Music – Creation Process

To create the music I used Logic as it has a more easily accessible array of synthesisers and software instruments. From my research I decided to limit the amount of layers I would put into my project so looked for Synth sounds that would complement the film well.

After I had found a suitable sound I would play through some ideas, recording them before moving them onto different tracks to see which melodies suited which sounds best. This gave me the freedom to use ideas that wouldn’t necessarily be useful within the first track I recorded them onto but still made good music once the sound/tempo were altered.

After I had created 4-6 usable ideas, Callum and myself would sit and line up the tracks to the sections that we thought needed music to check which tracks would work in which places.

Music Research – Reading

https://wistia.com/blog/composing-music-for-video

 

I found this website to be helpful with getting into the right mindset to write music that wasn’t for my own personal enjoyment. It helped me to realise that the right music for the film needed to fit the general atmosphere of the story line.

By this time I had already watched through the film at least 15 times, because of the other aspects we were creating, and from this I had been able to work out that the main direction the film was going for was deception, so I wanted the music to be deceptive too, mixing together two emotions that wouldn’t usually be found together to create an uneasy track.

The main challenge in creating my own brief for the music was that I had very little direction from the director or producer. Before I created the tracks I was told that they wanted something “atmospheric” and “tense”. After showing the team the tracks for the first time I was asked to change one of the tracks to “something more different” and so created a different track using different synths while keeping to the same uneasy feel of the film.

 

https://music.tutsplus.com/tutorials/using-ambient-techniques-for-composing–audio-4017

 

I found the introduction and first section of this post to be very useful to creating music that was designed to be in the background of the film. The main limitation I set myself for the music was to not distract at all from the plot and visual of the film, but rather to add to it. To do that I limited myself to creating my music using a maximum of 3-4 tracks for layering, this ensured that I would create music that was thin enough that it wouldn’t overpower the rest of the audio components of the film while also giving me an inspiration to only include music that would benefit the film rather that just going for the most fancy tracks that I could create.

Music Research – Inspiration

We wanted to recreate some music similar to what is heard in the series “Black Mirror”. The only direction we were given by the director was for the music to be tense and mysterious and we thought that Black Mirror fitted into that category well. We wanted the music to sound tense without sounding too sinister or unhappy so when creating ideas I used synthesisers and arpeggiators that weren’t too heavy or overbearing, without too much bass.

This compilation of songs and pieces in Black Mirror helped to inspire the main Basin theme, especially the first piece, as it has a tinkling piano or keyboard creating the melody behind the vocals. I liked this idea because although it is a very happy feeling song it still has a strong sense of uneasiness about it.

I also took some inspiration from this music, mainly for the track at the end, because the rhythmic chimes add a little bit of suspense without being too overbearing and I felt that this was important for our film because it built up to the end of the film without being too dramatic for the visuals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG9urgeWj1g

 

Music

While watching through the film, after foley and dialogue had been added, i noticed that there was limited opportunity for music, without subtracting from the main awkward theme from the film. The media team told me that they wanted specific music not by me for the dance scene in the middle of the film so instead i decided to create a sort of theme tune for the illusive villain named Basin, this made it clearer that the phone call at the start of the film was talking about the same thing that the ending is. another piece of music fills the silence while Olivia walks through the house, giving the film a sort of mysterious “something-isn’t-right” feel.

I used Logik to create the music because it has a lot more availability for synths and instruments that can be modified rather than protools. and for my creative process I listened to the sound track for a few of the Black Mirror episodes that i’ve already mentioned. I noticed that a lot of their background themes were very thin and less intense so it doesn’t draw attention away from the visuals of the film and decided that this was an important aspect that needed to be included in my own compositions.