This is the Ableton file of my short film music score. There are three parts to this.
This is the first part of my score and it is for the boat scene, it is repeated three times. I used an Ableton synth sound for this. I used the C major whole tone scale to create this musical motif, by playing the last three notes of the scale together as a chord, and then the first three notes together as a chord. I chose the whole tone scale as it has a lot of mystery to it, and is good at creating tension because the chord progression never reaches its conclusion.
This is the second part of my score, and this is for the elevator scene. I decided to create an ascending arpeggio, I use the same synthesiser as the first part and it is still in the whole tone scale. I don’t play the second E so it isn’t a proper arpeggio over the 2 octaves. The reason I chose this is because in the scene the man is going up an elevator, and I thought it would sound nice if the music went up in pitch at the same time. The second synth has a more tranquil and calm sound, it plays very quietly under the arpeggio, emphasises certain notes and gives the section more texture.
This section is played just after the elevator scene as the man is walking in an outside area. I played very high in pitch and low in velocity, with this synth sound, which is the same as the second part before, it played what sounded like bird sounds, the wind, and bells. This fits perfectly with the scene as it matches with him being outside.
There is then a gap between that and the next section of music. This is because there is some dialogue, the only part of dialogue in the film. I decided to leave it blank so the emphasis is on the dialogue, and it makes the music more impactful when it comes back in.
This is the final part of my score and is for the bedroom scene. I chose to use the whole tone scale again and use similar notes as the first part to keep it cohesive, however, it does sound like a completely different part. This part creates a lot of mystery, it increases in dynamics as it goes along and climaxes at the end when he puts the water bottle down and the shot focuses on that. It climaxes here due to the dialogue mentioning the water bottle, and this makes the audience think twice about it.
All in all I think this is quite a good first attempt at making a film score. It fits with the film and I think the elevator and outside scenes fit the film near perfect and as a whole is very atmospheric. It is only a minute long, which is much shorter than a feature film. There is also no mixing done to this track, so the levels can sound up and down at times and I could’ve got a nicer sound. I also could’ve expanded upon it and added other instruments like bass or drums to fill out the mix. If I were to do this again, I would pick a longer film so I have to create more music and it be a better experience.