composing for film

[thembuzz]

i'm doing some music for a short film. does anyone have any tips?

[Jeniffer Mills]

look at the film first...

[ckpqerjwrpwp]

Things other people have said many times much better than me:

Don't use the music to dictate to the viewer how to feel... allow them to have an emotional response to the story and reinforce or underline that rather than forcing it.

Don't over use synchronisation between the music and the picture edit or events. i.e having a music event synchronised exactly on a picture cut or on something like a punch hitting someone.. When you do use it make it count and to forward the narrative (whether its a standard story or abstract).

[Jeniffer Mills]

What kind of "short film " is it anyway buzz? Porn?

[thembuzz]

snuff

thanks, steev

[Jeniffer Mills]

your welcome buzz...

[thembuzz]

are you steev? are you steev? no, i don't think you are

listen to this CD. amazing

http://www.spoonrecords.com/disco/irminanth.html

[Jeniffer Mills]

Originally Posted by thembuzz

are you steev? are you steev? no, i don't think you are

stop shouting at me you cunt..

[thembuzz]

jesus...

[Jeniffer Mills]

[love_tempo]

Originally Posted by thembuzz

i'm doing some music for a short film. does anyone have any tips?

make the soundtrack one big filter sweep opening, then closing! imagine that. no one will be able to hear the dialogue in the middle bit, which is probably for the best. makes it more mysterious you see?

[love_tempo]

I like the way with david lynch films the line between the music and the sound design is blurred. Sometimes he'll use ambient noises like insects or hissing or even white noise to create a mood rather than music. It's less distracting and you often aren't really consiously aware of why the tension is ratcheting up as it's due to the noise level increasing.

[Jeniffer Mills]

I like films WITHOUT music....

[love_tempo]

Originally Posted by Jeniffer Mills

I like films WITHOUT music....

I like films WITHOUT ... SOUND. I can play my pipe organ over the top of them.
[cue instant inappropriate comment from Loz here]

[Loz]

Originally Posted by love_tempo

I like the way with david lynch films the line between the music and the sound design is blurred. Sometimes he'll use ambient noises like insects or hissing or even white noise to create a mood rather than music. It's less distracting and you often aren't really consiously aware of why the tension is ratcheting up as it's due to the noise level increasing.

yeah, definitely the sound in Lynch's films is brilliant for mood setting.

Also, Angelo Badalamenti's scores are nearly always brilliant, too

[mdk]

just get this, press play. job done.

http://soundeffects.com/sounofdifrea.html

[kams]

minor chords = sad bits
minor to relative major = something happy happens
dischord = killer comes back to life
cod jazz/blues (on sax) = softcore love scene

[mdk]

harmonic minor sweep arpeggios - guest appearance by Yngwie Malmsteen

[kams]

\m/

[thomas hooked]

i watched Haneke's Le Temps du Loup this weekend and after being a little bit dissapointed by parts of "This is England" realised that i'm not always a fan of soundtracking. The Dead man soundtrack was good- where Neil Young allegedly recorded it in one take on his first viewing of the movie, and I love the soundtracking of Kubrick, John Carpenter Gaspar Noe and Matthew Barney (although obviously the last two owe a MASSIVE amount to the first) but i think less is definately more, unless total drone bombast is required.

[love_tempo]

The Goblin's soundtracks to Dario Argento's films like Suspiria were loud and very very good.

Also I prefer 80s synthesizer funk with dodgy porn, but then it should be hard too.