Tag Archives: Film scoring

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Forward Motion – The WIP Rescore of a Dune 2021 Battle Scene

Greetings all, thanks for stopping by.

In my quest to become better at composing music-to-picture (film music composition), I set out to find a short film clip to compose to. The exercise was two-fold in that I had small Logic X projects set aside as ideas that could be used as film cues or similar. In reviewing them a few weeks back, I came across one entitled “1st Encounter”, which I first composed, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was getting underway in April 2020.. The track, I thought, was reminiscent of something you may here during some sort of battle scene. Being only 28 seconds long, I began to work with various arrangements of it while thinking of different science fiction battle scenes and how this track could possibly fit.

After that exercise, I decided to search Youtube in hopes of finding some footage that was similar to what I’d been imagining. Searching on a combination of keywords such as “encounter”, “first encounter”, “battle scene” and similar, soon proved to be exhausting…until I came across videos about Dune 2021. It didn’t take me long afterwards to find a scene what would pretty much be perfect for the length of “1st Encounter”. The scene is the beginning of the Atreides vs Harkonnen & Sardaukar battle footage. I removed the initial music during the ships approach, then further worked with the tracks in “1st Encounter” by applying track automation where necessary and adding other elements to help describe the emotion of the scene. I call it a work in progress (WIP) because although the scene is short (34 seconds), I have additional, but minor, ideas that I could try to further flesh the composition out, however I think I’ll leave it as is. The result is below.

It turned out to be useful exercise in a number of ways but, most importantly, it’s further motivated me to continue with these rescore exercise to improve myself as I take this journey. I hope you enjoyed it. Comments are welcome.

Please feel free to subscribe to my YouTube page if you’re interested in more.

Be well, stay safe.

Doug

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film scoring – the journey – day 9 – Good vibes, next moves…

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Greetings readers…

Yet another Sunday night is upon us. I had a good weekend, despite this mad heat (which will remain in the upper 90’s throughout the week.). That said, it was productive on the scoring front. Episode 2 is done and submitted to the movie producer for review. So far, looks like she likes, so it looks like the title sequence, Episode 1, and Episode 2 are a wrap!

Talked to the film’s director this evening as well. Seeing as though his company is juggling multip;e projects at once, it was good to have a few minutes to chat with him on the process of music submission (at least from a clarification standpoint). The result of the conversation pretty much aligns with the result fo my research, so we’re definitely good to go.

I also got a chance (finally) to interact with two of the actors/actresses in the series, via social media (Instagram) this weekend. It was good exchanging comments with them after watching them so much via video…both had mad talent through and through. Looking forward to interacting with the rest of the cast.

Well, while awaiting the next episode to begin work on, it;ll be time to d a few things:

  • Start work on my next EP
  • Register my publishing entity, Sky Songs Music Publishing, with BMI
  • Continue work on me and partner’s next CD
  • Work on the guitar tracks for a cover of “Fever” by female vocalist in the UK
  • Work on guitar tracks from Todd Kelley’s next EP, Seasoned Veteran
  • Etc, etc…….

    • We’ll see how of THAT goes. 🙂

    ‘Til next time….

    peace,
    Fresh!

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    film scoring – the journey – day 8 – First submission & feedback

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    11:00pm – Greetings readers…

    Another weekend gone… 🙁 In any event, it was short, but productive. I finally submitted the rough cue music embedded in the video for the director’s review. Had a short telecon and pleasingly got the thumbs up on the title sequence music AND the scene music in Episode 1. With a slight suggested change for the title sequence track and one for the episode, I’m happy with the results, being a newcomer to all of this.

    This evening was spent working on music for episode 2. As mentioned in the first post of this series, the closing scene is comprised of something I, well….never had to compose music for – let’s just leave it at 🙂 Good news is, I think I have something that fits it. I think I have one more scene I need music for and I should be ready to submit this episode as well…we’ll see.

    Anyway, this is a short update. I’m anticipating a long work week ahead, and to get into bed before midnight is probably best.

    Catch up soon…

    peace!
    Fresh

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    film scoring – the journey – day 6 – It’s Official (generally speaking)

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    Greetings readers…

    For the past two days, I’ve been in studio but have dont more learning and experimenting then actually getting this ideas I hear in my head out to be recorded. In the meantime, I know that when I submit initial tracks to the director and music supervisor for review, they’ll be going with what’s called a cue sheet. Part of the cue sheet has information regarding my publishing company name. Wait, I don’t have a publishing company name, until today (well, kinda). Today, after soliciting some suggestions from folk along the way, as well some considering some names I had already, I finally decided on one. The initial decision came from a friend, Tyvian Corry. Every time he hits me up on FB, he’ll usually start out by saying “‘Sup Sky Man?” So, he suggested that name after I did a post on my page about needing a name.

    I thought it was really cool, so I did a Google search on it earlier today to see what results it would bring up.Ironically a few came up. I still like it a lot, but wanted something more original that would bring up the least amount of search results (at best, none at all). I thought of SkyTunes, but that was taken. After a short time, it hit me, so I did a domain search to see if this name was taken as a dotcom. Surprisingly enough, it wasn’t, so that sealed the decision. I came home from work and registered the domain for two years. I also have a logo concept which I will flesh out and post soon. In any event, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, my music publishing entity: SkySongs Music Publishing. The website will be at skysongsmusic.com, so stay tuned in the coming months. The business structure will be a sole proprietorship in the state I live in. Under state law I don’t have to file for taxes, but will be registering the name at some point (I think). Next stop is to register the name with my PRO (performing rights organization), BMI.

    Incidentally, you may be wondering where Tyvian got the name “Sky Man”….hit me up and I’ll fill you in.

    peace,
    Fresh!

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    Film Scoring – The Journey – Day 5 – The Break/The Block

    MPC1000 in The Lab
    Greetings readers.
    6:35am, Monday Morning. I’ve been up since 4:30 am, trying to (re) effect this early morning, “get at the day” routine by getting into bed every night at a decent time. So far, it’s a good way to kick the week off.

    I’ve been in the studio for the last hour, getting some to-do tasks checked off. One of them was trying to get the right drum track feel for this third and last idea for the title sequence (theme music) for the web series I’m scoring too. I’ve done a fair amount of my own drum programming since the days of drum machines (of course, for my own tracks), but taking that approach here seems a bit daunting. I’m hearing something similar in feel to Crockett’s Theme (Miami Vice) but can’t get it out of my head to the recording part of it. My sample library is fairly large and I think I have something that may kickstart the idea quicker…we’ll see.

    I spent the last few days driving back and forth to Savannah, GA (including an overnight hotel stay). Left Thursday at noon, return Friday night at 8pm – a total of 20 hours or so of driving. Needless to say, it caught up with me by Saturday afternoon. By Saturday night, I was back at it for a little while – my son sat in on one of my sessions and asked me about the totality of the project. Being not one afraid to voice his suggestions, he listened to one of the ideas and suggested I try to mute a portion of a specific track until a certain part of what the video was showing. I’d not thought of that, but tried his suggestion and it didn’t sound to bad at all. It goes to show you that one never knows that another suggestion from someone removed from what you are doing, can turn out pretty good.

    As for the theme music, it’s time to concentrate translating this scene notes into actual audio ideas. Last week I finally created the cue sheets that I’ll be sending to the director once I get some initial cue and hit music for the scenes. She spied a session pic of me working on it in studio and replied “I know it’ll sound good, take your time”. You know my steelo is to stay ahead of the game, so…..

    Anyway, time to hit the road….have a a good one.

    Peace,
    Fresh!

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    Film Scoring – The Journey – Day 4 – Official Biz

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    Greetings….
    Saturday morning about 10:28am – rainy, but expected (glad I got the front and the rear lawn mowed). It’s been a busy work week so I’m glad the weekend is here, From a scoring standpoint, it was a bust though. Wednesday night I gave it ago, but starting at 10:15pm was to no avail, especially since I’s still learning Logic Pro X and can’t yet navigate it as quickly as with Logic Pr 9. I had an idea for this third and final submission idea for the theme music but I just couldn’t find what I wanted to quickly in the software. Add to that, I was having some unusual application freezes, which slowed the process down. About 10:40pm here comes the frustration and the fact I knew I had to get up at 5pm….oh well.

    Thursday was a bit different (though I didn’t actually get into the studio). The official contract came back signed from the director. Everything was agreed to, so that was cool. With that, she also sent me a private link to a demo her and the videographer/music supervisor put together. This demo was actually Episode 1 which she used for a quick presentation at her alma mater.The demo included not only some stock theme music but some cue music for a few scenes in the episode. What was cool about this was that the demo the supervisor chose as a place holder for the theme music was essentially the same idea I had recorded, so that let me know I was on the right track. In addition, cue music in for the scenes were essentially placed in the same place I chose, another sign of thinking in the same lane. All of that was encouraging, as the more you’re inline with the director’s vision for music the better.

    So, this weekend I’ll continue to work on cue music for Episode 2, but mainly focus on getting more familiar with Logic Pro X and incorporating the use of various plugins I have, and will use. Speed always helps in getting this type of creative job done.

    Quick shout out to a few friends who gave me some opinions (and examples) as answers to a question I had about what kind of music they would expect to hear in watching a certain scene. This type of scene I never thought about writing to because, despite seeing many “variations” of it, in TV shows and movies, I never paid attention to the music. “What kind of scene is it?”, you may ask…stay tuned to future blog posts, I’ll post and talk about the answer in the future.

    For now, peace….

    Fresh!

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    Film Scoring – The Journey – Day 3 – On and on….

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    Greetings readers. 12:28am Monday morning, and yes I work today (why do I do this to myself….?). Pressed forward a lttle more last night. I’m pretty much complete with the second idea for the film’s theme music. A third idea should cap it off for now and will allow time to discuss all three with the director in the near future.

    Last night it was back to going over notes on tracks for scenes in the first two episodes. As said before, I have ideas/cocepts for what I think will sound good, time to start recording this week and see how they manifest….should be interesting.

    This alarm clock will be going off before I know it, needless to say, this is a short post …. (now I’m hungry…sigh).

    Have a great week.

    Fresh!

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    Film Scoring – The Journey – Day 1 – The Background

    Blog Photo - Lab Movie Scoring

    Greetings readers, thanks for stopping by.

    This is the first of many planned posts that I’m sharing with you regarding my foray in to film scoring. I ope you come along for the ride. Most of you reading this post already know me as a musician, composer, songwriter, producer and home studio owner (for those of you that don’t, check the About Me page here on my website). That said, I’ll start this debut post with some back fill as to how I took the first step on this journey…bear with me.

    My first steps (or should I say crawl) took place about two years ago. My cousin asked me to score a 10 minute film that he and his friends shot. This film was to be submitted to an international film festival. I jumped at the opportunity because I had never done music-to-film before and figured, “Why not? It can’t be that hard”. After I started I found the complete opposite to be true. Couple that with the fact i was unemployed and constantly looking for a main 9-5 again, it didn’t work out.

    Fast forward to last year, my current PR gal, Felicia Hodges, turned me on to her cousin, who happens to be a screenwriter that has heard my releases and work in progress tracks on my Soundcloud account. Next thing I know, I’m being asked to score the music for her webseries which is already in production. I, being in a better space than I was with my previous try, jumped on it again. Doing so made me realize that, despite getting another crack at this, found it is no more easier than it was before.

    Scoring music to film is not like writing and producing music for yourself. That music for the film must be synergistic with the visuals that lie atop the music, so it helps convey the story in the way the screenwriter intends, as well as delivering the essence of what is going on at every place music is used to convey whatever is meant to be conveyed. That is no easy feat, but I have been told by mentor to “make it fun and enjoy what you’re doing: (more on him later).

    Prior to writing this, I’ve received rough video for the first two episodes as well as the title sequence (the opening video for each episode). I (as I usually take this logical approach) have been reading a lot articles and spending time collecting YouTube videos for reference. So far, surprisingly, the juices are flowing 🙂

    In these posts, I’ll go in to some detail about the composition tools I’m using (my music production friends will love that), as well my own feelings. I’m excited but I admit my confidence level is not where I wanted to be yet …guess I need to correlate this to learning how to ride a bile – gotta start off with training wheels.

    Much thanks in advance to my mentor, various composers and music producers on Facebook that were more than glad to spend time sharing their thoughts and advice – it’s highly appreciated – more of who they are is forthcoming,

    Last night I completed the first musical idea for the aforementioned title sequence and have an idea for another. My in-house creative consultant (bka wife) likes what she’s heard so far for that. As for the bridging music for the first two themes, I’ve got detailed notes written down in studio log…..let’s see if I can translate what I hear in my head to what everyone else will hear (and see) for the video. The challenge begins.

    In the next post, I’ll elaborate a little more on what’s been done and how, as well as the tech side of what I’m using, tool wise.

    Thanks for bearing with my “long windedness” and thanks for the read as well.

    Peace,
    Fresh