Updated 25th March.
Report:
My objective was to compose a soundtrack to accompany a scene from the film North By Northwest.
I wanted to highlight where the character running away from the plane and the section leading up to (and including) the sand being dropped from the plane as I feel these are important parts of the scene and have the most amount of action.
The Theme from Jaws (Spielberg, 1975) by John Williams was a major influence to my piece as I liked the way he uses crescendo to build anticipation and fear to action such as in the ending scene of Jaws on the lead up to Jaws being blown up. I also admire the simplicity particularly the most famous section, which is just an alternating pattern of two notes of the composition but effectiveness it has.
I selected different groups of sample is the EXS plugin to make the orchestral instruments sound more realistic. I also used a plugin called PSP Vintage Warmer of the main mix to attempt to create a sense of warmth and richness of analog recording.
To carry out this task I listened to many themes that contain brass at the forefront such as Star Wars (Lucas, 1977) and Superman (Donner, 1978). The findings of the techniques and sounds the instruments were making are evident in my piece, I doubled these with my findings of my last composition to build fear and tension. I would award myself a mark of around 65-70% for this task because I feel my piece is evidence of my research, it synchronizes and highlights action in the scene effectively.
Word count : 259
References
- North By Northwest (1959) [Film] dir. Hitchcock, A. USA: MGM.
- Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) [DVD] dir. Lucas,G. USA: LucasFilm.
- Jaws (1975) [Film] dir. Spielberg,S. USA: Universal Studios
- Superman (1978) [Film] dir. Donner,R. USA: Warner Home
- Karlin, F. (2004) On The Track: A Guide To Contemporary Film Scoring. London: Routledge.
- Davis, R. (1999) The Complete Guide To Film Scoring, Boston: Berklee Press.
Web
- Youtube (2009). Jaws – Ending Scene. Available at:<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gw-qjuR8Kg >. [accessed 25/2/2011].
- Youtube (2009). Jaws Theme. Available at:<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73SYMPjG4uc >. [accessed 25/2/2011].
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Here (below) is a clip from the ending of Jaws from around 0’12″ the brass plays a rising melody responding to the visual of the character climbing. At 0’35″ the end of the rather mellow string section ends with a forceful stab from the brass section followed by ostinati that is played of both the strings and brass while the character is attacking Jaws. My favourite bit is the section between 1’10″ and 1’32″ where the whole piece is building in loudness and pitch to increase suspense before the explosive end of Jaws.
The next selection of videos form some of the themes I listened to before creating my piece, I have found, and all of these themes support my findings, that composers use brass alot for heroic pieces and for themes associated to characters that are powerful or brave. In many cases Jack Smalleys theory of the square - big intervals that create a heroic feeling (any leap more than a second) is present for example the Stars Wars theme starts on G then jumps to D.
Hi Matt ! some fine moments here ! I like the ‘waiting music’ while he is in the corn and thinks he may have escaped ! what I feel is that it doesn’t resole out of there, perhaps you should have scored a segment which included the exit from the corn? any way, when he falls to the ground at the start is important and you didn’t hit that… try again. Some good features but overall not working dramatically. Nice string ostinati BTW.