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| AFX Industrial (film scores) |
Today I'm going to take a brief look at the way highly repetitive scores (such as the recent Prometheus score) enhance an audience's enjoyment of a film. It seems that repetition would bore the audience surely? But no, in fact quite the opposite is true ...
Radio Repeats
How many times have you heard a song on the radio and thought to yourself: 'I never want to hear that song ever, ever again!' I have. In fact I often fantasize about waking up 200 years in the future and not recognizing ANY of the music - for a composer this scenario would be absolute bliss! But I'm sure that even then, after a while I would still seek the comfort of a piece of music I knew. If only to console me as I wept about it being 2212 ... and that everyone and everything I knew was now gone, forever.
Regarding radio play I do often wonder why a DJ voraciously repeats the same 30 year old pieces over and over again with no hint of irony. Then I got to thinking that maybe I only started to like the tracks I heard on the radio through familiarity. So did this mean I actually liked the music? I mean the DJ chose the music it wasn't my choice. And, if I did like the music (but only through familiarity) then that means I probably wouldn't have consciously chosen that music at all! Which left me with a bigger question (go with me here) and that question was ... If I could chose the music I liked what music would I actually like? Hmm.
For familiarity to have any effect a lot of repetition is needed. Ennio Morricone, a master of this takes a simple theme, expands it, contracts it, has it playing as source music on a radio in a bar - anywhere he can get his theme screen time he does. But, the art of scoring lies in disguising it so the audience are only overtly aware of the theme when the composer desires it. Of course the antithesis of this is the 'iPod on shuffle' score, please see my thoughts on this in a recent blog here.
Familiarity within a score is the key to unlocking emotion within your audience. You're passionate about your film right? You want to make people feel something and remember something yes? Well I can tell you from an audience point of view, random and disconnected pieces of music always fail to evoke emotion, I know this because I am the audience.
Ultimately, think about how much you like being at home, surrounded by all of those familiar things, in many cases you want to evoke this kind of feeling within your audience, not in a literal but in an applied sense. For instance, the SAW series is highly repetitive in terms of its content and that is the main reason why audiences find it so satisfying ... Of course I'm hoping it doesn't remind you too much of your own home ;0) that would be a little weird. But, as a film maker you'll know that familiarity and the feeling of 'going home' are among the best emotions to constantly strive for within your cinematic language - and your score is a great place to start.
Familiarity Within the Score
In a nutshell as a composer you have ninety minutes to make an impression on your audience, two hours if you are really lucky. Effectively my audience are listening to radio Hëwitt for a couple of hours and I'm the DJ and I need them to like my score ... I also know that 80% of the audience would never normally listen to the genre of music they are hearing behind the film they are watching. So I use the same weapon that the DJs use - familiarity.For familiarity to have any effect a lot of repetition is needed. Ennio Morricone, a master of this takes a simple theme, expands it, contracts it, has it playing as source music on a radio in a bar - anywhere he can get his theme screen time he does. But, the art of scoring lies in disguising it so the audience are only overtly aware of the theme when the composer desires it. Of course the antithesis of this is the 'iPod on shuffle' score, please see my thoughts on this in a recent blog here.
Familiarity within a score is the key to unlocking emotion within your audience. You're passionate about your film right? You want to make people feel something and remember something yes? Well I can tell you from an audience point of view, random and disconnected pieces of music always fail to evoke emotion, I know this because I am the audience.
Prometheus - The Horn Motif
So let's go back to the title of this blog and the Prometheus score. If by the end of Prometheus every revelation and every epiphany wasn't punctuated by that horn motif, I would have felt emotionally short changed and left the cinema feeling unsatisfied. It is exactly that constant repetition that sucks an audience in. Conversely, unconsidered key changes or extraneous music can burst that bubble of satisfaction you have worked so hard to build, resulting in the audience detaching from your film. For an in depth look at how this is handled please read my recent blog on music supervision.Ultimately, think about how much you like being at home, surrounded by all of those familiar things, in many cases you want to evoke this kind of feeling within your audience, not in a literal but in an applied sense. For instance, the SAW series is highly repetitive in terms of its content and that is the main reason why audiences find it so satisfying ... Of course I'm hoping it doesn't remind you too much of your own home ;0) that would be a little weird. But, as a film maker you'll know that familiarity and the feeling of 'going home' are among the best emotions to constantly strive for within your cinematic language - and your score is a great place to start.
Great post. I never thought of the "familiarity" aspect before. I can think of songs I "grew" to like. I didn't like a song when I first heard it and after hearing it a zillion times on the car radio, in stores, waiting at the doctors office, etc I began singing it.
ReplyDeleteI think you can use this information even in a short book trailer. I should take note for the next time I build one.
Thanks Crystal, I always find that the most successful music in terms of impact and sales is music that sounds very similar to something else. Have you heard the old adage: "If you want to be original ... then don't expect to make a living"? There's a lot of truth in that statement even if admitting it hurts our artistic sensibilities a little!
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