As I am working on two completely different projects for this semester and because there's a lot going on, I was happy to present to my works to receive constructive feedback and check whether I was going in the right direction or not.
PROJECT 1: Walk my dog, please!
REFLECTION ON FEEDBACK:
My first project is creating a soundtrack for a prototype of a videogame (hopefully by the end of the semester we'll have the full level of the game working and players will be able to control the character and play challenges. That will give me even more hints and visual affordances to follow up with sound as well). At the moment, I am working on a 20 sec video prototype showing aesthetic, ambience and characters. I created a 20 sec electronic music loop with a chiptune riff to accompany the visuals. I have also added a fail tune at the end of the video, however we are still missing the interface and visual response that's meant to show up when a player fails the level (so only the sound is working at the moment).
During the feedback session and presentation, I received positive feedback on the soundtrack, as it meets the requirements my animator requested (chiptune sounds, electronic music loop, sound effects). However, as the animation is set in Victorian London, I could further implement the soundtrack by taking inspiration from19th century English melodies and sounds. This is actually quite a good challenge for me, as I'm now making some research on 19th century classical music to reproduce and reinvent those sounds with more modern media. I really appreciated this kind of feedback and started to do some research on Victorian era classic music.
RESEARCH: VICTORIAN ERA MUSIC
The 19th century was the time in which many artistic forms flourished in Europe, including visual art, dance, performance, comedy. Music as well soon became very popular and usually played in music and entertainment halls, where professional songwriters and musicians were invited to perform. Victorian era music can be divided in two main periods:
- early 19th century music, in which the most common genres were inspired by irish and english folk songs and group dances (national songs without an identifiable composer).
- late 19th century music, when humorous opera, solo voices, ballads, waltz played by string quartets and pianists, inspired by other European composers, started to become popular in England as well.
As musician became less amateur and more professional when composing, writing and performing, their musical pieces and song books started to become popular as well (not only well known but also well received and appreciated). The enforcement of copyright protection on the reproduction and performance of music was an enormous stimulus to the urban music market, affecting the large numbers of writers, performers and publishers based in London. In Britain, the Copyright Act of 1842 allowed the author to sell copyright and performing right together or separately (Scott D. B, 2012).
It is also interesting to note that women were allowed to compose and perform both at home and sometimes in public as well, for the first time in England. Claribel [Charlotte Alington Barnard, née Pye] (1830-69) is one of the most famous Victorian era composers. Her ballads and parlour songs were in high demand among English families of all social classes, who used to buy her sheet music to be played in private concerts in Victorian homes.
PROGRESS: MY SOUNDTRACK PROTOTYPE
Based on my research, I am thinking of creating a melody with a synth piano, that has a happy and comedic mood (this is inspired by most comic Victorian songs and also meet the inspiration soundtrack my animator provided, including the soundtrack from the videogame Circus Charlie. Moreover, pianos were a popular music in Victorian middle-class and bourgeoisie homes).
With regards to actual rhythm, tempo and melody, I will be taking inspiration from this Spotify playlist https://open.spotify.com/playlist/35phkNovnV5dsBwKpBHUuI and should begin the composition and production process very soon, to implement the soundtrack I already created and make it sounds more like a 19th century piece of music.
PROJECT 2: Mr. Pitaya and his magical hat
REFLECTION ON FEEDBACK:
According to my collaborator, my soundtrack and sound design proposal is a good one, on track and kind of what he was expecting to hear (his inspiration music were western, folk songs like "When a ballad trades his spurs for wings" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqO7lu94Ix4 and "Welcome Home" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8a4iiOnzsc ). So as my proposal was quite similar in mood, timbre, tempo and rhythm to these inspiration resources, he is quite happy about it.
However, after presenting the project in class, it seemed like this was not the most appropriate music genre to suit this kind of animation. This type of western music seems to be too chill and relaxed , however, as the plot of the animation includes heists, duels, chasing sequences and action, it would require something more dramatic and tense. A music genre that best suits this kind of action would be Spaghetti western, in particular Ennio Morricone's compositions.
RESEARCH: Spaghetti western
Spaghetti western indicates a broad genre of cinematic productions that were made and produced entirely in Europe, by famous European film makers, like Italian film producer Sergio Leone between 60s and 70s (over six hundred European Westerns were made between 1960 and 1978).
My main inspiration for this project is mainly "A fistful of dollars", by Sergio Leone soundtrack composed by Ennio Morricone. The animation style resembles a lot the filming techniques used in this movie:
- large face closeups of the hero or main character coming to save the town from the outlaws
- hero uses his superhuman skills and weapons to duel and challenge the thieves
- the interactions between hero and outlaws range between being threating and ironic (tricks, deceits, unexpected actions, pathos and comic fights). This was a very common feature to all spaghetti western movies, including the "Trinity" films and "Dollars Trilogy".
"Ennio Morricone's innovative score expresses a similar duality between quirky and unusual sounds and instruments on the one hand and sacral dramatizing for the big confrontation scenes on the other" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_Western ). His soundtracks and compositions for most western movies he worked on, where mainly experimental sounds recorded using unconventional instruments, also due to the fact that these were low-budget movies and he had limited access to orchestral instruments and choirs. He used instead irreverent and dramatic combination and orchestration of sounds:
- gunshots, rifle shots and cracking whips as percussions to give rhythm and timbre to the track (martial and slow rhythms).
- whistles, classical voices and riffs played on Fender electric guitar to create memorable melodies that comically emphasise fights and duels.
- character's leitmotif
"[...] the soundtrack evinces its own ingloriousness as it reveals in a musical mix that does not respect boundaries of genres, form or taste. [...] sounds take musical qualities, and in turn, music uses non-traditional acoustic elements, a transfer of functions that allow music to take on narrative centrality and move to the foreground in emphatic ways". (Coulthard, L., 2012.).
Each one of his tracks are essential parts of the movies for which they've been composed, a central and integral component rather than just some background music. Chion writes how Morricone's score is what makes Leon's western movies feel eccentric, narrative and expressive. His scores also have a structural role when they anticipate, comment or predict the action rather than just accompany or describe it. The editing, mixing, duration, opening, closing and the overall structure of the soundtrack is what gives character to the soundtrack and overall to the movie.
PROGRESS:
I appreciate a lot how Morricone uses unconventional instruments to create beats and give rhythm and tempo to his musical scores. Therefore, I tried to create something similar, whenever there is a duel shown in the animation, by aligning sounds and noises of gunshots in a rhythmic way and adding reverb, delay and EQ to give some ambience. Then I mixed short guitar riffs, whistles as well as harmonica sounds at the end, to emphasise the importance of closing the track.
The sound design is a in fact mix of hard effects, Foley sounds, short music riffs and whistles, taking inspiration from classic western movies like Spaghetti western. Music and sounds both in and out of frame, play a psychological role, trying to unpack the meaning of each sequence, as well as suture the sounds to the action, materialising and giving texture to objects, location, action and ambience (wind blowing, footsteps, gunshots, animal sounds). I am also trying to give to the whole animation a comic and almost silly vibe, as the characters are plants and fruits (MR. Pitaya for example is obviously a pitaya fruit, whereas the criminals are inspired by various types of cactus plants).
I am not sure whether it would be best to also emphasise camera movements by adding further sounds when camera movements shift from one angle to another, or if that would then be too much sounds layering up on top of each other. I am also still in the process of creating a short leitmotif to accompany the main character (at the moment I am using a short guitar riffs to accompany his first entrance, and then a whistle to emphasise his further actions in the animation).
Overall this soundtrack proposal seems to be more dramatic, tense and rich compared to the previous one. (animatic prototype: https://youtu.be/gvWRNMUwcH4
REFERENCES:
Brownrigg, M., 2003. Film music and film genre. https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/handle/1893/439#.ZGDcXnZBzrc
Coulthard, L., 2012. Inglourious music: revenge, reflexivity, and Morricone as muse in Inglourious Basterds. Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds: A Manipulation of Metacinema, pp.57-70. https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=ryTNDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT60&dq=spaghetti+western+music&ots=WQ_JcGQYHm&sig=6-yr9qfUT6f-kh2gcaOdvM_z5Uc#v=onepage&q=spaghetti%20western%20music&f=false
Sorbo, L., 2014. The dramatic functions of Italian spaghetti western soundtracks: a comparison between Ennio Morricone and Francesco De Masi. In Film in Concert: Film Scores and their Relation to Classical Concert Music (pp. 161-173). Werner Hülsbusch. https://air.unimi.it/handle/2434/237369
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