OceanMaker (10 min action film) Marvin Hamlisch Contest

I thought you did a pretty good job, Gharun! I did notice a few things that I saw through the whole thing, so I think they're important enough to mention:

1. I kind of felt like you played a few things 'on the nose' by intentionally delaying where they sat, to try to make them not 'on the nose.' The reveal of where the main character was shot was the biggest one for me; I think the flyover by the bad guys was another. There's a timpani hit there on the flyover that's delayed until you figure out what's going on in the flyover - but because that's the only timpani note played, it stands out. So it's like it becomes on the nose even though you set it up to not be on the nose, right?

The reveal I didn't quite buy - although I did buy what came before, with the drop to zero at her getting hit. The problem is when you drop to nothing, then whatever you do gets noticed. So that ethnic flute almost felt caricaturish there - like 'Hey guys, you know its coming, wait, wait...' but then all the spotlights are on the thing you kind of were expecting the whole time. It wasn't offensive or anything like that, but I would have probably recommended tweaking it - if you really wanted that flute, then something else to place that flute, to soften the lighting a bit...I probably would have gone with.

2. I didn't quite buy some of the themes. The lighthouse one, for example - I think (?) that you brought it back when she was shot, but it's more the instrument color than the theme that I heard. There's also some similarities that I didn't know if they were intended or not: the plane-ing triads of the desert really reminded me of the aerial battle plane-ing triads - enough that I thought "what's the connection? I don't get it."

3. I didn't quite buy a lot of the transitions; especially in the first section, the ideas are kind of just out there, right? There's not really a thread connecting the ideas for me; and it doesn't feel frantic enough yet that things need to be so fragmented. It's like you were painting the tableau there at the beginning with really crisp brush strokes; I could have used a bit more of the blending squib there, to soften the brush strokes, and smooth the palette. Probably just my own taste.

I wouldn't want to guess what the judges' feedback would be - that's anyone's guess. But I dug it, and I watched it until the end, so you did job number one, right??!?

 

I basically agree with Brian.
The music is quite nice, nicely arranged, also.

Problem to me is the pacing and hitting cues.
The piece is "ON" too much. Too few Breaks for contrast. Sacrifice a little on one shot to bring out the next.
It doesn't "flow" with what's happening on screen.

Examples:
The introductory scenes are good. Kind of bleak and dry.
But then as the plane appears things get moving just a bit quickly. Like, wait for the tight shot to kick it in. As it is, nothing happens on that transition (theme already up full). Also no change as we move to an "inside the plane" shot showing the "Rainmaker" plans.
Then you telegraph the reveal of the cute girl piloting the plane by several seconds. We don't know why we're hearing the beautiful melody yet, and that weakens the moment we do.
Perhaps a matter of taste, but when the girl sees the cloud (Yay!), the music sounds too threatening. It should be hopeful, I would think, and then turn dark as the "Cloud Harvesting" planes attack. Contrast.
Etc.

In any case, I REALLY do like the music. Impressive.
Perhaps some editing could improve things. You certainly have a lot of elements for 10 minutes.

Hugh

 

Hey, Gharun!

Part of it is listening for (and learning to listen for) the pacing that happens in music to picture that you already watch. Just watch anything with any kind of drama, and make a note of where the music sits relative to things happen. Sometimes they come in before, sometimes they're pretty well linked to or around the event, and sometimes they need a beat (or several) to develop. Sometimes it isn't actually linked to the action at all.

That might sound impossible to compute then - but it mostly has to do with the perspective that you're trying to tell in the music. Usually there are at minimum 3 'stories' that you can tell: each of the two characters, as well as the 'general situation.' There are also all kinds of thematic material (as in - narrative themes, not musical!) that can be played, too.

If you think of a pretty simple dramatic situation, like a woman telling some man that she's pregnant, think of how the music would tell each story. If it's her story, the music would probably start from the beginning, because she already knows what's going on, and is bringing the drama to the scene. Maybe you'll have a bit of release when she drops the news, or music that plays her unease in what lies ahead. If it's his story, then the music probably wouldn't come in for some time. Probably not even when he's told about it - until enough time has passed that he's processed it, and then it reveals how he perceives his life to change. Finally, you could play the 'scene itself.' Maybe they meet at a cozy café in the winter, so you get generic wintry coziness music, that builds to a bit of drama at the scene, with some sentimental music right after it. It tells you zilch about what has changed in anyone - but it gives the scene a little color.

That pregnancy scene probably is in a film that has other themes going on. Maybe it's a film about mental illness. You could then play any of those situations, but focusing on mental illness - maybe she's worried that she'll pass on her health problems to the child? Maybe he is? Maybe she sees the child as a kind of redemption. All of these will need different music, and at different times.

Maybe we know something about the child - maybe the child IS redemption. Maybe we know something about the child that the characters don't - we've seen foreshadowing earlier about the good that this child will do. Now - we could play the scene not from the perspective of the characters or scene, but playing 'redemption' itself - now because the stage is different for the 'drama,' everything changes in where and what the music is!

So there would be my challenge for you: watch your film, and tell me what story the music is telling for each scene. Where is it telling the main character's story? What about the child in the lighthouse? What about the scene itself? What about the themes of re-awakening, of love, of sacrifice, anything else? Then think about it a bit - does the perspective shift unnecessarily? Does it tell the story you didn't mean to tell? Are there better stories to tell within the story?

Finally, when we get back to her final sacrifice in the plane, we can ask: what story does the music tell there? We've already seen that she's dying, so what story is that flute telling? Could it tell THAT story better? Try scoring it with other stories too. Just that one moment - try to stage it from multiple perspectives, and you'll get a feel for how what you set on the scene picks a story to tell, and how to best tell it.

-B

 

The writing is good but the scoring isn't as good. I think there is too much small-scale structure in your scoring. I struggle with this too, hugely. The main character rubs her eyes - tired music and a pause. She spots the lighthouse pointing at the cloud - a suspense pad into a hit. She sends the plane after the cloud - into adventure music. etc. It's holding the audience's hand too much... You have to synthesize and create the larger structure.

Writing things down like you're explaining the scene to someone else, can really help. Another thing that can help is playing back the scene at 2x or even 4x speed with the sound off! At least for non-dialogue scenes. It helps you see the large scale structure instead of focusing on the assembly of 3 and 4 second shots. What moments really matter? What is the editing building up to or coming down from?

Here is a really, really good example of what I mean by synthesis:

There are TWO scenes here. Blackwood scares Holmes. Then Watson witnesses Blackwood's hanging. Zimmer scores them with one theme that gets the tone right for both scenes, he uses amazingly little musical material, and he does not hit the hanging itself, he is more concerned with shaping the dialogue. The music effortlessly joins the scenes, smooths the editing and makes the audience pay attention to what matters: Blackwood is gonna die, but somehow it's part of Blackwood's plan,

The other flaw I see in the score overall is that your music "wants the spotlight" by significantly too much. Again, something I struggle with all the time that's why I recognize it. I think you mis-scored the ending of the movie. The music at 8:10 feels like "Finally we got to the big epic scene, so let's really show the audience the glories of the orchestra." There's no reason for this massive climax though. It parts ways with the actual emotion in the scene. The emotion in the scene is resignation and acceptance, sacrifice, and then some element of silence and suspense that needs to last until we either see the massive cloud moving across the land, or the rain itself. I would be wary of hitting anything at all here because if the movie "works" then this is absolutely the most "immersive" moment in the film. The audience is going "What is gonna happen now?" and their attention is completely absorbed. I think the emotional meaning of the end of the movie overall is that the pilot has provided an example of action for others to follow. That's why there's the closeup of her blueprints floating in the wind and someone else picking them up. So my musical instinct would be to go from the silence and suspense moment into a very, very, VERY, gradual pickup of action that revolves around a theme repeating and growing, and turns into something explicitly active and successful when the lighthouse inhabitant gets the blueprint. "Her sacrifice was not in vain" etc. Contrast that with how you scored it: you made a big deal out of the storm, but then you paused the music when the inhabitant sees the blueprint and then just a small refrain of the theme for the end of the movie before the titles. It kinda undercuts the emotional idea.

I think either Mike or someone else said something really wise about scoring action, which is that if the music is "saying the same thing" as the action then the music has no point. So there's no reason for the music to be big just because the storm is big, or for the music to pause just because the lighthouse inhabitant saw something.

Always be looking for the point of subversion or the point where you can enter into the movie and say something the picture doesn't say by itself.

Here's one of the goopiest love scores of all time:

But what is the music really saying? It's not saying "Oh they're attracted, they're going to kiss." It's saying he's confused, torn between reality and fantasy and eventually deciding he doesn't care. So instead of being a "romance score" it's really a psychological score.

 

Great question. IMO I would devote the first trip to re-viewing some films that you've seen before, so you can focus on exactly what the composer is doing to pace the scenes and make things work in terms of the large scale structures. And on the trip back I would listen to the soundtracks by themselves, so that you can then focus on musical structures, while being able to recall what music goes with which scenes. These could be Zimmer films or any other composer you want to draw lessons from.

If you have time to read, "On The Track" by F Karlin is a really good book about all kind of behinds-the-scenes aspects of scoring and working with directors. It's pretty old though, it's from the 90s.

 

Gharun, I gotta tell you, this was pretty darn impressive. You definitely were watching the film, and mapping the beats. I think this was a really solid offering, and more important than getting a finalist, you showed in this piece that you are understanding drama. Well Done!

The area that I think you can work on is vertical orchestration, meaning, sometimes when you're scoring, the orchestration feels to "light", like there are not enough high instruments, not enough low, etc. For example, at about 5:36, you have that cool little half step ostinato in the strings when she's resolutely trying to gun down the ship. But, there are no low frequencies, either in the SFX, or in the music. This could be a great chance for some of those big Goldsmith'y stabs, with Timpani, brass, low strings, and piano (and anvil), just to hit all the frequencies. Just a hit here and there... BAM! (da-de-da, da-de-da, da-de-da, da-de-da) BAM! Etc. Just try and let the SFX and dialogue (in here there are none), help guide your vertical orchestration (meaning octaves and registers)... and don't be afraid to get big with some stabs and hits.

Again, Gharun, I think this is a really impressive composition, and you demonstrated a lot of sensitivity to the dramatic beats of the story. And the music is well written. Well done!

Best,
Mike

 

Man, that's the trick, right? And, I'm not saying I'm any good at that, but I try to come up with a strategy. So, for me, I try to think about who's point of view the moment in the film is (the protagonist, a bystander, the audience), and play the dramatic beats from that point of view. So, if it's a moment where the character doesn't know the killer is in the room, but the audience does, I have to make a decision, do I score it from the audience point of view, or the character? That decision is based on craft and taste. And you get both through experience.

Here's a cue I did for a low budget film I'm working on. God, I hate my mix, please don't judge. ANYWAYS, it's when the main character sees the first murder victim. There are arguing cops in the background, etc, but for me, the scene was about the dude's slow comprehension that the killer was back... so I played it from his point of view, and got out of the way of the SFX, etc. I'm not saying I did it right, or well, but at least this was my thought process.

https://app.box.com/s/x2sp0babqwseqsyy3vq5i6zekacxcvpa

Oh, and don't share this, the film's not out yet. I hope this helps!

Mike

 

Grab a handful of non-serial (as in - each episode is its own thing, not a GOT, Walking Dead, etc. kind of show) TV shows and just make a music list. Think of a show like 'Monk.' So you get all the dramatic arc of a story in 22 minutes, it's got music underscoring the drama instead of just marking transitions and source music (though it does that too, of course) - so you can chart out in an approachable amount all the music in a dramatic piece.

I mean literally take out a notebook - pausing liberally as you need to to make notes - and list out every time music is playing. List beginning and ending times, what's going on on screen, if anything changes during the music. Also take notes on three things: when the music comes IN (not literally a time code - more what 'triggered' the music to start, how it came in, why it came in), what the music does while its playing, and when the music STOPS. Is there something on screen or in the action that makes each thing happen? How many beats before or after the two characters have given each other a knowing look? It doesn't have to be precise, but try to figure out what exactly happened dramatically or visually that made Jeff Beal say 'OK - time to get out here.'

I'd say try it with scored TV shows before Films. Easier to connect the dots in 22 minutes of action than 120.

 

Such a wealth of knowledge in this thread! Awesome.