In this week we were introduced to the second task which is the recording of a voice over on an advert. We went through looking at various ways of recording two people in the same room and achieving the best result with the equipment we were given. We were also introduced to the set up of the studio and how to use it.
The main thing which must be taken in consideration for this task is to try and get the healthiest possible result in the recording and without any peaking.
On week three even though i could not attend due to being ill, i was informed that the class had the opportunity on taking a look at Pro Tools and fiddling around with it in a way to get a small glimpse of its interface.
This two weeks we were asked to edit and re-mix a piece by The Chemical Brothers called “In dust we trust” which i consider to be one of the best they have created. We went through learning on how to use beat-mapping along with crossovers and automations.
A further analysis of film scoring was the main subject of week ten by watching segments of the film “THX1138″ and discussing it thoroughly.
On tuesday we were also introduced to our sixth task which was a composition for a painting. Straight away, from the choices we were given i picked Kandinsky as the artist of which i wanted to compose a piece for. As i was looking through his paintings i stopped at his piece called Several Circles (Einige Kreise) 1926. My first visualization of the painting gave me the idea of representing the circles with percussion, where the brighter color would meant higher frequency and darker colors would be represented with lower frequencies. The aura around some of the circles would be represented as reverb and the background as a low frequency sound which i am thinking of using the result of time stretching and reverb use on one of the sounds already used on the rest of the project.
After being to the movies to watch the new James Bond film i really got inspired by the opening scene. 25 seconds right after the first scene is shown the movie goes straight into a car chase with Bond trying to escape from his enemies. This must be the first time i have seen a movie that has an opening like that and i got really intrigued on trying to score the first minute of that film.
In the ending of my piece i used the theme melody of James Bonds previous episodes on purpose. Casino Royale along with Quantum of Solace were filmed in such a way that they director and producers tried to emphasize on representing the character of James Bond as it is in the books amongst with other things. Also to add, this two episodes are considered to be the beginning of the series, hence they try to capture the development of the character through them. This also resolved into not using the theme melody in the soundtrack, and as a big fan of James Bond in general i could not resist from not using it as a small twist.
In this week we were introduced to the fourth task which is the scoring of a scene from a film. I still have not decided which film will be my choice as i have a few in mind. My idea is to score an action film. The reason to that is to try and avoid any dialogue but also to try and use as much as i can a combination of a full orchestra along with sound effects and more synthetic sounds.
As i referred on a previous post i have worked i had the opportunity on working on the sound design, foley included, of a series filmed back in Cyprus that was headed to Russia. While working on that project i also had the opportunity of getting an idea of how film can be scored. This is a really great opportunity, having the chance to work on the soundtrack of a film.
This was the week i have been longing for since the beginning of the module along with the week that we will go through scoring a film. The field of scoring an advertisement has always been one that really got my attention. The reason why i am really fascinated by advertisements and scoring them is because in such a short period of time you have to give out your best in a try to get the viewers attention. In just a few seconds the composer needs to create a piece that will represent the product at its best and at the same time make the consumer want to yearn it. Furthermore the fact that in the advertising field time is money and usually the time provided to the composer to write the piece is really limited, gives it more of a challenge.
In this workshop we learned all the terms used in the field of advertising for the deliverables and also the most important factor of scoring an advert which is branding. Branding an advert is like giving it an identity, a small musical phrase by which the audience will be instantly able to recognize it.
This week we were introduced to our second task which is the scoring of an animated motion picture. Through a long discussion on Carl Stallings work we were given a great amount of information on the main idea of scoring a cartoon.
Since early age, i was really intrigued by the vast amount of sounds a cartoon could have and the way they could be manipulated to create such “beautiful” results for the viewers ears. As through animation and only it was not always easy to express feelings, it was completely up to the arrangement of the music to pass to the viewer what the animator was trying to say.
After a quite big research on early cartoons i decided to work on a Coyote and the Roadrunner cartoon. When watching the Roadrunner we already know what to expect when it comes to music so i was motivated on scoring it in such a way that even though it would be different, the viewer would not be repelled. The idea was to replace the orchestral instruments to more ethnic sounds and melodies but with the same use of dynamics.
