Professor Andy's process for scoring the climactic emotional resolution from Good Will Hunting. Please see Class Notes 6 for the synopsis and project assignment.
Step 1: Conceptualize the cue and create an initial sketch
For me, the cue starts with the focus and pause on Will. This
represents a shift of emotion from Wills resistance to acceptance of
Seans help.
My initial impression of this cue was that although Will had an
emotional breakthrough, the impact of his troubled past was deep and
this was only the beginning of his road to emotional recovery. As
such I thought it would be cool to weave dissonance throughout a tonal
framework that would not only demonstrate a deep sense of
sympathy to the devotion and commitment these two characters had
developed towards one another but, at the same time, create an
empathetic anchor that tells the audience that Wills suffering doesnt
just end with this breakthrough. Although this may be a happy
ending it is one that is quite unresolved
The Tonal framework I chose was A Aeolean. My idea was to present
A as a tonal center from the beginning but then, never actually resolve
to the key. I also thought that I would try presenting A Aeolean
much as a serialist might present a tone row. That is, I wanted
to essentially present all the tones in A Aeolean before repeating any
of them (or at least avoid, as much as possible repeating them)
Finally, I saw the scene opening with a focus on Will so I chose a
monophonic line. when Will pushes Sean, the touch, although
aggressive
does connect them and I begin a 2 part harmony to show that connection
and finally on the embrace I went deceptively to a chordal
harmony.
As I was very much in a hurry and didnt have a piece of music paper
when I had this idea, I scratched out a very rough representation of
this idea:
As soon as I could, I very roughly recorded this piano version in real time to the film
Step 2 Bring Sketch to Studio for Piano realization
When working in my studio on a film cue I will often bounce back and
forth between my notation program (Finale) and a DAW (Digital
Performer). I use Spaces from the Mac OS so that I have a
dedicated environment for each app that I can easily switch
between.
Notation Program: In this cue, I started with my notation program
and put in a rough approximation of my initial sketch. I typically will
write this version (called a short score) on 3 to 5 staves and the
graphic above shows this cue applied to my "short score template" in
Finale. I took note of the tempo of my original sketch (see
metronome in bottom right) and decided that the upper pedal notes
would not sustain through the embrace. I also began to
shape a melody that would better carry the scene. In the
time line above the music staves, I also started to really pay
attention to how melodic, rhythmic and harmonic motion interacted
with the physical action and dialog on screen.
DAW: After I had a more complete Finale sketch notated. I
recorded the Finale sketch in into my DAW and began to really work the
timing of the music. To do this I focused on the written
durations of notes at a given tempo. I adjusted tempi and meter
to make the music fit with the picture.
Step 3: Orchestration:
When time and resources allow, I prefer to take the completed short
score and orchestrate within Finale never actually hearing any
representation of the orchestration. . I tend not to use
instrument samples while orchestrating as I trust my inner ear. I
am also very scared that a poor sample may dissuade me from an
orchestration decision that may work very well with live
instruments.
However, on this cue, I had very little time to produce a fully
realized score that I would then bring back to my DAW for rendering so
I orchestrated directly into the DAW using orchestra samples. I
annotated in the notation section of the DAW the main orchestral
ideas but also took advantage of this change to my normal methodology
to try some techniques that I might not otherwise do if going directly
to notation.
In the orchestration I realized a number of objectives:
Created Dissonance within the consonant
melodic context of bars 1-3 by sustaining each melodic note through the
next. This required orchestrating each melody note.
Enhanced the emotional drive to the embrace through a crescendo
Further refined the melodic by exploiting the 3rds motif
Characterized Seans embrace in the clarinets as if he was saying to Will "its OK"
Spent significant time massaging
controller 11, 1, 7 and velocity to make it all sound balanced and
avoided quantizing to make it feel natural.
Film Score Theory Analysis
Rick Beato
has a great youtube channel that includes a very bare-to-bones approach
to music theory applications in modern film. In this video he
discusses Tritone, M2nd and m3rd Triad progressions. They are
presented cyclically as direct progressions to and from one
another. Consider alternate chordal positions (63, 64 etc.) and,
as he briefly mentions, dissonant suspensions within the triads of
these progressions
