Composing for film

5 point guide of how to compose music for a film

• Watch the film without sound because this will allow to notice more detail and other things and if it's very still or very fast. As well your brain won't be distracted by the sound when watching so it helps you be able to focus on the images.
• Select the instruments, you need to do this because instruments are often chosen depending on the atmosphere and you could end up be using instruments you've never used before.
• Make sure you understand the 'beat', you need to do this so you can stick to the rhythm of the editing as it may be fast or slow and it varies throughout the video so you need to be able to adapt it.
• Stick to the feeling of the film, when making music for a film, its all about emotion. You need to be able to understand this in the film so you can give off the right feeling to the audience. 
• Experiment with music, it's important to do this so that you can get a feel for less obvious music choices. This allows you to have a wider variety of choices to work with.

Describe how Hans Zimmer and Christopher Nolan worked together to create the music for Dark Knight?

Hans and Christopher spoke about it very early on, Christopher would send Hans stills and shots of clowns to help inspire each other with ideas. 

What was the process that Hans Zimmer used to come up with the music?

He was after stuff that built a lot of tension. He tried to make it as minimal as possible but still say exactly what he wanted. So you could hear something really small but you'd identify easily it's the joker lurking somewhere. He also recorded lots of extraordinary sounds to potentially use. 

What was Hans Zimmer's intention when making this soundtrack? 

His intentions were too not make a summer blockbuster, he wanted something truly provocative and people could really hate because it was uncomfortable to listen too.

What qualities did Hans Zimmer want the music to have?

He wanted it to be very minimal yet effective, as well as be able to build extraordinary amounts of tension. Also having the feeling of a punk influence absorbing in the character.

How do you feel about the final score and explain why you feel it works/doesn't work?

I feel that it works well overall because it's very minimal but still works as it does build tension in the sense of a mysterious way and helping you sense danger as well.

Research into Recording Foley Sound and Sound Effects

Foley is the process of putting everyday sound effects to film, TV, adverts and video games which are added in post-production to enhance the quality. They put in the physical sounds such as kisses, skin touches, handling of guns etc. Movies often feel unnaturally quiet and uncomfortable without these sounds.
Quite often the actors will have a microphone under their collar on the costume and when filming, their priority is to record the dialogue. For example, a plane may fly over head in a period drama, which then makes the sound useless meaning you'll have to re voice everything from the actors as well as create a soundscape for the voice to sit on. So it makes it easier to put a recording of a plane over the top of the pre recorded dialogue.

The order in which foley artists create sound is they start off by doing the footsteps of the main character and the lead actors and then the background footsteps and then they go through the 'prop pass' which is where they provide a sound for anything moving on screen

The key skills and qualities foley artists need are creativity, good imagination and good timing as well as the ability to think outside the box because these types of artists have the ability to come up with unusual ideas to create the specific noise. Another skill they could do with is being computer wise because they need to be able to use a variety of different types of equipment.

The advantages of using real objects when creating sound FX rather than using digital production or sound libraries is that real objects show a bit more realism and bring it to life more. This is because they have more depth meaning you can hear every fine detail better because of the microphone quality.

In the star wars clip, he began to hit a guy wire from a radio tower, and it bumped and made a 'twanging' sound, this is where the laser gun became about.

Research into Recording Ambient sounds and Dialogue

1) Recording Ambient Sounds
Ambient sounds is the sounds of a given location or space in the environment. The sounds can include things such as wildlife, wind, rain, distant traffic etc.
For example, in the film 'Hunger Games: Catching Fire' when they had a forest scene they'd take a microphone to a location (jungle, ocean) which would give them good quality sounds and would record them themselves, he used libraries as well but his helped supplement and this meant they didn't have to completely rely on sound libraries. This helped them give a better atmosphere and show claustrophobia. It also allowed them to build up the 'world of the sound' very early on in the process so they didn't have to wait till the end and start over as such. Recording the ambient sounds also allows for tiny details to be heard. In the arena scenes it helped allow them to intensify things and they wanted to make it really dense, really busy and add a claustrophobia to you could get a feel of being with the characters. It helped it become unique to its location.  The benefit of using microphones on location instead of library is that it allows you to not have to do what is called 'looping' which is where characters rerecord their dialogue which is then looped on top of the footage. While recording sounds of location, they would use 2 sets of different microphones and separate them about 70 feet apart, this allowed to get sounds with different qualities as they both picked up different sounds. It also gave them a wider range of sounds to use. Hard cuts aren't often advised for sound mixing, for example in Hunger Games if a shot is done in the arena and then after that, is shot in the capital an ambient sound, such as wildlife, is slowly added which helps interact the audience instead of using a hard cut. The software used for Hunger Games: Catching fire is Dolby.

2) Recording Dialogue 

Recording dialogue is much more difficult to be done rather than ambient sounds. This is because of reasons such as ambient noises interfering with the recording, which can effect the quality of the dialogue. As well, sometimes if the camera is a fair distance from the characters speaking, and you had no form of microphone, then often the problem can be that the voices are found very quiet on the footage. This can be over come by potentially using microphones or looping which is where actors re-record their lines in sync while watching their original performances in looped playback, this helps match the wording and lip movement. Ambient noise is important when filming a conversation scene because it helps create an atmosphere, avoids silence in the background and possibly echoing. It can also help the audience understand the situation, depending on what is happening, for example if a tense sound was used, this would allow the audience to know something was going to potentially happen. When they were filming the Hunger Games: Catching Fire, for the jungle locations, when filming they always had a constant presence of canopy leaf movement as useful as this is for the ambient noise, it could have effected recording dialogue.

Use of Music - Legal considerations

1) Right of Use

• What is the difference between publishing rights and recording rights?

Publishing licence is from the people who own the copyright to the piece of music and Recording license is from the people who performed the version of music you want to use.

• How would you go about clearing a piece of music for use in your film?

If it has been published then you have to contact the publisher to investigate who owns the rights to the music. The singer/songwriters aren't always in control of the music as it is often owned by big publishing/recording companies.

• Can you use music in your sequence if the composer has died?

Only if the composer has been dead for over 70 years because the copyright will have expired which means there is no need to seek clearance for the composition however you will need to obtain clearance from the right holder in the recording.

• What is incidental music?

Incidental music is the background music in a film. But if the background music is clear and intentionally used in a scene in a film it will not be incidental.

2) Creative commons

• What is creative commons?

Creative commons is a non-profit organization  which is devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. They have released several copy right licenses known as 'Creative commons licenses' which are free to the public. The licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve and which ones they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators.

• Why does it exist?

So that you can use the work without having to seek out the individual creator or licensor and ask for permission.

• Explain the 6 different types of license (include the logos if possible)

Attribution - This allows others to distribute, remix and tweak your work, even commercially but they must credit you for the original creation.



Attribution- ShareAlike - This license is often compared to 'copyleft' free. It allows others to remix and tweak your work even for commercial purposes but they must credit you and license their new creation under the identical terms.


Attribution- NoDerivs - This allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial but it must be passed along unchanged and in whole with credit to you.


Attribution- NonCommercial - This lets you remix and tweak your work but non-commercially and thought their new works must be also acknowledge you and be non-commercial they don't have to license their derivative works on the same terms.


Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike - This lets others remix and tweak your work non commercially but they must credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.


Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs - This license is the most restrictive of all 6 as it only allows others to download your work and share them with others as longs they credit you and they can't change them in any way or even use them commercially.

3) Your choice of music

https://soundcloud.com/stream (Sad Piano Instrumental and Happy Piano Instrumental)


Sad Piano Instrumental
a)  The reason i chose this music was because the character was going through a dark time because he was at a school where he was getting bullied. It was very deep to fit with the situation.


Happy Piano Instrumental
a) I chose this music because the film was being to lighten up as the character had joined a new school where he fitted in, and had to be upbeat.


Sad Piano Instrumental
b) 

Happy Piano Instrumental
b)  

http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/filmmaking/guide/before-you-start/music-rights

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons

Screenshot and explanation of after effects

Heating Pot Noodle Effect

To start off with I clicked 'Layer' then went on solid and chose a orange/red colour. I then masked around Maia's hand and that then went orange. I masked the outline to follow her hand when underneath the pot noodle, to then make it more realistic I reduced the opacity quite low and as her hand got closer to the pot noodle i gradually increased it more. I then feathered it to make it look less jaggered.

After I had masked the hand orange i then had to make a smoke effect coming out the pot noodle to show it was heating. I did this by downloading a smoke effect and placing it when i wanted. I then had to position it with key frames to follow the pot noodle. I also changed the opacity gradually so it gradually came in realistically.


Teleportation Effect

To start off with I uploaded my originally footage I wanted to use, then as well a image of the background with no character in it, this was so i could place it after the character had jumped to show he'd disappeared. I then downloaded some free smoke footage off a website which was linked of a youtube video. I uploaded them into my after effects and dragged it into my timeline i was working in. I right clicked on the footage and clicked 'time' then 'time stretch' and changed the stretch factor to 45%.

I then shifted the channels by clicking 'effect', 'channel' then 'shift channels' and i then changed alpha to lightness. Then i removed colour matting  and then brought on a tint which i changed to a cold blue so that my effect was a more realistic colour. I then changed the transfer mode to screen and added an 'expression' to the rotation. I duplicated the smoke footage loads of times and then moved them around to cover the image how i wanted.

Invisibility Effect

To create this effect I uploaded my footage and dragged it into the timeline, i cropped it down to where the actor walks in which was then being used as a clean plate. I brought the file in again and moved the clean plate over underneath the second footage. I then split the layer of that footage.

I began to use to pen tool and penned around the character who i wanted to be invisible.

This gave me a mask which i key framed to follow the characters movement to ensure it stayed invisible, i repeatedly fast forwarded frames and kept changing the key frames to fit round the actor.

As the actor got closer to the characters i reduced the invisibility effect to gradually get rid of it.

Sound Sourcing Sheet

Sound Timeline