For our introduction to composing music for motion picture, we are to produce a piece of music to accompany a two minute scene from a short film titled ‘Alice.’
The clip is split into two separate scenes that contrast each other. The scene opens with the main protagonist (Alice) sitting on her bed relaxing and passing the time, appearing quite bored or perhaps somewhat bothered by something. She drinks from a glass of red wine and the scene cuts off there. Instantly, the next section comes in with a much darker tone. This scene follows some currently unknown characters being held captive on board what looks like a boat. The people holding them hostage are notably Russian from their accents, and are demanding payment by the following Friday. This scene again cuts off sharply, and is then back to the main protagonist in her bedroom, very apparently bored by this point. She finishes off the glass of wine, and the scene ends.
My interpretation of the story here is as follows:
Alice, is a close friend to the hostages in the boat scene, and is currently completely oblivious to their capture. They are all on a holiday together in the Mediterranean, where they have already been staying for the last three weeks or so. Alice was supposed to be meeting her friends on this evening but they never end up showing up. The friends in question are massively in debt to their capturers, currently for reasons unknown, and are now in a situation where death could easily follow. They have until the following Friday to find a large sum of money to pay off this debt and no longer have their lives in danger.
I want to leave much of the possible plot open to interpretation for the viewers, and provide a sort of light tone to my music. Currently my idea is to have a light pop music style feel over the scenes with Alice in her room, but then add a sort of dark undertone to the piece as it changes to the hostage scene while maintaining the overall feel. I think this could lead to a really good feeling of contrast and dissonance, and bring in a much darker tone than outright ‘suspenseful’ music.
For the instrumentation, I am thinking along the lines of an acoustic guitar and bass, possibly with percussion. A standard modern band setup. I want to use a standard band set-up for multiple reasons; Firstly, I am more comfortable composing for these instruments. Secondly, I feel as though less is more when portraypor a feeling of tension. Finally, the first thing I noticed when watching the clip was the age of the characters, I feel like having a stereotypical band for the instrumentation will in a way reflect the youth and innocence of the characters on screen. In addition to the band set-up, I’d like to bring some held synth or strings to the piece as well as this can really add to a feeling of dissonance in the hostage scene. I want to have this feeling of dissonance in the scene as it will add to the tension of the situation, and perhaps foreshadow future events.
There is a good opportunity to use ‘Mickey Mousing’ during a short clip of one of the gangsters walking heavily down some stairs, and this is where I plan to build up a more uneasy feeling to the music. ‘Mickey Mousing’ is a technique used in film scores and is where an action on screen is followed by the music. possibly the most famous example of this is in the film ‘Psycho,’ scored by Bernard Herrmann, where a woman gets stabbed in the shower:
I plan on using this short section to build up the dynamic of the piece as this leads into the hostage scene, and combining the volume with the ‘Mickey Mousing’ of the footsteps should prove to be very effective on setting the mood of this dark section. I think putting an emphasis on building up the percussion section here will really help to thicken the texture of the piece and really portray the gang leaders as scary and deadly.
I am undecided on whether to have this piece in a major or minor key. The idea of juxtaposition on the hostage scene by playing in a major key seems like it would be an interesting concept to play with, however I’m unsure of how to pull this off effectively. I could have the entire piece in one key, however I want to try and modulate to either a minor or major key, depending on what key I begin writing in.
As I said before, I’m after a standard rock/pop band set-up for this clip as I feel as though it will give the film a bit more of a modern setting, rather than orchestral music used commonly in big budget films.
This means I won’t be experimenting with unorthodox time signatures, as I want to portray a certain level of simplicity through my music.
This is my overall plan for how I am wanting to have the piece sound. I want to portray the innocence of the main protagonist as she is currently unaware of her friends’ situation. The music that has inspired the sound that I am trying to produce is actually from a video game/interactive film called ‘Life Is Strange’ as the Alice clip heavily reminds me of this.
Life Is Strange soundtrack:
Im trying to leave much of the story open to interpretation for the viewers as I think this is going to be really effective in keeping viewers watching.
Here is the final product with my composition and the ADR added in:
And here are the screenshots of the Logic Pro project file:
Here is the spotting list I used when syncing up all the audio files to the film:
