Project 2:sound for film

Task 1- reaserch

part 1-music and effects

sound is important in film ,in fact it is one of the most important factors that dictates the quality of the film, because it it adds a "theme" to the character, location and time. For example films like "star wars - return of the Jedi" (released in 1983) use character motifs to add to the reoccurring light vs darkness theme. This is done by giving the villain (in this case Darth Vader) a dark, molevolent, minor theme, and giving the hero (in this case Luke Sky walker) a light-hearted, uplifting, major theme. This shows there respective aspects of light and darkness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDs2UGCP2Fk

Sound effects are the basis of any successful scene. Hyper-real sound is used to emphasise significant moments that would otherwise be too subtle for the average viewer to realise. Sometimes the smallest things will add a whole new level of depth to the film that leaves a message with those who actually think about the purpose of the film. But more than anything it adds an extra layer of realism to the film and allows you to emmerce yourself in the film.-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFFGaQhE2HA

The dialogue needs to be in sinc and it needs to be at the right level in comparison to the soundtrack and the sound effects. This is so that neither one drowns the other one out because that brings you out of the immersion that a well produced film theoretically puts you in. This is shown in the difference that happens in the overall scale of the film in the "boat scene" in "pirates of the Caribbean-curse of the black pearl" when the music is changed this shows how music can completely change the implications of an entire scene. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn9V0cN4NWs

Part 2-Film scene comparison

scene 1- rush hour 2, casino final fight.- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDv08TWDkDY

The scene begins with a confrontation between two of the main villains. Tension is built by a high pitched violin slowly rising in pitch. This quickly escalates into one of the characters killing the other and the music changes from background noise into an actual impactful sound as the violins that where being played in the background rise in both volume and tempo.the music then rises to a crescendo as one of the characters is killed. A dialogue between two characters begins and the music takes a back seat and is brought down to a low drone. then as the fight between these two begins ,fast drums start to play and then abruptly stop. as one character points a gun at the others head the music completely cuts out. This creates the effect of a "calm before the storm" and ,in doing so, raises the tension of the stand off. in this particular scene, hyper-real sound is used by making the heavy breathing of the characters unrealistically loud to compensate for the lack of music. This silence then continues until a shot is fired and after the sound of the gunshot the frantic drums come in again. This shows the characters struggle to stay alive as the wrestle for the gun. a trumpet is then used in a quick succession of three chords to add a "faster heartbeat" to the scene. The "villain"is then pushed out of the window and the music trails of (by slowly decreasing in tempo and volume) as the the character falls further and further towards the floor.

Part 2 - pirates of the Caribbean - ship swap scene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a27YX-ToMM4

At the start of the scene there is no music as the two main protagonists are hiding under a boat and as they start moving the soundtrack starts but only a low bass plays. as the boat that they where hiding in enters the water and is submerges the sound track is also muffled as if the sound was coming from underwater. This makes the scene seem more realistic. as they are underwater someone walks on the jetty above which creates a muffled walking sound which adds to the immersion of the viewer. As the scene changes to the large ship they are trying to "liberate" the soundtrack changes to and upbeat violin and as they board the ship the music slowly gets more and more ominous this is done by lowering the pitch of the violin and it creates the effect of an impending battle. As the dialogue begins the music completely cuts out and the only thing that can be heard is the faint sound of birds chirping in the distance. Once the main characters take the ship the soldiers start to board it and the ominous battle music plays again but this time it slowly rises in intensity. Jack then steals the ship that the enemy just left while boarding his and sails away in it the ship theme (this is a rendition of the main theme) plays. This makes the end result seem "epic" and "inspiring". The famous line "That's got to be the best pirate I've ever seen" is said and then the main theme plays this kind of thing is then used in the rest of the film whenever something of importance happens because it seems triumphant and uplifting.

3) practical skills

During the course of this term I have learnt a fair amount in sequencing lessons. I have learnt skills that can be used to add to my production work. This is, admittedly, not the area that I thrive in personally because I've just never really been that creative or good with computers. However I have learnt some useful techniques that can be used in production. One example is quantising a drum beat after either recording it or programming it in this prevents any human error from happening. This is very useful when trying to get an accurate drum beat very quickly it is particularly useful for me as a non-drummer because I am usually not in time when recording even a simple drum beat. Another technique I have been using for my film score project is adding markers on the top bar whenever there is a scene change ,this helps me add a change in music that is synchronized with the movie scene's changes. I named the markers after whatever is happening in them, and from this I can determine what motif to use

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvsaNBE3b90

A technique I tried when writing the actual "theme" was to play the main theme at the beginning and then after the theme had started to settle into a recurring pattern I then added same phrase played and octave down or above (depending on the scene) over the original phrase to add some layers to the soundtrack. this makes the track sound more harmonic and adds some refreshing difference into a usually repetitive theme ( In my case anyway). Another technique I used was the use of panning to create plane sound effects for the world war Z track, this is done by panning from left to right or vice versa when the scene changes accordingly. Personally, I feel this adds a sense of realism to the mix.

Task 3-evaluation

Part 1

Implementation of creative ideas and practical skills.

The first problem that I encountered while doing the project was getting the drum beat to sync up with the scene changes because I tried recording it all at once so I reverted to doing it in short section then using the quantise function to get it all in time and then I dragged the parts that where out of sync with the scene changes into a spot where it synced up with the movie clip. I also researched some basic scales on the piano so that I could use a technique called octave layering to add a certain amount layers to the background soundtrack this is symbolic of the films layers of meaning.(https://9to5mac.com/2015/06/07/logic-pros-how-to-track-stacks/)This is obviously just speculation but in the cases of some films or books it is defiantly true. One example would be George Orwell's animal farm because like octave layering it has multiple layers of meaning both implicate and explicate and a technique in music production is(at least in the case of movie soundtracks) is to replicate this with music that is layered. It is done by adding the same sequence on top of the original sequence but just played an octave higher or lower. This makes the overall sound much fuller .

The challenges that I faced while doing the project where not too numerous but the main problem I had was actually deciding on a key and a main theme for the soundtrack. I started by re watching the world war Z clip multiple times to get a theme in my head, this was so that I didn't write something super lighthearted to a film about the zombie apocolipse because it just wouldn't fit with the film. Then I got really stuck after I had decided what I wanted it to sound like because i just couldn't find a melody that sounded good so I decided to use a low drone and a high melody so that it would sound mildly interesting (I used the same low synth drone to make the plane sound effect) because I just kept writing stuff and then deleting it. Another challenge I had was getting the drums and changes in pitch to sync up with the scene changes. I overcame this problem by literally dragging the notes in to a spot where it synced up and putting in markers so that I knew exactly when the scene changed.

I feel moderately successful completing my practical work because I feel I could do a lot better if I attempted it again. This implies that I have improved and therefore it is a success in my opinion. I think that the actual work wasn't too bad but I could defiantly improve it by adding things like steps and the crunch of the car's tires on the gravel to make it more like an actual movie scene because I didn't put in enough sound effects. However I think it was successful because I used all the basic techniques to fill in the criteria. Examples of this are, using an excessively drum beat to punctuate when there is a change of scene , giving certain things, people or concepts a motif (for example when there is just a flag on the I changed the soundtrack to become more malevolent so that a theme of impending danger was created) and lastly I used guitar chords with a melody to make the theme so that it sounded like a real movie motif.

part 2

I used a multitude of sequencing techniques while creating my project one of these was imputing midi data from a keyboard to the logic program I did this for all of the project because I could add in the drum beat, melody, bass and sound effects all on the same keyboard. This was way faster than recording on the actual instruments. I then used quantising to get all of the drum beat in time. Also filled in the gaps by stretching out the note that would have cut off short. This only works when it's a synth drone because with normal notes it distorts and changes the sound but a drone just gets extended. Going back to quantising, I used it to adjust my drum part to a 16th so that it fit with the rest of the track as well as the visual cues.

The tools I used to help me with my project were, the select tool, the marker tool to mark parts of the clip so that I could add the dynamics in at the right time and the on screen keyboard so that I could drag and drop things into place. This is helpful because it gives you the ability to adjust any stray notes that the quantise function cannot get.

part 3: final evaluation

From this project I learned a lot about logic and production, more specificly I learnt a lot about using functions in logic and I also learnt a lot about how films are dictated by there soundtrack or lack of one. I personally think that my task one was most successful as I completed all of the criteria to a fairly high standard and I used links and evidence from film scores to support my points. I feel least successful on the logic project because I didn't spent particularly much time on it and I am not the best when it comes to production. However I did make a fair amount of progress with my production project over the course of this term. In the future I would spend more time on my logic project and I would rewrite this evaluation more articulately.

Task 4

Project 3 prep

1)For the collaborative music project I plan to write and record a number of songs with my band for the collaborative music project . Or we would create a set of covers , not sure yet. For the idea we will need skills in songwriting and we will also need a certain level of technical skill on our instruments to record these songs or perform these covers. I have previously performed at the Christmas show and I have previous experience in songwriting because of the sound for film project and the composition that I did in GCSE music.

2) For the collaborative music project I will practice my writing skills by learning more about music theory and I will practice my technical skill so that I can play the songs I have written to a good standard. I will do this by practicing scales like the natural minor, the harmonic major and the minor pentatonic. I will also practice techniques like tapping and tapped harmonics.