No Country for Old Men The Revenant
In
the past two scoring projects, you have been given the task of scoring
with a predetermined objective. In notes 01 and 02 we saw how
anchors can guide us in the presentation of music attached to media.
In the Dark Night we saw that a great deal of interest could be
generated through an engaging score that could hold the audience
attention beyond that which might otherwise occur without a music
score. We discussed various ways to keep the music engaging via form
and compositional technique and we saw that we could take visual
cues to determine musical elements within the scene. In the Dark Night we
began to discuss tension and release as it pertained to an action
scene. This concept was further developed in Good Will Hunting in
which we were challenged to represent an parallel empathy and emotional
enhancement to a scene that had a significant change of emotional
state.
In both cases, the music had a rather obvious objective for most:
The Dark Night music served to sustain the lengthy chase and Good
Will Hunting music served to create a parallel empathy and emotional
enhancement.
Sometimes, a scenes objective is not immediately obvious or may be
subject to differing interpretations. In such cases, a good
director will often clarify the scenes objective. However, at
times, you may be asked to make an subjective interpretation about the
objective of the music as it pertains to the scene. The process of making a subjective
interpretation about the objective of the music is called "playing the
scene"
Playing the Scene:
Playing the Point of View (POV)
In any scene, each character will have a point of view and the composer
who is asked to make a subjective interpretation may take the point of
view (POV) of any character to "play the scene" When the
audience POV differs from the characters on screen, another subjective
interpretation may be available that is independent of the on screen
characters.
POV vs. Characterization.
A subtle but important distinction should be made between POV and
Characterization. A POV tells the audience how the character feels. It
puts the audience in the characters proverbial shoes. A
characterization tells the audience how the audience should feel about
the character.
For example, in the scene from No Country for Old Men, the Gas Station
attendent grows increasingly uneasy as he realizes the danger imposed
by his unhinged customer. The gas station attendent could be
characterized as a mild mannered, sleepy sort of fellow. However, in
this scene, the if you were to take the point of view of the attendent,
it would likely warrant increasing tension and immediacy as his fate
relies on the flip of a coin.
In NCFOM: What is POV of gas station attendent? bad guy? of audience?
In Revenant: What is POV of DiCaprio, of Indiginous guy, of audience?
Playing the Overview
In cases where a characterization is not warranted or desired, the
media composer can play the overview of the scene. Often times
thrillers and suspence will play the overview by focusing on the
environment within the scene and have anthropological, diagetic or
epoch based anchors. In situations where a director prefers
an emotional anchor to come directly from the character with minimal
compositional intervention and yet requires the scene be scored,
the music may incorporate anthropological, diagetic and epoch based
anchors in an emotionally static or neutral context. In such
cases, the music will often be very subdued, sparce, minimal or
otherwise unencumbering to the scene.
N.B. The text has a separate category for "playing the
environment or location" but these seem to always be overview
approaches that avoid specific characterizations so I present them as
an integral part of the overview or, at least, a subset thereof.
In NCFOM: What anthropological, diagetic or epoch based anchors
can we call upon to present an overview of the movie? How can we
minimize any emotional anchor that may be derived from the music?
1. Anthropological Anchors: Country Instrumentation
2. Diagetic Anchor: What would be playing on a radio in the gas station
3. Epoch based Anchor what would be indicitive of early 1970s (check date)
In Revenant: What anthropological, diagetic or epoch based anchors can we call upon to present
an overview of the movie? How can we minimize any emotional anchor
that may be derived from the music?
1. Anthropological Anchors: Envoironment is very isoloated, big,
imposing, harsh. Certain raw basic humanity and elements of
indiginous people (Pawnee Indian)
2. Diagetic Anchor: How would music be used to convey wind, snow, dead animals?
3. Epoch based Anchor what would be indicitive of 1823
In Hitchiker What anthropological, diagetic or epoch based anchors can we call upon
to present an overview of the movie? How can we minimize any emotional
anchor that may be derived from the music?
1. Anthropological Anchors: Future, Electronic Vs. Acoustic. Tonality 5ths and 4ths
2. Diagetic Anchor:
3. Epoch based Anchor
Playing the Abstract View
When the composer is not playing a characterization, or point of vew,
playing the overview may not properly represent the underlying
intention of the scene. In such cases, there may be
possible to play a more abstract view of the scene or a more abstract
overview.
NCFOM: Is morality hopeless. Does Evil win?
Revenant: Human Will supercedes Human Suffering
Playing the Situation
Scenes in which the underlying situation is significantly different
from the characterization of the participants to the situaion can
afford a composer the opportunity to Play the Situation.
NCFOM: The situation is a guy buying gas. The
characterization is a deranged psychopath vs. a terrified country
man. If you ignored the characterization, POV, Overview and
Abstract view, what would be the effect of composing gas station music?
Revenant: The situation focuses on hope and plea. The
characterization is a strong willed survivor and indiginous Pawnee, If
you ignored the characterization, POV, Overview and Abstract View what
would the effect be the effect of composing music that conveys hope and
plea.
In Class: Conceptualize Revenant and write 30 seconds.
1. Write down a POV , Overview and Abstract View for Revenant
2. Conceive of a musical perpective for the one view you think is best for Revenant
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3. Discuss Perspective and how to achieve it
4. If necessary find role model tracks to help with the specifics of that perspective.
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5. Subdivide perspective into 2 or 3 smaller categories of POV, Overview and Abstract View.
6. Note timing and any change of state of start of each smaller categories
7. Conceive of a musical perpective for each subcategory that fits within the larger perspective
Avoid song like chord progressions:
Outline chords and use melodic figurations to enhance emotional content.
Focus on independence of lines
Use full chords to present resolution of emotion
.
How and where will you exit?
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 theory techniques in Thomas Newmans epic scoring.
