Mr Osborn’s stuff and things

edublogs is a bit too unreliable, so i’ve transferred my posts, things and stuff to here.

For our third task, we were required to score a piece of music to a commercial of our choice and to then brand that product with a jingle at the end. After researching and scoring a few demos, I settled on an Air France advert by Michel Gondry.

I took into account Brian Eno’s Music For Airports liner notes about the way music can reassure a flight, but expanded on this with more obvious musical gestures.
My score is the most instrumentally diverse piece I have written so far with the inclusion of Cello, Harp, Marimba, Synths, Electric Guitar, Percussion and Electric Piano.

The hit points that are in the commercial are visually subtle, so my intention was to bring these out with spacious musical gestures. The gestures correspond to the planes movement from scene to scene, and I aided this movement with panning techniques.

Julio discussed with us harmonic rhythm and it’s importance to the scenes own progression, which is audible in the augmentation/diminution of the varying main chord progression: it corresponds loosely to the changing scenes (an example is the chord lift that is timed to the hair falling off the customer in the hairdressers, (third scene)).

For my jingle, I attempted to copy the timbres that are often heard in airports (announcements for example), but layer them in a strong quirky French way.
I am waiting on a small headphones amp so I can re-record the electric piano (I will collect it at 7am tomorrow from the post office); my advert will be available to see later on Monday.

Take care.

Listening to my Pingu score on the university sound system cleared up many things and helped me gain a clearer perspective on my mix. I received a welcome amount of feedback and criticism for my conceptual ‘toy’ orchestration.

Clarity is a large part of mixing music successfully, and when there are dense Reverbs with similar Eq’s on multiple tracks, the overall sound soon becomes cluttered. With this in mind, I reworked the score, but priority of the sounds for each section is clearer and more exposed so that each musical gesture now has the space needed to affect the listener.

In class we discussed and learnt about recording ‘wild’ and the implications of having a live musician record and include their own articulations to film. I believe a much more playful and warm score is produced with this inclusion of traditional instrumentalists over solely working with digital sounds.

For the third task regarding commercial music, Julio informed us of what a commissioned piece of work for an advert entails and how one forms their deliverables. This is a very difficult way to write for film because any ideas are confined and inevitably ripped apart time and time again before the employing company is happy.

Aside from this fact, I look forward to working on this task!

I researched many cartoon’s soundtracks before scoring this piece of music; from Looney Toons to the newer cartoon network animations, the constant thread between them all was that the sounds and harmonies were something that were intended for youngsters to immediately grasp and understand, so that they can be influenced by the visual drama even more.

I wanted from the start to include a large amount of vocal samples and noises that the human body can make, much like Bjork circa Medulla. 

This particular video encouraged my vision, and let me get to work without the concern that this particular way of scoring a film was incapable. With this in mind, I put myself in the mind-set of a toddler’s, who is just beginning to develop their ears to harmony.

I split my thirty-one second extract into different sections so as to focus on the precise sounds for each movement. I then recorded various harmonies, sounds and noises I made with my voice through my Sp-303 sampler, that I would later use as music and sound effects. Realising that this texture was a bit too sparse, I decided to score some Toy Piano which I think fit perfectly to the childish actions of Pingu. 

I took into consideration different harmonic techniques, such as the opening scene where Pingu is walking, anticipation is created by the chromatic fall and rise of the different layers, which converge in unison to create a climax simultaneous to the visuals.

In addition, I cued various Rallentando/Accelerando melodies to Pingu sliding down the hill to represent the quick change in movement.

I hope it is apparent in my score my attention to the harmonic detail that Julio discussed last lesson!

Regards,

Dave

I finished my Persona task yesterday after a careful reconsideration of my initial goals and objectives. Julio’s last lesson about automation and articulation made me more sensitive to the capabilities these dynamics can have and how they can play such a pivotal role in the of scoring a good empathetic sounding film.

After reading Chion’s idea about synchresis in Audiovision (in a book store) I became inspired to play with this theory, which is noticable at nineteen seconds in the background where with a fast-tremolo analogue synth I tried to mimic the way the old film flickers over the doll, in addition at twenty-six seconds there is a squeaky reversed guitar that I linked with the man on the bicycle.

Another example is at fourteen seconds where there is a Z shape projected through lights which I thought was reminiscent to a (very basic) constellation report, so I decided to record a glitched up bell melody because people associate a stars ‘twinkle’ this way onomatopoetically also.

I’m quite looking forward to hearing it on the uni’s soundsystem today, anyway, don’t forget to leave me some feedback!

Bonne nuit xwa

First things first: Sorry Julio for not attending the morning lecture, I didn’t check my timetable properly and consequently missed some (supposedly) very interesting stuff.

It has not been a good week so far really. I’ve been left alone for a week (from Sunday) in my house whilst my flatmates go on an art trip to Portugal, which is a bit lonely (and they left me to sort out the place when my landlord comes on Thursday!); an upside to this is I can be left in peace when trying to be creative!

Scoring ‘Persona’ using an outdated version of Logic at first felt restricting, yet as I pressed on with the score, these limitations turned out to be encouraging rather than confining.

I chose to use a section from the start of the extract, and am aiming for a mix between analogue glitchy ambience, with some post rock esque crescendos. I am attempting to use a more organic approach to reflect the film’s cut and splice feel, but still plan to abstract and manipulate many of the recorded sounds in post production.

My initial demos are promising, all I need to do now is press on with the work!

I hope everyone else’s scores are coming along well.

Good luck!
Dave x

Since I was a youngster i’ve been fascinated with moving image, even to the extent of attempting to re-shoot some of my favourite video games on the family camcorder, (I kind of gave up after the lack of commitment my neighbours had for my resident evil short )…

P.s Norman McLaren is inspiration!