//Carrying on from what we talked about last week in this weeks tutorial we discussed what I am actually doing for Stonethrow and what they needed in terms of music. David told me I had to meet with them and have a spotting session and to update my aims and objectives to reflect what I’m going to be doing for them. I’ve also got to get a document with what they want, with examples of music, descriptions of where and how the music will be used.
//After meeting with my group I found out that they want both diagetic and non diagetic pieces for their film. The non diagetic pieces will be used as atmosphere and to build suspense while the diagetic pieces will be used in the film to relax the character. The diagetic piece they want to be in a style of somewhere between 50’s and 70’s which is a huge time frame but they’ve yet to narrow down what they want. For the drone pieces I discussed with David about how I would like to incorporate elements of the narrative and the characters thoughts, almost blurring the lines between score and first person sound. I also talked about the possibility of including a reoccurring melody to signify a happiness, David suggested I watch some films John Williams scored to get an idea of what, how, where and why a leit motif is used. David also gave me a Radio 4 segment by Debbie Wiseman talking about music in film and how it’s used to listen to in addition to recommending I watch the BBC4 series Sound of Cinema. For next week I’ll have a clear list of what my client wants from me in my pieces.
//After Jez’s talk I went straight down to Maplins and bought all of the bits and pieces I needed to make a contact mic. I was eager to try and capture some sounds of my own like his work. This practice will be extremely helpful when I’m creating pieces for my clients film. They want something ambient and droning and ominous sounding and I feel like making these recordings will be a good way to start. I made the contact mic but it wasn’t very good, I’m not exactly a soldering iron master so I think I might have soldered something wrong but I was still getting a very low signal so maybe I just need to improve the contacts. Because I’m not really getting what I wanted I’m going to have to get a mic from media loans and try working with that.
//Had a great talk from Jez, a sound recordist and sound artist he came in to talk about his work and how he got started with his recordings. He does a lot of his work with contact and hydrophonic microphones. Although he has been at it for a long time he said that he still has no idea what sounds he’s going to get and that wind, temperature and time of day all affect the sounds he will capture. One thing that I really found useful was how long I should record for, usually on locations I will record for around a minute for wildtracks but for his recordings he was suggesting recording around 20-30 minutes at least. One, because any animals that were in the area being recorded are going to be disturbed by the mics and need to be given time to settle. And two because for the first few minutes our ears won’t really pick up these sounds when they’re being played back but once they are noticed it’s easy for us to heard patterns so looping them won’t be as natural and enjoyable. My favourite thing about the talk was his DIY approach, I’m all about winging it and hoping for the best. Since the talk I’ve gone out and bought my own bits and bobs to make a contact mic, it doesn’t work yet but I’m going to give it another bash and try some recordings with it. The first real sound I’m planning on recording is the sound of the springs inside my guitar.
//To start my research I just went on youtube and started searching for how films use music and how film music works. I’m well aware it not the best was of gathering accurate information but as a way of getting some ideas on where to look I thought it would be a good start. I don’t come from a traditional music background, I’m self taught so I’m not familiar on terminology or how music should be made in particular styles. For previous projects I’ve just gone on what sounds or feels right in a film so hopefully by conducting this research I’ll get a proper understand of how and why music is used in film. The first video I watched was a video on how Pixar uses music. I was vaguely familiar with some of the things mentioned in the video but it also gave me a lot of things to think about, particularly the use of contrast and juxtaposition between what is seen on the screen and what can be heard.