the “Typical process” of creating film score 

“The typical process is that they will hold off until the film is near completion, then see the film and start working with, “OK, this scene needs something like this, and this scene needs something like that. Here’s how long the scenes are, and here’s how they fit together.” – Trent Reznor (

http://www.tunecore.com/blog/2012/01/trent-reznor-interview.html)

Instead of taking this route while composing his first film score for “The Social Network” Reznor spent several weeks composing various pieces of music not to picture. Later Reznor met with David Fincher and the cues were placed into the movie at whichever point felt right. As Reznors score for “The Social Network” was hugely successful he adopted the method of composing large amounts of music not to picture as his own personal take on film composition, he discusses this method while talking about his work on “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” 

“So when we got to [The Girl With the] Dragon Tattoo, we essentially did the same sort of thing, but with a zero on the end; everything was ten times more in-depth. We had a lot more time, we had a lot longer film” – Trent Reznor 

Reznor produced 90 minutes of music before shooting had finished, this replaced the need for temp tracks and music was added to the film from the early stages of editing. (http://www.tunecore.com/blog/2012/01/trent-reznor-interview.html) 

However in order to produce film score in this way Trent Reznor relied on a lot of initial direction from David Fincher, this involved meeting with Fincher to discuss the overall mood of the films and specific elements of the characters for example it was decided that “The Social Network’s” score should have an overall feeling of melancholy, Fincher even referenced existing scores in order to communicate his wants for the film. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aY2yb4IV4Z8) 

Even though Reznor is completely new to film scoring and has had no classical training in the matter several of his methods of composing intertwine with those of Thomas Newman and Hanz Zimmer. Just like Zimmer Reznor stresses the importance of limiting ones sonic world. When composing for “The Social Network” Reznor limited the equipment and instruments he was going to use, keeping in consideration the film they were composing for, he selected gear that would best serve the picture.  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7WTaSBd6Yc)  

In order to establish was instrumentation and equipment would best serve the picture Reznor closely examined the main character “Mark Zuckerberg” and decided what would best suit him, ultimately deciding something organic yet electronic would be most suited; this is similar to Hanz Zimmer’s work on “The Dark Knight” and his composition surrounding the Joker.  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuM4yBFI03E) Like Newman Reznor has stated that when writing film score he doesn’t want to take anything away from the picture, that music isn’t the main focus of a film, he describes his work in film score as collaboration between himself and the director’s vision.  (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZYb9GPW09c)

Unlike Newman and Zimmer, Reznor did not use a full orchestra to compose or record any of his scores; this makes his case study particularly relevant to the aim of this project. Reznors process of creation is similar to Zimmer and Newman’s “Pre-Lay” stage, creating vast amounts of music in a studio, but is undertaken in greater depth and produced to be placed straight into film. 

Arcade Fire "Her"

A friend (knowing that I love Spike Jonze) sent me a link to the following video today. I was instantly gripped by the music and surprised to see indie rock band Arcade Fire working on a film score. The video shows the band working in a manner I would expect to see if they were working on a small scale project. However they are working on Spike Jonze's award winning "Her". This method of recording intrigued me and seems fairly relevant to my project aim.

After watching the video I decided to watch the film and was griped by the music from beginning to end, the music is so simple but really adds to the picture, after watching the film I discovered this was Arcade Fires first attempt at writing film score. The trailer video below shows the use of the score alongside visuals from the film.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo: Trent Reznor

When I explained my project to a friend and talked about some of the composers previously mentioned in this blog he picked up on the mentioning of Trent Reznor and asked if had seen "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo".

I have just finished watching it and was thoroughly impressed with the use of music throughout the film. However the focus of this blog post is is not the music itself but the composer. After watching the film I quickly investigated Trent Reznor and was surprised to see that he has only scored for two major pictures: "The Social Network" and "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo".

Personal Note: Examine Trent Reznor's composition techniques as part of the case study?

1st Mentor Meeting

Today I met with Laurie for the first time since the very first pitch session; obviously my project has changed dramatically since then. Laurie liked my new project aim and suggested that I get the video footage off James straight away so that I can begin my practiced based research. Whilst talking about my my project methodologies i.e. the case study and practice based research Laurie said "The purpose of your methodologies is to identify useful information that you can turn into steps that will be incorporated into your guide"  I this found extremely beneficial, and so completely obvious that I couldn't believe up until now I haven't been looking at the project this way.

Research Proposal Feedback

Two days ago I received my grade and feedback for the research proposal submitted before christmas; I was relatively disappointed with the grade I received (14/20) however upon reading the feedback provided there is no doubt this is the grade I deserve for the work I submitted. I think I realised my research proposal wasn't focused appropriately while I was trying to create mock-up score for James Calderwood's video clip. For example my research proposal stated that I would carry out a case study focused on the technologies available to assist film composition; although an understanding of the tools and technologies available to assist composition is fairly important it wouldn't have helped my create score submitted in my Pre-Production Portfolio.

The following post will examine the feedback provided and identify the steps I will take to make the project more relevant:

• "The introduction is relatively brief, and could be benefited with examples/citations to help demonstrate the need for the project to be carried out and to illustrate the topic for the reader more clearly. As you jump to the aim and objectives fairly quickly, the topic itself is not very well established."

My current project introduction is only a page long and focus's quite heavily on the technology aspects of film score production which I no longer feel is the most important area to be researched. The introduction will be updated so that it provides a more detailed overview of the research aim; focusing on developments in the film scoring industry and where my project will fill gaps in information. 

"Try to structure the lit review by clear categories rather than as responses to questions, which is much more informal and less coherent. It would be good to see these laid out for easier reading and also to help you to establish your critical framework. As you indicate in the methodology, the aim is to develop a practical framework based on your research, but some form of critical framework is required prior to the case study in order to give you the language (and means) to analyse and deconstruct an example of soundtrack production in the case study. So the lit review should really serve to clearly establish criteria for analysis at all stages of research, probably under the following headings; Film and Film Score (this isn't really discussed at length, but some foundation of the aesthetics of film scores in relation to the film is really needed - i.e. a theory of film score aesthetics, how to align music to visual content, narrative, characters, plot etc. Without this, you can discuss how to align music with film and the tools, but the inexperienced user will have no concept of the artistic qualities of the work they are producing. Why do films have scores?) Film Score Composition (a section on process, drawing on your discussion of techniques, practices etc.) and Tools, Technologies and the Inexperienced Composer (where you discuss the free or cheap tools that can be used by inexperienced users, and the knowledge they will require before commencing an production - there must always be some basis in sound and music production, presumably?)"

I plan on redoing the literature review in a way that is becomes a critical framework which can be used to analyse the worth of film score. The sentence "there must always be some basis in sound and music production, presumably" Was a real eye opener for me, and has led to the decision that instead of attempting to create a framework which someone with absolutely no musical abilities can use to create film score the project will focus on creating a practical framework to be used by musicians with no previous experience in creating film score. 

"I'd expect a case study to be of an applied example, e.g. analysis of the process and outcome of scoring a film by a relatively inexperienced composer using readily available tools. In this case you'd need to identify examples of amateur or low budget films where there is sufficient information on the film score production for you to examine."

 

Rather than doing a case study on the tools and technologies available to assist in film score creation I plan on researching small/low budget films and emailing composers to discuss their methods of composing and base a case study on this. 

"What fllm footage will you use? The focus group needs some explanation, in terms of; who the participants are, what levels of experience they will have, whether one focus group is really valid for proper evaluation, how they will be given a chance to use the framework within the timeframe of the project and whether the method is valid if they are simply being asked to read and discuss the framework."

I plan on using more film footage provided by director James Calderwood to test my practice based research on; as for the focus group this really needs to be thought about, perhaps a focus group isn't the best method of analysing the value of my practical framework?

James's Feedback/Mock-Up

James seemed to like the feeling of the music on all four of the clips I sent back to him. This was great news however made narrowing down which temp track to work on a harder task. I feel this was maybe my fault as three out of the four tracks I used were written by Thomas Newman and therefore had similar characteristics. However between myself and James we chose to use "Temp Track 4" which was Newman's piece discussed in the earlier posts of this blog "Walkaway".

Focusing on "Temp Track 4" I created two "mock up" pieces of music using apples GarageBand. Ther term "mock-up" refers to the creation of music using synthesised instruments so that a director and/or producer can get some idea of how the music is going to sound.
 I found this process fairly difficult, composing music for a 10 second clip proved difficult and I still feel like my score was below standards as I am still relatively uninformed on the actual process of creating film score.

Below are the two mock up videos I created.

Temp Tracks 2

Temp Tracks 1

After submitting the Research Proposal back in December I took a short break from my project work over the holiday period however today I received a teaser clip from local director "James Calderwood" for his up and coming film "Waiting Room" although the clip is very short - approximately 10 seconds long - I plan on using it to test the process of applying "Temp-Tracks". I plan on finding, what I feel to be, suitable pieces of already existing film score and syncing them with the clip he sent me, I will then send them back to him for feedback and further direction.