Classy Chassis Car Show – Photo by Jay Lee (baldheretic)
Recently, I had a meeting with a composer friend who had recently set up a drum kit in his studio. We wanted to make a casual night of experimenting with mic placement, to see what kind of sounds we could get with his set up. For non-studio geeks this all sounds pretty academic and dry, so while I was explaining to another friend what I was up to that night, I realized I could use an analogy based on her interest in photography: “It’s like lighting a scene”, I said, “the drum kit is our subject, and we are experimenting with different mic positions, just as you would have different lighting setups in a photo shoot.” It then struck me that you can actually draw pretty compelling analogies across the board between Film and Music.
Lighting = Microphones: moving microphones around changes the ’scene’ and how it’s perceived in a similar fashion to lighting in film.
Camera = Microphones + Mixing board/Recording device: the mic’s act as the lens of the camera, and the film stock/digital capture is like the recording device that captures the performance, be it analog tape or digital.
Set/Location = Studio/Reverb: the set is the environment which is captured, in which the performances live, and so it is with the recording studio. Alternately, ’spaces’ can be created using reverbs after the performance is captured.
Actors = Musicians: Actors interpret the screenplay, musicians the musical score. Actors use their bodies and voices to create the performance, musicians use their bodies and their instruments. Similarly, Voice/Dialogue = Instruments/Music.
Script = Musical Score, and Screenwriter = Composer
Director = Composer/Conductor: the analog of the director’s job may get split on the scoring stage, where the conductor may not be the composer. However, the conductor is working to realize the composer’s vision, and thus might be seen as an Assistant Director.
D.O.P. = Scoring Engineer: the D.O.P. controls how the scene will be captured and how it will look – the Scoring Engineer provides the same service using microphones, a mixing board, and recording medium.
CGI = Samples/Synthesis: both are simulations of reality, but are intended to elicit the same emotion from the audience as would an ‘organic’ source.
And here we come to an interesting point.
There is a problem with my last analog.
In order to understand this, we have to understand how a sample works. Sampling is primarily used in the world of film/media scoring to re-produce the sounds of instruments which a production may not have the time or money to afford. The most common are used in place of the symphonic orchestra, and lately to replace performances of rare/unusual or so-called ‘ethnic’ instruments – such as the Duduk, which has become very popular, but for which competent players are both hard to find and expensive to hire. Instead, a sample library is created by a company, which hires a player and/or ensemble to be recorded playing individual notes through all dynamic ranges, with as many effects and nuances as possible. These are then programmed for one or more commercially available ’samplers’ – devices (hardware or software) used to trigger these sounds using a keyboard or other MIDI device. There are often layers to each note, so if I load a brass section sample, and hit the key softly, it will trigger the sample of the section playing that note softely. If I hit it harder, the corresponding louder, fuller, brassier sounding sample is triggered. You can see the implications – with a professional rig and sample libraries I can create, for a much smaller cost, a score consisting of a full orchestra, 100 person choir, and a Taiko drum ensemble, which will sound very much like the real thing. Almost.
So whazza problem?
Since we are looking at analogs, imagine this. A filmmaker is creating a CGI set for her film, so she accesses her ’sample library’ of set pieces. She looks at an apartment block, a rural scene (with an option ‘gently flowing river’ plug-in), and from a more exotic location package, the ‘Downtown Tokyo’ sample. Drag and drop, bam – there’s her scene. Then, it’s to the ‘Actors’ folder, where she finds ‘Hollywood Hunks’ and chooses number 6 of the set a 8. This one is a brilliantly recorded sample of Brad Pitt, and has 168 facial expression layers and 97 ‘physical actions’, and a full range of syllables and consonants, allowing for the construction of any dialogue, in a range of emotional states (Brad-mad, Brad-sad, and Brad-glad). She continues this way until she is ready to start ’sequencing’ her film, adding in her script with it’s dialogue and actions.
If every film was made this way, we would eventually be looking at the same ’samples’ of everything. There would be no nuance, no dynamics, no edge, no life. It would be a pre-packaged, slickly packaged and homogeneous mass – the same Pitt-sample with the same Tokyo-background sample saying it’s dialogue with the same pre-determined range of inflections. Sure, many films use the standard stock footage of the New York fly-over to establish location, but we are talking about what amounts to an entire film made only of stock footage and stock acting.
No filmmaker I know of would accept this, and yet, more and more, music made of ’samples’ is accepted as fulfilling its important role as an emotional alchemical substance in film and media.
The Challenge
There are, of course, reasons why this situation exists, primarily having to do with time and money. But is this good enough? I think that we all need to begin to think more creatively about how we work, and what we produce. We need to begin imagining situations where it is both financially and within the constraints of time, possible to make supporting musical products which fulfill and exceed their requirements, and which have a real, tangible, unique, and effective signature. Everyone is copying everyone elses copy of something – we need to do better. Not every film needs a gigantic orchestral score that it may not be able to afford – can the same emotional goals be achieved using a different method? I strongly believe they can – and it will be to everyone’s advantage. There are ways of working quickly and cost-effectively to deliver music which will add tremendous value to the production – a unique proposition to the filmmaker who receives a score that works, and sounds unlike any other.
