Quentin Tarrantino on his use of music in film.
I don’t normally use original score. I don’t trust any composer to do it… The music is so important. The idea of paying a guy and showing him your movie at the end and then he comes over it; I would never give anybody that kind of [...]
[Excerpt from Alain Mayrand's blog.]
I just completed a dialogue scene which had a difficult mix of moods to navigate; emotional discussion/sharing of wisdom interspersed with some slap-stick humour. It was tough, but I pulled it off.
Another thing I wanted to write about here was pacing. It something i am very conscious of and that makes [...]
Previously my boys and I counted how many times the themes appeared in the first act of the first Harry Potter film.
Yesterday, we did the same thing for Jurassic Park, but this time, we did it on a micro-scale: we counted how many times the main theme comes in during the helicopter’s flight over the [...]
Marc Shaiman used to write film scores, and he was great at it. Fantastic! He is an intensely talented musician who is now working on Broadway.
He is the kind of musician films would benefit from, and have. So why did he choose to leave? Why does he feel fortunate to be on Broadway?
Here’s why: Whatch [...]
How many times do we state a theme in a film? Once? Twice? Most director really don’t pay attention to this, and that’s fine, because I do (and your film composer should, too) so they don’t have to.
Some films take more melody than others, such as fantasy films, animation and similar genres, but for the [...]
In “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” there is a scene where Indy and his father go the get the diary back and, in the process, meet up with Hitler.
That scenes begins with the score functioning as source music. John Williams wrote music that an unseen brass band would be playing in the square as [...]
OK, you are a filmmaker and getting ready to listen to a cue from your composer. This is not an easy thing and many filmmakers listen to demos the wrong way.
Here are some important things to remember as you listen.
1. This is a demo
As a filmmaker, how do you listen to a demo?
Listen to [...]
My son was watching an animated cartoon of his. It was a direct to DVD superhero thing from Marvel, I won’t give the name.
It’s pretty good actually, story-wise, and we bought the DVD for my two boys to watch. It also has some of my favourite super-heroes from when I grew up represented in a [...]
Hello All,
This is what I wrote today on my Composition Journal, where I am writing about my work scoring a feature animated film.
I am currently working on the musical themes for the film, looking for inspiration everywhere and jotting down a ton of ideas.
As I do this work I always refer to a concept for [...]
{This blog post comes from my website blog where I am keeping of diary of my work on an animated feature film. You can view this blog here.}
Alright! I have been waiting for this day since I signed on to this project! Time to write some orchestral underscore!
This project will have advantages and challenges that [...]