Alain Mayrand is now offering private on-on-one film composition lessons over Skype.
Alain has a master’s degree in composition, is composer in residence for the Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra, has composed for over 20 productions including the full orchestral score for the animated feature film “The Legend of Silk Boy” starring international star Jackie Chan.
Find out more about the opportunity to study with an experienced, working film composer
Pixar is doing something right, we all know that. I mean, 9 movies in a row that are big financial hits?
So what are they doing? Lee Unkrich, director of Toy Story 3 put it best right here.
“It’s important that nobody gets mad at you for screwing up,” says Lee Unkrich, director of Toy Story 3. “We know screwups are an essential part of making something good. That’s why our goal is to screw up as fast as possible.”
Creativity, or the act of coming up with something new and good, requires that you play around with ideas without the fear of making mistakes.
So how does that translate to the whole purpose of this blog: getting the score?
I can’t think of anything else right now and I have work to do, but I thought this was a great, great article with a very great message about creativity.
Movies are expensive and people get tense, and the more tense you are the less creative you get because you worry about it being good.
Pixar understands that, they allow their people to be creative and that means making mistakes. It is part of their process and the result? $500 million average gross per movie.
AND happy employees!
Here is a video that will explain what it takes to get the most out of your composer, and any other creative type you hire.
This is one of the most exciting videos I have seen in a while. It explains things that goes against the common approach of more money=better results.
Actually, it was found that giving more money gave poorer results.
So check it out, it’s worth it.
One thing that became clear while working on Silkboy was that melody and the function of a scene are intertwined.
Some scenes are more important than others in a movie: some scenes are big, important, flashy scenes, while others are transitory, functional scenes that take you from point A to point B so that the story makes sense.
Both of course are important and part of storytelling, and very often the skill of actors and directors shine the brightest in making those functional scenes become interesting and alive and not simply functional.
Since Silkboy was animated, that meant wall to wall music, and I had to navigate these transitional scenes musically. For advice I turned to the master of themes, John Williams, especially the Harry Potter and Indiana Jones films, both of which had a similar musical approach to the score I was writing.
The bottom line is this:
Giving a big thematic moment to a transitional scene goes against the grain. It is better to write transitional music instead, e.g.: a bridge in a song, or an episode in a fugue or invention.
The transition scene can use secondary musical material, development of main material or simply a sequence (a musical one) or something that leads to the next scene. It is a case where musical structure again supports film structure!
Cheers,
Alain
For the next little while I will write about what I learned working on the project I recently completed: The Legend of Silk Boy.
First item will be something I learned from the director, David Liu.
David truly left me to my own devices during this project. He had a very different approach than most directors in that he would not get involved much during the music production.
There was no temp track to deal with and David did not impose any stylistic demands on me. I mean, we saw eye to eye as to what the score should be; and orchestral fantasy score.
Still, when I sent him mockups he only twice offered a different idea, to which I promptly agreed, but the rest of the time he would say “you are the expert.”
Once in a while I would get a phone call where he would ask me what my reason for doing my musical choice. I would explain and he would then just say “very good” and move on to another topic.
I was not used to this from a director, but once I understood how David worked and that my cues were getting accepted with trust in my abilities, it felt like I was set free in a field: the elation of fresh air and freedom!
The net result was that I felt my ideas were respected, that my contribution to the project was valuable, that I wasn’t going to write music that would instantly be rejected. Because of this I was able to invest myself 110% into every single note I wrote. I felt like I was allowed to me myself and do the best that I could.
Let’s face it, composers always do the best they can (at least I do) but when you are constantly second guessing the director and the producers, and work with fear and doubt, you are careful, and being careful rarely leads to all out effort, which rarely leads to your best work.
It’s just normal.
During the four days of the orchestral recording sessions I got to spend a lot of time with David, and I asked him about his approach. This was his answer:
Part of my job as a director, as I see it, is to pick the right people for the job. It is only if I didn’t pick the right person that I have to meddle and interfere and ask for changes.
So I am very careful in the people I choose, and then I give them the environment and space to do their best work.
And my best work I did.
Thanks David,
Alain
Hey there, I got offered to write a guest post at the popular film composer website Score Cast.
I wrote a post about finding form during spotting.
Alain
Guess what, M Night Shyamalan doesn’t use temp scores! He gets the composer involved before they shoot.
That’s what I like to see!
One thing that music can do is voice the reaction of a character or even the audience.
Generally speaking, whenever we experience an event it usually takes a second or so to register and then form a reaction.
Being scared has two steps: First we are startled and process the information, then we scream and run. These do not happen simultaneously.
This is a simple example and a psychological truism that can be applied to any event.
Here is an example from Finding Nemo.
I am sure you remember this scene: Dory and Marlin, Nemo’s father have been chased by an angler fish and the screen has just gone white and Marlin thinks he’s dead he’s dead he died he’s dead.
He opens his eyes, we see the angler fish stuck behind the diving goggles, he pauses as he registers what just happened and then starts a little celebration dance along with victorious music.
The victorious music did not begin immediately on the cut, as soon as we see the angler fish, but rather waits for us and Marlin to first understand what happened.
The music then starts as a reaction, following the reaction of both the main character and the audience.
Seems obvious and straight-forward once you think of it, but many times I have seen the score jump the gun and follow the cuts rather than the emotional beats in the scene.
You may not even notice it really, but it dilutes the emotional impact of the scene.
How often can you change moods and how quickly?
That was the question that I posed myself as I worked on this film, and so I looked at the master John Williams for advice, especially his cartoony Indiana Jones scores, including my favourite of the four Indy scores: The Temple of Doom.
The answer is: pretty damn quick.
There are some scenes, like that one in the airplane when the pilots and leave them to crash, or when they are leaving the Indian village to start their journey to Pankot Palace, where the music there is fragmented, changing from theme to theme very quickly, only presenting a bit of one theme then a bit of the other.
I have also realized that this type of fragmented, stop-and-go music happens in scenes that are preparation for action.
And so yesterday I scored a scene that presented many things quickly; running, despair, sadness, reunion, meeting and comedy, all in the span of like 40 seconds or so.
It was a transitory scene that is leading to the longer sections of the ending.
At first I admit I tried to play through the scene and it didn’t work. But when I watched the completed cue with the image, I knew it didn’t work, but I also knew why and how to fix it.
So I followed every part of the scene; started quick and breathless and a bit funny, sad and h0llow winds, then romantic strings have a quick swell (presenting two themes in counterpoint) and then a quick descent into humour before stopping right before the punch line.
This might sound schizophrenic, but here’s the paradox;
How cool is that!
A new article in Variety online hits the nail on the head about the modern state of film scoring. One of the best, most succinct pieces I have read on the subject.
The I ask you, what kind of director are you? One that realizes the power that music and melody can have on the emotional response to your film, or one that thinks no one cares anyway.
Would Psycho have been Psycho, Jaws been Jaws, Indiana Jones been so exciting and The Magnificent Seven been as magnificent without the music?
No. I am sure of it. No.
Oh, they would still have been good films, but music is that magic ingredient that makes everything come alive. Steven Spielberg was right, music is the soul of a movie, and to capture that soul you need a special kind of composer, not someone who, as Richard Bellis says in the Variety Article “selects music.”
You need a composer.