Presentation script

“ How Musical Scores Influence Mood and Atmosphere In Film ”

Slide 1

Projector:

Pictures of music related images are displayed along with the title of the presentation “How Musical Scores Influence Mood and Atmosphere in Film”

Presenter:

The main focus of this presentation will be exploring the question of:

“How Musical Scores Influence Mood and Atmosphere In Film”

In this presentation I will cover many different topics such as how composers work with directors and producers to score a film as well as how composers play with their audience, the importance of music in film, music theory and mood, the cultural conditioning of music, different genres, what makes scary music sound scary and finally about how Leitmotifs are used

Slide 2

Projector: A picture of John Williams is shown alongside the title of the slide reading “About the Composers. How Film Composers Work” Then below the title records the sections a composer goes trough while composing

Presenter:

So what is the basic structure a composers follows to score a film ? Well firstly they have to meet up with the director and usually watch a rough cut of the film and implement time codes in order to collaborate and think of ideas, it’s also to get an idea for what kind of music the director wants for the scenes they are watching. Next the composer would start writing he felt fit the brief, this would be around 50 – 100 mins worth of music. Musicians would then learn the music and play it during this time the music would be recorded. Then the score is shown to the director to see if he/she likes it, if not the process repeats itself.

Main Points:

- Composer meets director - Time codes are set - Composer writes music- Musicians record the music - Process can repeat

Slide 3

Projector: An image of composer John Keane is shown next to the title slide “Composer’s Relationship With The Director” Then below the main points of the slide are shown

Presenter:

Next I will talk about how composer’s work with directors and producers in more detail. In this video with composer John Keane he sheds some light on the differences between composing music for films and for TV shows, since for TV Shows there might not even be a rough cut yet so composers have to work of what they have been told about the production. He also talks about how producers can also get in on this process and how things can drastically change if the producer doesn’t like the score. He also talks about how some directors work in their own ways, as some might just issue some time codes to the composer while others give the composers more free rein over what they are scoring.

Main points:

- How composing for TV and Film are different - How producers get in the mix- Some directors work in individual ways

Slide 4

Projector: An image of Emperor Palpatien is shown to the right just next to the title of the slide which reads “How Composers Play With The Audience” and below that is the main points of the slide

Presenter:

Now onto the more theory side of music. When pianists started providing the score for old silent films, they would use certain diminished and augmented chords when evil villain characters showed up the very opposite was used for the hero characters using happier major chords and triumphant chord progressions to subconsciously tell the audience who to root for and so the techniques are still used today. A great example of this is the emperors reveal scene in Star Wars Episode 6 when his signature theme “The Imperial March” plays, as without saying a word the music conveys to us that this character is a man of great power and evil.

Main Points:

- Composers use certain techniques in their music to subconsciously make us feel certain emotions and convey information about characters and scenes

Slide 5

Projector: To the right there is a video I have prepared showcasing the point of this slide and that is the “Importance of Music in Film” Beneath this title is my main bullet points for the slide

Presenter:

To further illustrate my point I have prepared a clip to show how important the right score can be to a scene, so I will take the Emperors first appearance scene and show you it three times on with the original score, another with a slightly fitting score, and a final showing with a completely unfitting score. *Show clip*

Main points:

- The original scene is really fitting - The scene with Bach in the background kind of works but its not tailored to the scene - The final scene with Alestorm playing doesn’t fit at all

Slide 6

Projector: To the right two pictures are shown, one of a metronome and the other of an acoustic guitar, next to these pictures in the title of the slide reading “Music Theory and Its’ Effect on Mood”, underneath this title shows my key points

Presenter:

Continuing on with the music theory theme I would like to talk about how Major and Minor keys can really affect the tone of your music. You can take an existing piece of music and transpose it into a different key to get a completely different sound, turning it from a happy song to a sad one of vice versa. Tempo is also a big factor in music as a fast tempo song can give a sense of urgency since the music is going so fast and the opposite is true as well, as if the song has a super slow tempo it can sound really chilled out.

Main points:

- Tempo can change the feel of a song- Transposing a song from a major key to a minor key can give you a drastically different

feeling song

Slide 7

Projector: To the right you can see a picture of some piano keys and to the left of that picture is the title reading “Cultural Conditioning of Music” and the beneath the title is the key points of the slide

Presenter:

Now why do we find music sad? we identify some music a sad because of all the other music we have grown up listening to, we hear slow minor songs coupled with sad scenes or sad lyrics and we then start to associate that type of music with the emotion of being sad or down. This is called cultural conditioning and it plays a role in all the music we listen too.

Main points:

- Some music sounds sad because of cultural conditioning which is when you associate sad things with what’s typically found in “sad” music

Slide 8

Projector: To the left you can see an image of a lady enjoying some music while wearing some headphones and above that the title of the slide is shown “How Different genres affect our mood” and under that is the key points for the slide

Presenter:

So we have established why we perceive sad music as being sad, this is also true for all genres of music as they can have an effect on you in different ways, for example Delta Blues can calm you with its slow 12 bar structure and rock and punk can get you exited and energetic because of the high tempos and loud electric instruments involved in the genre

Main Points:

- Different genres of music can make you feel different emotions based on their composition

Slide 9

Projector: To the right you can see an image of the original poster for the movie Jaws and above that the title of the slide is shown “Suspense, tension and scary music ” and under that is the key points for the slide

Presenter:

Now tracking back a bit to when we talked about how music can sound sad to us there is also ways to make something sound inherently scary to us like the classic scene in Psycho where the violin screeching noise Is used and it makes us feel stressed out and unsafe also the non-liner alarm sounds can unsettle you mentally so the composer really knew how to trigger a response from a viewer

Main points:

- Certain noises can unsettle us biologically and mentally and some composers use this to their advantage

Slide 10

Projector: To the right you can see an image Marlon Brando in the Godfather and above that the title of the slide is shown “Leitmotif’s” and under that is the key points for the slide

Presenter:

And for my last topic of discussion I will talk about Leitmotifs and this is an incredibly useful tool in a composer’s arsenal as a recurring melody can be used for many things such as foreshadow a future event of maybe tease the audience into thinking something so it’s super useful. It originated around the 30’s and 40’s and it is comprised of three parts: Short length – a small musical hook is used so that it’s easily recognisable and memorable; Distinctive – it must stand out so it can make an impression on the audience instead of just washing over them; Consistency – the music needs to remain very similar when it crops up again so people can recognise it other wise the effect would be lost.

Main points:

- Leitmotifs are useful for a number of things but they should be kept the same whenever the should recur and they need to be catchy

Slide 11

Projector: On this final slide there is a small box of text reading “Thank you for listening” with a large treble clef next to it

Presenter:

Thank you for listening to my presentation.