film music

"Mobius" by Kevin D. Clarke

In a previous post, I described my process in creating the music for Jason Leaver’s video installation, Mobius, which premiered at Scotiabank Nuit Blanche on Oct. 3rd.  The experience of being a part of this project was fascinating on a number of levels that I felt were worthy of sharing.

Public Space

Before Nuit Blanche proper, Jason was invited to preview his work in a public setting, namely Eaton’s Center mall in downtown Toronto.  In this environment, it was very interesting seeing people’s reaction to the work.

Context has such a powerful effect on how people view and respond to a piece.  By taking it out of the gallery setting, I wondered: Do you get a much more natural and immediate reaction, without the anxiety or preconceptions of how art ’should’ be viewed?

Jason had used yellow tape to secure cables to the floor – these had the unintended appearance of police tape cordoning off a no-go zone.  Many people approached the exhibit with genuine curiosity, but were reluctant to cross this invisible ‘threshold’.  This was exactly the opposite of what Jason wanted, but luckily he was just the man to handle it.  Jason fears approaching no one, and with big arm gestures and engaging banter would quickly usher these shy observes into the center of his piece, pointing out elements of interest and suggesting different ways to get the most out of the experience.  His enthusiasm and willingness to explain without a hint of condescension was catching and inspiring.  Jason is about as unpretentious as they come, and simply oozes pure joy about his work and people’s reactions.   His love is a love of the work, not of what the work will get him.  It’s not about him, it’s about the viewer’s experience.  He is a brilliant ambassador to the world of art – when I saw how engaged and joyous the viewers were  in their experience, I thought – this is it!

Interpretations come in many forms!

It was also very interesting to view the work in the context of a mall from an aesthetic and technical perspective.  Already a surreal piece, it became even stranger when seen next to a Sears and trendy clothing shops.  The bustle of the mall, the noise, and people’s surprise and wonder at this unexpected object all added to and changed it’s meaning.  My own interpretation of the piece is that it works as a commentary on the modern cubicle dweller, the feeling that you are trapped by the forces of convention and commerce to perform the same actions perpetually, day after day.  As a location then, a mall and it’s association with the cycle of work/spend/work/spend, is kind of perfect.  When I asked Jason about the most unusual comment he received, he told me about a woman who was very offended and more or less yelled at him about “playing at being God”, and how could he keep this poor man trapped in this terrible loop?  The suggestion that he could stop the cycle at any moment using a remote control was met by more righteous anger, as if it  were being suggesting that, like Jesus, he was able to perform miracles.  Blasphemy!  Congratulations, Jason: you’re now ‘officially’ an Artist.

Ephemera

For my part, it was very interesting to be part of something where the work existed only for the short time it was installed and running.  Sure, my music files still exist and can be played on any manner of system, but the ‘real’ work – Mobius – in it’s intended final form, exists specifically in it’s four screen projected state, with the sound played back by four independent speakers associated with each of the screens in the quadrant.  The experience of standing in the quadrant, and how the music and visuals affect one another cannot be recreated in any other manner.  So this was it – I would experience it for those short moments, and then it would fade to memory.   The surprise of how the visuals and sound interacted was also a treat – there were elements I left to chance, and stuff that I had no way of properly previewing.  In an age of the instant gratification of orchestral mock-ups and digital photos it was a delicious tease, and I did linger and savour it for much longer because I knew after this it would be gone, probably forever.  This must be what composers must have felt like in the years before recordings – their orchestral works would be heard during rehearsal and performance, and not again until another concert could be mounted.

A full moon and Nuit Blanche!

What a vibe, what an energy!  It was incredible to see so many people out wandering the streets and taking in the sights and sounds.  It was a youthful, vibrant, excited, and positive feeling.  After taking in a number of exhibits (which included people being suspended in folded pentagram cradles, a giant pool of vodka, and a midway of sorts with rides supposedly operated by ex-bankers), my wife, my friends Aaron and Goran and I finally found our way to Mobius at around midnight, which was situated in a gallery in Cabbagetown on the Eastern edge of Zone A.  The small, single room space was stuffed to bursting with people, and a very satisfied Jason sat off to one side listening to the many conversations of observers as they discovered and interpreted the piece.  The reception it was getting was fantastic – people ‘got it’ and got into it.  I think the fact that there was a mystery unraveling before their eyes was a particularly attractive.  I enjoyed the somewhat claustrophobic but intimate setting, and having the piece projected on fabric added a kind of mysterious ephemeral quality.  I was surprised to find that I felt the sound at the previous installation was better; not in terms of quality, but in terms of consistency.  The music and the film are each the same for each of the four screens, but at an offset.  When the music played on 4 identical speaker systems, this sense of the material being the same but playing with and against itself was more clear.  But this was a small technicality and certainly did not detract from the piece on whole.  A great moment was when a group of film students enthusiastically told Jason of how inspiring the experience was – they were genuinely excited.  When Jason asked one about her background, she stammered a little, and Will (the actor in the film) came up behind Jason and teased:  “He’s just a man”.  Industry accolades are great, but there is a special thrill when a student of your craft is excited by your work.

In the end, I feel very lucky to have been part of this project.  Firstly, because it was a successful work and deeply satisfying for me, but also because I got to see it in a number of contexts and iterations, which was terrifically interesting.  I also got to go from being a fan of Nuit Blanche to an active participant, and got to enjoy the feeling that I had helped in making someone’s night just a little more magical.  It was a memorable evening that even the rain and a lingering cold couldn’t dampen, and I am already counting the days until next year.

The Mysterious Mobius

I was recently asked to produce a music/sound score to an installation exhibited as part of Scotiabank’s Nuit Blanche 2009 in Toronto.  Billed as  ‘a free all-night contemporary art thing’, it transforms the city for a 12 hour period, as over 500 artists use public, gallery and ‘unexpected’ places to exhibit their work.  If you’ve ever been, you know it’s a blast and absolute magic – and for me, getting to be a part of creating that magic was very exciting.

Jason Leaver’s “Mobius” is a mysterious piece – a video installation with four independent screens facing one another in a quadrant, each playing the same film footage at an offset of %25, and looping perpetually.  The film itself follows a loose narrative, with no real beginning or end – a man is caught in a series of actions and events which lead him inexorably back to where he “started” – a sort of time/space shift where he begins his “loop” again.  The real brilliance in the piece is how the film interacts with “itself”, via the screens and the offset.  The character of the man is at times aware of and interacts with himself at different points in the loop – we are never sure if he is aware that it is himself.  These points sync with one another in each screen;  while one uses the phone, the other answers, while one calls out, the other can see and hear a shadowy figure across the way, calling out.  Once the installation is running, it is a compelling concept – the character seems to ‘reach out’ out of the time-space of film, across the space of the exhibiting area and the viewer, to communicate with himself in another time.

My first challenge was to decide what the music was going to address:  the character and his motivations, or the conceptual, formal aspects of the film?  In the end I didn’t want to make too much of a statement on the piece itself, and rather treat it in a strictly formal way – enhancing the mood of the piece and offering moments of focus that aligned with the action while interacting with the other screens/events.  I began by sketching out the action on paper, plotting out the events, and producing a “quad” time-line to see  interactions and relationships.  I liked the idea that to a certain extent, the final result would be left to chance, and so I began experimenting with sounds and processing.  I responded to the feeling that I got from the footage: the grim, urban colors, the emptiness, sense of foreboding and confusion, and the eerie surrealist quality of the ’story’.  To address the idea of temporal loops  (real or imagined/metaphoric), I played with reversing some material, and gave the whole a reverb drenched, desolate quality.  Heavily processed violas and oceanic guitars seem to moan and cry from afar, while the sound of an ancient ceiling fan I a sampled and shifted down 3 octaves, rumbles ominously but nearly imperceptibly below.  Strange and alien motifs ring out in murky space, drawing the observers attention around the quadrant to correlating events.  Once I laid up the first draft , I realized that even a small amount of material will sound tremendously busy and overwhelming when stacked 4 high, and so I had to revisit the material and cut out a large number of elements.  Eventually, I found the balance that resulted in an extremely sparse track on it’s own, but worked when played in the quadrant.

Check out Mobius at Scotiabank Nuit Blanche 2009, Zone A Independent Project, Oct. 3rd in Toronto!

Photo by Craig Elliott

Don’t be ashamed of your own ideas. Most musicians get applauded for sounding like someone else. People try something out that they think is exciting, and everyone looks a little unsure. Then they play an old James Brown riff and everyone’s saying: ‘Wow! That’s what we want!’ Most of the time musicians are being encouraged to sound recognizable. What I’m doing [as a producer] is encouraging them at the points when they’re not.
- Brian Eno

Who Are You?

An aspect of being an artist is the path to finding your voice. Your ‘voice’ is your signature, your ‘thing’, that which you get known for, something to which you become associated. Sometimes, even, it’s a schtick. If you think of any successful artist, someone who stood the test of time, you’ll note one particular trait – they had a unique voice. They did something no-one else did, or they did something far better than anyone else. This is something you want to cultivate, for a number of reasons.

Karma Chameleon

Composers working for media have a special challenge in this area. Generally, you are expected to be aware of, and be able to compose in, any style imaginable – NOW. I’ve scored an episodic show where I went from comic opera to Joe Pass jazz, then to purposely cheesy PSA music to porn, 50’s bubblegum pop, to copping Prokofiev ballet, then to afro-cuban, and even more. To have these styles in your arsenal, and to be able to say ‘yes’ when asked to genre-hop, is a necessary skill especially when you are getting established.

It’s your thing – do what you want to do

Being versed in many styles is great for your musicianship and breadth. However, this is not your ‘voice’. It’s unlikely you’ll get very far specializing in ALL styles – it’s a bit of a contradiction in terms! What you want is for people to think of you as the person who is the go-to for “X” , but also a capable and professional expert who is also able to adapt and stretch to meet any demand.

You need to differentiate yourself from all those people who are doing the stuff everyone else is doing!

Right now, there are thousands of emerging composers out there, who are trying to emulate the heroes du jour – John Williams, John Powell, Danny Elfman, and Hans Zimmer, to name a few. Some argue that if a producer or director want John Williams, they’ll call him. WELL… yes, and no. No, if they don’t have 1/2 a million in their budget for John’s fee. So yes, the guys who can do ‘that sound’ will get calls.

However, there are two problems with this scenario:

1. The only way to compete in this area is to be THE BEST at it.

2. This is a limiting way to build a career. You might become known as the person who can do Zimmer, and when that goes out of vogue, or worse, when someone wants something original, you could lose.

It’s a short term career move.

Don’t imitate it, don’t abandon it – FILTER IT

This will happen naturally anyways – but try to cultivate your sound when you work. Create a mental environment condusive to this – this means that you have to stop judging your work when it really starts to SOUND LIKE YOU, and instead, recognize it as a good thing and push forward in those crazy directions! You have to develop an awareness of what you do that makes you unique. It doesn’t have to be the most insane thing ever, either – it can be simple. My thing is the guitar – I want to create scores using the guitar in unusual ways. Even if no guitar sounds appear in the final recording, I will use the guitar to compose – and THAT will end up helping to give the score it’s signature – because it’ll be different had I done it another way. I ‘own’ the guitar as a tool, it is part of me and my process.

Do Something Different

Be a little more daring. Try something you think might not work. Pick up a new instrument. I’m getting into instruments from around the world – the Bansuri is my current favorite. This year I plan to learn how to play violin, and eventually I’m going to get a Guzheng. Getting into a different way of playing can really open some doors to different ways of working, new ideas, and a unique path. Study a different style of music, study different composers. Open up – and filter what you learn. Don’t get too bogged down in details – it’s not an academic excercise. Even if you can’t play well, you will come up with some ideas that are unlike what you’d normally develop. Learn fast and take what you learn and make it your own. Each instrument seems to naturally lend itself to doing different things, which is why sometimes you can break out of a rut by composing on an instrument different than what you usually use.

The Devil is in the Sampler

One of the weird things about being a composer these days is watching a film or TV show, and hearing a sample you recognize. I KNOW that one “Thunder Ensemble” hit with the singing bowl ringing overtone from StormDrum2. I even know what velocity level it was triggered at. It’s a damn good sample, too. That’s a little disconcerting when I’m using it for another project – makes it feel a little… cheap. Like cheating. Now, I’m not against samplers, libraries, sounds, and effects, etc. But it’s worthwhile to invest some time into how you can differentiate, even in this area. How your sound, is… well, your SOUND – like a guitar player has their particular sound. Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jimie Hendrix, Al Di Meola – these guys play different and they also SOUND different – it’s the TONE. Experiment with your samples. Tweak them. Use them “incorrectly” – play instruments out of their compass or pitch range. Use effects.

A Balancing Act

The one caveat in all of this, of course, is that it is important to stay current. Like the ability to compose in any style, you will be asked to sound en vogue. But it is possible to balance this with a striving to be unique, different… memorable. One of a kind. A Go-To.

All things under the Sun

This kind of thinking naturally extends to your whole music business, aka your BRAND. How you present yourself – visually, personally, the myth or legend, or story you create about yourself. This all gives a context to the music and how it is perceived, and can add to your value as a composer. It’s how well you can sell yourself and your ideas, the kind of music you produce. If you build yourself to be a special kind of composer, then people will see you that way and will look to you to deliver your specialty. I will be looking at the idea of ‘myth building’ in a later blog.

Speakeasy

How do you differentiate? Do you have some great examples of artists making it work for them? (one of my favorites is Carter Burwell). How do you strike a balance between doing it all V.S. doing one thing?

Photo by Roger Do Minh used under CC liscence

In a recent article, I detailed the journey I took with a director, crafting a cue through several versions to arrive at the final product which worked with the scene just the right way. More than knowledge of music, talent, or ability on an instrument, very important is your ability to effectively communicate with the director, and your ability to analyze, understand, and translate their vision and story into musical ideas which work to picture.

Don’t even say ‘crescendo’!

You should be able to do this without speaking one word of musical jargon.

The language of film music is primarily the language of emotion, and when speaking about how the music can/should work in a scene, you want to use these terms as descriptors – laymans terms, non-academic speak. Words like afraid, stubborn, furious, joyful, mysterious, distant, dark, hopeful, etc. Words that describe the film, the themes, actions, characters… not the music.

This isn’t a dumbing down of musical concepts for someone with no knowledge of music – the director may well be versed in music, even to a high degree. The point is that you are there to serve the vision of the director, and the director is telling a STORY. You have to set up a framework for talking about the story, and I have found it makes it easier, more efficient and consistent, and pleases directors, if you speak in their language – the language of emotion, character, themes, and story. It’s your job (and happy challenge) as a composer to turn those ideas into music.

“He really GETS me, you know?”

The other aspect to this complex relationship is trust. If you can watch the film, read the script, and accurately analyze it with an attention to detail and passion that shows you really GET the film and care about the project, you will be on your way to earning the trust of the director. Try to see it from their point of view – it’s their baby – they love the characters, they believe in the story, the message, the themes. They know the work inside out. If you demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of the themes, make connections between a characters actions and what that means to scene 237, if you see how a camera angle or a prop has a deeper meaning that connects the film together, they will be more apt to trust your musical instincts and ideas.

Sorry, what was that again? I said, learn to be a GREAT listener

I try to get directors to talk about the film, their motives for making it, what they love about it, and the characters, themes, and story, before anything else. I want to discuss and analyse their film, to make sure I really understand their vision. Only after this, once I have established some basic trust and rapport, do I say, ok, let’s talk about the music. What did YOU have in mind? What my ideas are, what I want to have happen, this comes pretty much dead last. Again, this is a part of the business that you have to be ok with – I love the collaborative process, and I love having parameters, a framework within which to work. I absolutely ADORE analyzing films and literature. And, I almost always find a way to satisfy my own artistic desires within this process. But don’t forget, you are there to serve someone elses vision – it’s not a servile position – you are an expert, but your own desires take a back seat.

Literally speaking…

Knowing the story, the themes, the characters and their motivations inside out can be a great help to actually writing the score, especially in terms of overall structure. Shorter forms are easy to deal with, but the score to a feature film can be likened to a symphony, where as much as 60 minutes of music and more might be required. How do you ensure a consistent, balanced, and thematically connected work emerges? One thing I like to do is look at what is happening in the film and apply it quite literally to musical ideas. There is a micro and macro aspect to this – scene by scene, in moments, and also in terms of the story as a whole, the arc. Once you have written a theme for a character, for instance, it may be that the character becomes more broken, alienated, hollow as the film progresses. Think of the musical theme – can you write a variation that will sound this way? Can you ‘break’ the theme, and alienate it from it’s harmony? Can you orchestrate something which sound hollow? Of course! Now you have a simple framework for creating something quite quickly, which will give the audience a subliminal insight, a deeper emotional understanding. This particular example might not work in all cases – sometimes, you play counter to the action or theme, so a different tack might be needed. But consider it – work out some descriptors for characters, themes, storylines, and see if you can’t find a sophisticated way to incorporate those.

Capisce?

When you return with your first cues in hand, you can impress a director and solidify their trust by actively demonstrating that you’ve been listening, that you understand what they are doing – especially if you talk in their language. It’s the same as when you visit a foreign country – the people that are native will be very impressed and happy when you demonstrate a knowledge of their language and customs – it’s simple – it shows respect and a desire to communicate.

Do you have some interesting ways of working with directors? Do you use the story in interesting ways?