Last Film Music Blog.. I'm so sad

We watched Poltergeist and I thought it was a really good movie. There were some unusual orchestrations. There were also subtle mickey mousings when ghosts appear. The Stars Bangles Banner from the television was mostly source music. Music seems to be another character just like in the movie Close encounters of the third kind. It’s very interesting that lots of films use music as a character when associated with things that are out of ordinary or unknown. Every time the little girl showed up, they would play innocent, sweet melody and then it would turn into dissonant. The music was creepy because of the use of harps and fluttering strings. They played a lot of glissandos. It made me realize how in classical music, composers wrote lullaby’s in a creepy way. I never understood that until now.

There was definitely cultural clichés. Child like tune in a major key is used for the innocence of childhood. Most composers use that as a dark undertone; terror and child-like innocence. People associate things and make it part of our culture. Bernard Herrman uses weird orchestration. The music was mostly dark music with strange instruments.

I started to see Matrix in a new way. I never noticed the sound design. In the Matrix gun ballet, everything is in rhythm. Everything is done like music. Sound effects and music are one. Silence is used very effective too. Music contributes enormously to the pace of the movements. It is heavily based on rhythm and percussive instruments. Emil Richards has the biggest percussion collection in the world.

Technology has changed so much where it takes less time and less effort to write scores for music. All recordings here are now samples. Computer takes measurements of sound waves. Computer takes a measurement 4000 times a second. A computer technician can manipulate them. They just need to change 0 and 1. That will change the sound.

The style in music has also changed since the 1970s. The style right now is called minimalism, which is very mathematical and very hard to listen to. The famous composer of minimalism is Philip Glass. His music is repetitive and can get really boring. There is a lot of ostinato and synthesizer. The other thing that is the in style is that composers are not writing melodies.

I thought Up was great! After taking this film class, I learned to appreciate that movie and the film score. I also learned to appreciate the credits and the music after. My favorite part in the movie was when the grandpa comes down the stairs and Habanara is playing. The mickey mousing is very sublt with the dorm slamming in the end and ect. I thought it was funny because it was such an ironic piece to put in the movie. It really made me laugh. I’m so glad I took this class. Film industry is a whole different world. I am now interested in films I’ve never had interest in. Thanks Dr. Berry!!

Film Music #3

The Day the Earth Stood Still was a really good movie. They used 2 theremins, which were electronic instruments that make eerie sounds. The music was very stereotypical in the sense that the theremins would come out every time the alien man popped up. The music was pretty dramatic and gave subliminal emotions that were occurring at the moment. It was the composer Herrmann’s philosophy of creating custom-made instrumentation for each film assignment.

During the 1950s, the movie industry introduced the 3-D motion picture experience. This was short-lived because the audience did not like to wear cardboard eyeglasses every time they watched a 3-D motion picture. Also, the attendance for the movies started to decrease greatly because of televisions at home. Less people went to the movies because it was affordable to watch at home.

The style of music started to change. It was becoming more jazzy, rock and pop music. Music was becoming more background music rather than foreground. I don’t personally like pop music being in the background. I feel like when the music has less depth, the movie itself has less depth. The Symphonic music made a simple movie full of emotion and complication. It captured the audience in full imagination while pop music only brings recollection of a memory of childhood. American Graffiti had so much pop music. To me, the movie was boring and only reminded me of high school memories. There was pop music playing everywhere! It was like part of the air that they breathed. They could not keep away from music playing constantly.

In the Heat of the Night had lots of blues tunes. I really liked this movie. The tunes in the movie brought lots of cultural depth.

Film Music #2

The Film industry in the late 1920s to 1933 was all about singing, dancing, and talking. I did not know how big musicals were back then. The two primary approaches in Early Sound Films were quite innovative for that time period. The first approach was to have music throughout the entire production and the second approach was to use music only as source music. Music throughout the entire production was known as “wall-to-wall” music. Top Hat movie had much source music. One example would be the orchestras shown in and out of the concerts. Hollywood musicals were a popular genre. This type of film became prominent during the Great Depression as means for escapism. People needed to get away from the harsh realities of everyday life. I think more than the film itself, music has so much power to the heart in soothing and bringing positive or negative emotions. It’s interesting how music back then, even in their humors, had more depth then we do now.

Even though the country was going through such hardships, music seemed to be growing richly through Film music. Symphonic film score became popular in the 1930s. People were afraid in the early 1930s that the music would drown out the actors talking. The three godfathers of film composers are Alfred Newman, Max Steiner, and Dimitri Tiomkin. There were few Russian classical composers as well such as Dimitri Shostakovich (whom I love), Sergei Prokofiev, and Alexander Nevsky. During the film in class about how symphonic film music was created and shot really surprised me. The level of musicianship back then was so much more emphasized than now. The Newman system is punch through the filmstrip to show when there is a change of rhythm or a start and go. I thought that was the most brilliant invention ever. I am so interested in the Film industry. I would love to intern or work at a place like that.

Casablanca was very moving. There were lots of strong emotions going on through out the movie. I realized it wouldn’t have been that strong if there were no music. The music functioned to force attention to what’s going to happen on the screen. This kind of music came a lot when Rick and Ilsa were together alone. Every change of emotion or intentional feeling was portrayed in the music during their silence in thought. Casablanca was a great movie. But it was hard to focus on the music because of so much going on in the screen.

Film Music #1

Film Music class is so fascinating. Wednesday’s lecture made me realize that after this class is over, I’m going to start analyzing everything! The film The Battleship Potemkin was a very interesting film. I would have thought the music was background always but I learned that it is foreground when there aren’t any words. The music is telling the story instead of the actors speaking or having subtitles. This movie made me feel uncomfortable the whole time because of the irresolution of the music. Visually, I thought this movie was created so well. It fascinated me how well the composer wrote the music and knew how to move the audience as well.

Although Dr. Berry always talked about Wagner, I didn’t really understand why he was so great. To me, Wagner’s music is so vulgar and loud. It is almost obnoxious. But now I see what a great composer he was. He really was a Beethoven and a Shakespeare. It is amazing how fast the film industry grew and how important music is in the film industry. The Jazz Singer was quite interesting. It started out almost like an opera with an overture. It’s amazing how film was heavily influenced by operas. The music in The Jazz Singer started to have more roles as sound was added to the subtitles. Although background and foreground were always there, source music became established. It seems as sound is coming in, there is more creative ideas and innovative ways to play with the music in films.

Singing in the Rain was just fantastic. You can see on the necks of the singers that they are really singing. This movie played around with source and foreground. Background music was mostly to accompany the singers as they sang or danced. The scene where the music director is dancing and singing, “Make them laugh” (?) had a lot of source music. Just like how they tried to make the trumpet noise in The Battleship Potemkin sound exactly as if the trumpet player was playing. When the music director in Singing in the Rain fell on his hip, the music would have a drum go boom. Source music seemed to me more in use in this movie to make the comic parts more effective. During the sentimental moments, the actors were either singing or there would be a music background. Most of the time, the music for the sentimental parts had more melody and lyricism. The rhythm was more simple than complicated. It was a really good contrast. The music had more sound and complicated rhythm when there was action and lyrical during the sentimental moments.