I have been looking forward to writing the music for this film ever since we accepted Novums invitation to complete the sound for this film.
It wasn’t until the 14th that we were able to focus completely on the music, however we had previously written different works separately so we could compile them together and decide what we liked and disliked. It was really interesting as Ben and Lukes musical styles are more electronic and dance focused whereas mine is more acoustic and traditional instruments so to say they contrasted would be an understatement.
We put our ideas together and we liked some aspects from each others work and we worked on the songs or pieces / movements throughout the day and we arranged to meet with the media group in the evening to show them some of our work. At this point it was mainly an electronic feel but they really didn’t like it, and they gave us more cues on how to make it better. This is where we were struggling as after asking for a music cue sheet they couldn’t provide us one as they really didn’t know what they wanted and where they wanted it. It was a case of them knowing exactly what they didn’t want but not what they wanted!
However we were given a better idea of the feel from Alex Dearle and he said the song should have a lonely feel as opposed to upbeat. He played us a song by Waxahatchee called Peace and Quiet which summed up their idea for the scene.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HoDhmH66CoI
We explained what we thought was good about it but also suggested that it was quite simple and for us it may not be beneficial to but something so basic in so we came to a compromise and agreed to try a few similar things out.
This sent us on a better track and I worked on a song with a similar feel that evening, we met up again and showed them that evening and they liked it and thought the feel was spot on although it was admittedly a little rough. Luke had also come up with a song as well which they also liked. We as a group decided Lukes was better so we stuck with that.
The next day we worked on the rest of the music and wrote new scores for scenes based on the feedback from the directors. My favourite piece personally was one which I wrote where Becky explores Angela’s childs bedroom. The atmospheres in the build up to the scene imply that this scene is going to be incredibly tense with the pulse (created by a tone that is sidechained to a silent kick drum) and increase in volume but then the music cuts and you hear the Celesta / Music Box / Glockenspiel sound come in. This is used effectively as a motif and comes up every time Becky feels happy or liberated. I feel it works even better with the warm synth behind it and it provides Becky with a sense of freedom until this is cut short by her realising Angela is in the house. This song is titled ‘Explore’ and has several movements.
I wrote it on a midi keyboard and used plugins such as kontakt and massive to create the sounds.
Throughout the writing process we bounced ideas off one another and mixed the tracks together (apart from Lukes where Becky is walking) I also wrote the music in the outro scene from where Becky hugs Angela that includes strings from session strings. This song is titled “He’s gone”. This song went through three different processes before settling on the final version.
Here is the original:
The 2nd was too uplifting according to the directors so we settled with a similar melody over darker strings for the final piece.
We used E.Q., Reverb, Delay as well as plugins such as Guitar Rig and Virtual Instruments throughout. It is difficult to go into too much detail as every channel had various inserts effects going through it.
I thoroughly enjoyed the process of writing music for this film and found it both restrictive and liberating at the same time. I definitely feel i have met my 2nd learning outcome which was to further my abilities at writing music for film and to a specific brief.