Whereas a television
commercial will almost
always contain a single
piece of music, a feature
film, may contain quite a
few separate instances of
original music.
These instances, known as
Cues, may vary widely in
their scope, style and
purpose, or, may carry a
unifying motif that binds
each cue together into a
singular musical
statement. The term
Spotting, refers to the
decision making process in
which a composer and
director discuss the
function of each cue and
its placement within the
media, as well as the
larger purpose of the
musical score
In an ideal
world, the Spotting
session happens at the
onset of production.
However, in many forms of
media, spotting may occur
much later in the
process. In recent
years, the temp track has
played an increasingly
prominent role in spotting
the film. In turn,
the composer should take
advantage of the spotting
session to determine the
exact importance and
meaning of that temp track
to the director or
production team. If
the composers has
previously seen the media,
it is also an opportunity
for the composer to
present new ideas (or even
role model music) that may
diverge from the temp
track without risking a
significant loss of time
and energy. In some
cases, the use of very
defined temp tracks has
eliminated much, if not
all, of the necessity of a
formal spotting
session. Media
composers should be aware
to pay close attention to
a temp track when it is
not accompanied by a
scheduled spotting
session.
The
most
obvious
objective when
spotting media
is to determine
which scenes
will have music
(in media where
multiple cues
are required),
where that music
will begin and
end and what is
the right music
for that
particular scene
or, more
broadly, the
entirety of the
media. We
can call upon
interpretative
anchors to help
guide us through
many of these
decisions.
We recall from web notes 01 the following interpretative anchors:
Interpretative
Anchors help to clarify
and enhance intent and
combat emotional or
cognative ambiguity
Empathetic:
Anticipatory or
Parallel.
Mood matches or
compliments action
Anempathetic:
contradicting or
indifferent to action
Emotional
enhancement:
Increases depth of
emotional experience
Anthropologically
Significant:
Evokes a
social/cultural
precept
Representation of
Epoch
Diagetic:
Music whose source is
visible on the screen
or whose source is
implied to be present
by the action of the
film
Behaivoral
Provocation: Somewhat
exclusive to
interactive media
(games) music can
propel the audience
into predictive
behaviors
Often a director will
look to a composer to help
establish a point of view
(POV), reinforce the staging
and set design,
increase or decrease the
pacing of a scene, and
provide a sense of irony to
a character or situation.
Interpretative Anchors can
help guide a composer
through such a task.
POV: A
particularly heart-felt
musical passage or motif
may evoke a sense of
compassion for a character
that may otherwise be
absent in the scene.
(Empathetic)
A parent
watches a baby play:
heart-felt musical
passage evokes the love
the parent has for the
child. An Animated
musical passage evokes
the bubbly joy the
parent has for the child
Staging: An ominous
musical underscore may
create or enhance a sense
of forboding in an
otherwise neutrally staged
scene.
(Emotional Enhancement)
An ominous and
forboding score may
evoke a sense of danger
in A shot of a girl
walking down a
street. A hip-hop
passage may evoke a
sense of urban-hip in
the same scene.
Pacing: A strongly
rhythmic and driving
underscore can
successfully increase the
audiences perception of
the speed in which the
action occurs.
(Behaivoral Provocation)
A quick
rhythmic underscore may
shorten the audience
percenption of an
otherwise lengthy
action/chase scene.
Irony: Ethnically
identified music can
create a cultural
representation of a
character that may counter
the visual representation
of that character.
Gypsy or
Klezmer music associated
with a character in a
neutral office setting
may evoke an
Anthopologically
significant
understanding of that
character that may
otherwise be absent.
Musical Form in
Media
Large Scale Form
Often,
it is helpful to look at
the story arc within the film
to help determine the large
scale form of the musical
score. In Lincoln the
contrast between piano scoring
and orchestral scoring helps
to define and clarify
Abraham Lincoln as the
sensative father and husband
in contrast to Lincoln the
shrewd statesman.
In my own work on animated
short films, I will often end
the score with a
recapitulation of the
principal theme(s) in order to
pull the audience in to the
credits. This has the
added bonus of reinforcing a
compositional highlight
without as much visual
distraction!
Dilla The
Film: Musical
Recapitulation on
Credits: Music
by Andy Brick
In my score for the
independent film The Story of
The Red Rose, I wanted
to create a enhance the sense
of complex interpersonal
relationships within the
movie. To do so I
structured the entire score
such that all 12 cues closely
followed a traditional Theme
and Variations form thereby
connecting the relationships
without any excessively overt
reference to a given
character.
Starting and Ending a
Cue
Where and How to Start
Music
has a tendancy to draw
attention to the media at the
moment of its entrance.
In its most identifiable form,
music entrances signify a
shift of emphasis that may
highlight:
A New Emotion
A New Subject Matter
A New Location
A New Visual
A Camera Move
A New Action
An Emphasis in Dialog
When a visual edit, or cut
from one scene to
another signals a shift
of emphasis, an inherant
condradiction looms.
Typically, an edit or
change in the medias focus is
created to enhance a story
line, deepen engagement in
gameplay, or otherwise draw
you further into the
underlying media.
Sometimes it is appropriate to
begin the music on the cut but
often, beginning a musical cue
on a cut not only emphasizes a
shift of emphasis, but, by
drawing attention to that cut,
the entrance of the music may
detract from the story line or
bring the audience out of its
emotional commitment to the
media.
Sometimes, its better to begin
a musical entrance just before
or after the visual cut so as
to de-emphasize the shift in
emphasis. In this clip
Stanley has finally reconciled
his love relationship with his
refridgerator . The cut
returns to the interior house
to signal that the two live
happily ever after. The
music cue begins returns to
the opening themeto create a
recapitulation but starts on
the opening of the door handle
to "brings us in" to life
happily ever after
Runaway:
Musical entrance prior
to cut@ 2.55: Andy
Brick
Similarly, impactful musical
entrances can help shift an
audiences emotional state when
the visual does not support
such an emotion. This
gorgeous declaration of love
between Mimi and Rodolfo at
the end of act 1 of Puccini's
La Bohème is followed by a
very contrasting bustling
frenetic city scene as the
opening of Act 2. In the
live opera version this scene
change will be accompanied by
a curtain and set change but
in the film adaptation, it is
simply a visual cut.
Here the musical entrance on
the cut helps to denote the
form of the opera and brings
us to a new location.
La Boheme
(Opera Staged) Video @
36:39
La Boheme
(The Movie) video
@32:07
Quite often, direction to
begin a music cue on a cut or
visual edit is accompanied by
a request to avoid drawing
attention to the edit.
In such cases, the composer
should approach the
composition in a manner that
minimizes the musics impact at
the point of entry. This
can be done in a number of
ways:
Draw attention to some
other element surrounding
the cut:
In Chatham County Superstar I
was asked to score the
entirety of the scene below in
which an aspiring country
western singer has a
confrontation with her
boyfriend. As the visual
was nothing of particular
note, I decided to highlight
the dialog. However,
although there is an somewhat
emotionally revealing closeup
on the girlfirend, only the
boyfriend speaks. In
this cue i used music to not
only highlight the boyfriends
dialog but implicitly create a
sense of dialog from the
silent girlfriend
(cowgirl). The musical
dialog follows the visual cuts
between characters but not on
the edit as creating the
dialog on the edit would have
brought to much attention to
the cut. Notice the
tempo of the music roughly
matches the tempo of the
cowgirls walk.
Chatham
County Superstar Music
highlight dialog Music
by Andy Brick
Fade in (crescendo)
drone (pedal note)
In the following clip from
Stanley Kubricks adaptation of
Stephen King's The Shining,
Kubrick uses a long 1:30
excerpt from Polymorphia
by
Krzysztof Penderecki with a
brilliant crescendo from
sublime to intense of an
aleatoric pedal. Note
Kubricks editing of the film
to the music in the entrance
of the Violins and winds
@ 1.54 when Wendy
realizes what she is seeing
and the diminuendo at
3.00 that brings us to
Jacks POV.
The
Shining: Musical
Entrance Fade in &
Drone Video @
3:00 Krzysztof
Penderecki
Begin momentarily late
with a deferal to
diagetic sound Story of
the red rose @9.06
(warning nudity)
Begin the music on a
cadence or anticipatory
phrase prior to the cut.
In the Sundance award winning
film The Story of the Red
Rose, I was asked represent
loss of love within the final
musical cue on the cut to the
main character. No
matter how I tried the
entrance seemed to obvious for
the climactic final scene
and sorrowful conclusion
of a film of such delicate
subtlety. In order
to create an expectation of
the cue, I introduced a single
dominant cadence just prior to
the entrance of the cue.
Notice how the cadential
effect in the final Cad 64-V
chord of the film holds the
audiences attention and brings
us into the credits.
The Story of
The Red Rose Cadence
prepares musical
entrance Video @
19:50 Andy Brick
Where and How to End
We call upon the
same aforementioned signals
that help us determine the
begging of a musical cue to
determine the end of a
musical cue
A New Emotion
A New Subject Matter
A New Location
A New Visual
A Camera Move
A New Action
An Emphasis in Dialog
Orphaned and alone
except for an uncle, Hugo
Cabret (lives in the walls
of a train station in 1930s
Paris. Hugo's job is to oil
and maintain the station's
clocks, but to him, his more
important task is to protect
a broken automaton and
notebook left to him by his
late father. In this
scene he anticipates finding
a secret message from his
father to be delivered by
the automaton. The
music enters at the moment
the automaton begins to move
to reveal the secret message
and ends at the moment we
realize the automaton is
broken and cant deliver any
message.... or can it?
Hugo:
Music by Howard
Shore: Entrance
and Exit adds
emotional enhancement
to Automaton.
In The Great Gatsby we have
a fairly typical action
scene as represented in a
car race between Gatsby and
foe. The entrance of
the action music is masked
by sound design and, as a
result, very sublime.
Take note that
when the sequence ends
the last note of the musical
cue, which occurs on the
downbeat of the bar, happens
almost 1/2 second after the
cut to interior party.
This is a fairly common
technique called a tail where
a cue either ends on the cut
or slightly after the cut
with its natural resonance
or purposeful diminuendo
occuring in the first
moments of the new scene.
The Great
Gatsby: Masked
Entrance, Tail
out. Music by
Craig Armstrong
Following the Spotting notes
on pgs. 42-43 in the text we
see the progression of 2
music cues from Harry Potter
Chamber of Secrets:
"Escape From Dursley's" and
"Magical House" Each musical
entrance and exit signifies
the corresponding arrival or
departure of a new
place. Notice how the
first music entrance (noted
as 01:08:10 in text) and
exit occurs before their
respective cuts, while the
music enters exactly on the
cut to the "Magical
Household" and exits
at the emotional state
change of Mrs. Weasley
yelling "where have you
been"
Harry Potter
COS: Music marks a New
Location John Williams
Of course,
sometimes a scene will
have such strong emotional
content and realism that
it doesnt require an
interpretative
anchor. In these
moments, its often best to
allow the music to rest.
Notice how Thomas Newman
ends his score for the
scene at 2.00 as water is
applied.
The Green
Mile Arlen
Bitterbuck's Execution
Thomas Newman @2.00
Homework
#1 (HMU495_02_01)
Pick a movie
familiar to you and
create Spotting Notes
that correspond to
each music cue in the
film. The notes
sould resemble those
on pgs 42-43 of the
text.
The Name of the Film
and composer
Each musical cue
should include the
following information:
1. The number
and name of the cue
(you may make up the
name to describe the
scene)
(ie Cue 4, Boy happily
Walks Dog)
2. Musical
Entrance Timing
(hours, minutes,
seconds) and
description of moment
music starts
(ie 00:05:06 cut to
close up of dogs
leash. Entrance
is hard (note fade in)
but masked by sound
design)
3. Directors
Note describing the
purpose of music in
the scene and the
interpretative anchor
(ie music denotes
change of location and
is an anemapthetic
anchor foreshadow
impending doom of
python that will eat
both the boy and his
dog.
4. Musical exit
timing and description
of moment music exits
(ie 00:06:21 camera
pulls away from bloody
boy. Music tails
out)
