Movie Score Sequencing Work

Part of our coursework is to arrange a composition for a movie score. I had done something similar to this before but that was to only add sound effects and not to create a composition to help fit with the movie score. I saw this as a hard challenge that I'd have to rise to.

I knew a few skills on cubase beforehand that would help me write in the different parts for each instrument I carefully chose to help retirate the themes within the movie. I've managed to learn lots of tricks and different ways to manipulate the sounds of instruments. I feel that I've made a real progression as well from my first attempt at trying to make create a composition for the movie socre. It didn't feel right and I couldn't get the right sounds. It had an aggressive feel to it due to my use of heavy synths with distortion. I needed to properly watch the short film and understand the context of what was going on. She has wanted to make it as an actress ever since she was small, so for her to actually make it it means a lot to her but as a reuslt she is feeling lost to an extent and quite lonely. I felt that my music needed to really relfect what was going on. I first started off with with my keys playing a small passage which leads into the main chords for the first quarter of the video. I wanted everything to seem all nice and friendly, to reflect her apperance. This was very hard but I had to think of words that came to mind when watching the short flim and transport those words into music depending on whether it was happy, sad, surprising, adrift, despair and so on. I wanted my song to gradually build up and not go all in at once, so I had a few instruments playing and then brought my drums in which came in just before she started speaking so this worked very well. I had to get the right balance of levels so that the music could be heard but so that the dialogue was the loudest audio. I used the same chords for a while but changed them as she kept on questioning her current situation. I wanted to add in some more minor chords to help add depth and texture. These chords would also help to support how she was feeling throughout. I used a mixture of major and minor chords to help retirate how she had mixed emotion, she wasn't completely sure if she was happy. I decided to fade out the music when she went out to have a cigarette, it seemed like this moment was a release for her, she was able to get away from everything and I decided to have no music, just her taking in quietness....and tobacco. But when the two strangers came along I decided to have a drum roll to signify a big enterance, she wasn't expecting to be seeing people and she doesn't look overly pleased. You can tell that she'd rather be on her own and not with fans who don't completely relate to her or understand her feelings. I wanted my song to have a similar structure to that of a movie. Movies gradually bring you into the movie, they then build up to something rather significant and then bring everything back down again and ressolve it all. I decided to change my chords to the previous chords for when she came back inside to help show that she was calming down and that there a was a change of scenery. I felt that it was always important to have differerent chords for when she was outside and inside to help retirate a change of scenery. I wanted everything to be calm at the end and decided to have eveyrthing fade out.

I know understand how EQ works and espically how to use it on cubase. I would EQ all my instruments and max sure all the levels are right so that vocals can be heard. I had to get the right balance of sound and make sure that the loudest thing heard was the dialogue. I used compression on some of my instrument which I learnt how to use and how you can apply presets which are very useful when it comes to looking for a specifix sound. I used reverb on most of my instruments and I before didn't know how to properly use it so I felt a real sense of progression as I worked on my sequencing. I used a lot of different instruments like keys, drums, flute and I even recorded some guitar which again I wasn't sure how to record but I learnt it and managed to fit some of my guitar into the music. I felt that this was very helpful and it developed my skills on cubase and seqnuencing in general, I wasn't able to record anything let alone guitar so I'm very happy that I am now able to do so. It was difficult to develop the music and I felt that it wouldn't work by just using the same chords so I relied on chanhing key from a major key to its relative minor. I learnt how to quantise which came in handy for creating music.

I used MIDI which is Musical Instrument Digital Interface. I had never used this before and I learnt that when you press a key, MIDI data is sent to the computer which tells the computer how hard the key was pressed, how long it was pressed down for and what notes were played. I played along to the film and the quantising helped me to line up the recording to my drums. I felt that it was important to using panning which I had never used before because I didn' know how to. I managed to figure it out due to how easy Cubase can be to use. The panning added space and texture to everything.