(SWEEPING ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)
Hey, I'm Linda. I'm Dan.
And this is What Is Music?
Today, we're going to show you how to score a film.
But first, a brief history of film and music.
(CRUNCHES) Mm.
(ORCHESTRAL FANFARE PLAYS)
LINDA: You might think that film scores are as old as time,
like popcorn, choc-tops and cheap Tuesdays.
But none of these things have been with film since the beginning.
It helps to just remember how young the film industry is.
It all started with the silent-film era more than 100 years ago.
It was hard to synchronise sound and pictures,
so most film music had to be played live,
in the theatre. (DRAMATIC PIANO MUSIC PLAYS)
If you went to see the latest Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton flick,
you might see someone in the corner,
banging out a score on a piano or an organ
to accompany the slapstick.
But film technology quickly evolved
and by the 1930s, the soundtrack -
literally a track of sound attached to the side of the celluloid -
was here to stay.
It was the 'Golden Age' of Hollywood,
Think big movies like Gone with the Wind and Casablanca.
(STIRRING ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)
Here's looking at you, kid.
Movie production was booming -
so much so that the bigger studios kept full orchestras on staff
to meet their music needs.
These scores were classical, lush, big and romantic.
This era marked the introduction of 'leitmotif' cinema,
which is basically a fancy German way of saying
that movies started to have re-occurring themes.
And that's not where the Teutonic influence stops.
In fact, early Hollywood film music
was heavily influenced by composers who fled the Nazis.
Nazis. I hate these guys.
And while music always aided in story-telling,
these scores were really beating you over the head with it.
(SNIPPETS OF MELODRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC PLAY)
And this was the norm until the '50s and '60s,
when filmmakers began to shy away from
the boldness and extravagance of a full orchestra,
instead favouring smaller ensembles
with more contemporary sounds.
(WHIP CRACKS) (ELECTRIC GUITAR PLAYS)
Ennio Morricone brought the electric guitar to the Western,
and incorporated unexpected sounds
like the crack of whips and choral grunts.
(SINGERS CHANT)
MAN: Aaagh!
Also during this time,
filmmakers started using popular music in their scores -
artists like Bob Dylan...
# Feel I'm knockin' upon Heaven's door... #
..Joni Mitchell...
# To ageing children come... #
..Simon & Garfunkel...
# Sounds of silence... #
..and, of course, the king of song,
Burt Bacharach.
# Raindrops are falling on my head
# They keep fallin'... #
DAN: By the late '70s,
the orchestral score was primed for its inevitable return,
with a vengeance.
Enter John Williams.
Your hero.
Everyone's hero!
(ORCHESTRAL FANFARE PLAYS)
What the hell's that?
Ah! Easy, Miss.
DAN: Williams and his contemporaries
were the kids who grew up with Golden Era orchestral scores,
and they were going to bring them back...
I'm Batman.
..better than ever.
(GRUNTS)
(OMINOUS ORCHESTRAL THEME PLAYS)
These fresh, young composers picked up
where the experts of old left off,
crafting with finesse.
They're quicker and compact, but just as bombastic.
(DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)
('STAR WARS CANTINA BAND' SONG PLAYS)
(TRIUMPHANT ORCHESTRAL THEME PLAYS)
In the age of summer blockbusters
and for an audience with an increasingly shorter attention span,
this group of composers managed to capture that old Hollywood sound
and modernise it.
(DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL THEME PLAYS, THEN STOPS)
Shit!
(TYRES SCREECH)
LINDA: But by the '80s, like pop music,
Hollywood could not escape the impact of synthesisers.
(OMINOUS SYNTHESISED CHORDS PLAY)
With horror and sci-fi film composers like Vangelis in Blade Runner...
(SYNTH MUSIC SWELLS)
..and John Carpenter's Halloween... (OMINOUS ELECTRONIC MUSIC)
electronic scores ushered a new age of film music.
(FRENETIC ELECTRONIC MUSIC)
Enter, camera left, Hans Zimmer...
(GUNSHOT)
..the man who defines the cinematic sound of today.
(SPARSE, OMINOUS CHORDS PLAY)
Easing out!
(DRAMATIC CHORDS)
(ADVENTUROUS MUSIC)
Ooh-hoo.
Also, he can compose lush scores...
(UPLIFTING ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)
MUFASA: Remember.
But, like, why would you do that when you can just go...
(LOUD DRAMATIC CHORD PLAYS)
DAN: Today's scores take the thematic shorthand of the '70s
and shortens it even more.
With the flexibility of technology
and wide variety of sounds and textures,
film music in this age is, more than ever,
about creating mood, tone and ambience,
rather than commenting directly on the onscreen action.
(GENTLE STRINGS AND PIANO PLAY)
Dan, it is time for us to show how to score a film.
Since you are the composer, you're gonna have to compose.
Alright, yeah, and I guess 'cause you're really good at
pretending to do work,
then I guess you can, uh, do the acting.
Hmm. Deal.
(LIVELY OLD-TIME PIANO MUSIC)
(INAUDIBLE)
To get that old-timey, kitschy sound,
you have to look at the music that was popular
in the 1900s, the 1910s, the 1920s -
you know, early jazz, ragtime, stride piano, that kind of thing.
Without music, films are a little bit ghostly,
a little bit, you know, weird and threatening and unsettling.
Music grounds it and it gives it emotion and drama
and sort of cues the audience into what's going on in the scene.
People already saw the amazing potential here
and, so, next up came, of course, the Golden Age of Hollywood.
(FANFARE PLAYS)
(DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL THEME PLAYS)
(FANFARE PLAYS)
(TENSE ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)
Give up that Maiden Coffee, you ruffian.
Hey! It's...MY coffee.
(GROWLS) Aaagh!
(OMINOUS THEME PLAYS)
(GONG RESOUNDS)
(ROMANTIC STRING THEME PLAYS)
It has been too long, my love.
(DRAMATIC FINALE PLAYS)
For this scene, I'm trying to emulate the sound of old Hollywood,
with composers like Max Steiner and Erich Korngold,
who brought the Viennese, European tradition to America.
So, I'm working within Logic,
which is the software that I use to make music.
I'm using a whole bunch of software synths
to create the sound of a Hollywood orchestra.
Here, in the first eight or so seconds,
you've got your main theme.
(DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL THEME PLAYS)
Then you've got the gesture towards leitmotif,
when Robin Hood turns up.
You've got those little brass fanfares
that sort of say, "Hey, here's the hero."
One of the biggest hallmarks of this era of film music
was Mickey Mousing -
so, basically, copying and adding an exclamation point
over the action onscreen.
So, when Robin Hood swings down,
we get the woodwinds falling,
basically repeating the same motion.
Of course, the other thing in this era
is, with synchronised sound,
you've got dialogue to contend with too,
so that's a tricky thing to find a balance for,
where I'm pulling back, with smaller, more delicate instruments
that underpins dialogue.
Give up that Maiden Coffee, you ruffian.
(TENSE MUSIC) Hey, it's...MY coffee.
And then you've got melodrama, and that comes from the strings.
And this is also where the melody gets really beefed up.
It sort of develops at its most in this sequence,
and really gives you that lush, you know, pulling at the heartstrings,
"We're coming to an end" feel.
(FINALE PLAYS)
(SPARSE GUITAR MUSIC PLAYS)
(STEADY THUDDING ECHOES)
(ELECTRIC GUITAR PLAYS SINGLE NOTE)
(HOARSELY) Get ready, little pastries.
Carmelinda is coming for breakfast.
(ELECTRIC GUITAR CHORD PLAYS)
(WHIPPING SOUND)
(GROWLS)
(STRINGS PLAY, MUSIC BUILDS)
(SPURS JANGLE)
(TRUMPET PLAYS THEME)
Go ahead...
..bake my day.
(SPAGHETTI WESTERN MUSIC CONTINUES)
Although music for Westerns
began very much in the Hollywood orchestral tradition...
(ENERGETIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC PLAYS)
..by the time you get to the 1960s and '70s,
composers like Ennio Morricone had really changed things.
Morricone used soundscapes and lots of musical textures,
rather than specific themes
or tying the music in with the onscreen action.
And that's really what I've tried to do here
is creating, you know, a soundscape with lots of different instruments.
The first is this thud,
which is just a sample of somebody whacking the side of a guitar.
And then you get the guitar itself in over the top,
which is just that classic Spaghetti Western vibe.
Then a kind of flute that goes up and then falls down.
Then eventually all building up to
when the full orchestra enters.
There we start to get a sense of
the chord progression and a bit more movement.
There's a snare drum.
There's a lot of sort of forwards momentum going on.
Then, finally, we have a trumpet that plays a bit of melody here...
(TRUMPET PLAYS MELODY)
..before being joined by the guitar...
(ELECTRIC GUITAR PLAYS)
So, it's almost there.
It just needs a little bit of acoustic guitar,
just to nail that Spaghetti Western sound.
(STRUMS ACOUSTIC GUITAR)
('THE IMPERIAL MARCH - DARTH VADER'S THEME' FROM STAR WARS PLAYS)
(INTREPID ORCHESTRAL THEME PLAYS)
(SLOW, MYSTERIOUS MUSIC PLAYS)
(DRAMATIC CHORD)
You downward-facing dog.
You stole our sacred drink.
(RAPID DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)
(PLAYFUL MUSIC)
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC)
(SLOWER OMINOUS MUSIC)
(FASTER WOODWIND THEME PLAYS)
(CRASHING AND CRUMBLING)
(SLOWER DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS)
(GENTLE, REFLECTIVE MUSIC)
(SIGHS)
I chose...poorly.
(MELANCHOLY STRINGS AND WOODWINDS PLAY)
Emulating John Williams almost killed me.
It was so, so difficult.
For a minute worth of music, you've got five time signature changes
and six tempo changes,
and I don't even know how many key changes - I can't count them.
So, you can see how complex this is,
just in terms of the layers of instruments going on here.
The music has to tie so closely with the onscreen action.
So, I mean, the first thing I started with here was the tempo -
you know, ensuring that the beat of every scene
tied in perfectly with what I was doing with the music.
It's also about adding in melodic ideas,
but not fully fleshed-out themes.
The genius of John Williams is that he gives you
just enough to know that there's something melodic happening.
(SLOW, MYSTERIOUS MUSIC PLAYS)
So, right at the start,
I actually have a kind of secondary theme for the chalice,
which I had, in my mind, developed out
as something...you know, sort of a proper, full theme.
(PLAYS THEME)
But because it's implemented into the action,
I had to forgo the full playing of the theme
and actually have it shift chromatically upwards
to build the tension.
So, instead, it sounds like this.
(PLAYS ASCENDING NOTES)
(MUSIC BUILDS TO DRAMATIC CHORD)
(OMINOUS CHORD PLAYS)
(SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYS) (RHYTHMIC CLACKING)
MAN: Get in there and get what we need.
(DISCORDANT BUZZ)
Hey, Croissant Man?
I got the butter.
(MUFFLED) Huh?
(GROWLS)
(EMITS MUFFLED ROAR)
(BOTH GRUNT AND GROAN)
What is music? (GROWLS)
What is music?!
(DRAMATIC CHORD)
(MUTTERS)
(GASPS)
(GENTLE MUSIC PLAYS)
(RHYTHMIC CLACKING)
The thing that I would say about this style of music overall
is that it's also kind of closer to sound design
than it is to traditional musical composition.
So, we've got a whole bunch of synths here
and then we've got a whole bunch of effects
that are basically, you know, what a sound designer would normally do.
They're whooshes, they're builds.
They're the kind of, you know, bass hits
that you would see in the trailer,
that add to the drama and the power of the scene,
but aren't strictly musical effects.
The other thing that you'll notice,
woodwinds have completely disappeared.
It's just strings, percussion and brass.
And that's the kind of Hans Zimmer sound.
There's also not really any melody across this whole composition.
In the same way as Morricone was building towards
kind of sound and texture and landscape,
that's definitely what Zimmer is doing here.
It's about the drama of the scene.
And getting that signature 'Bwam!' sound
is just as easy as chucking in some low brass.
(PLAYS LOW DRAMATIC CHORD)
Making this kind of music is really easy.
I just need to hold down a key and the rhythm is played for me.
(STRINGS PLAYS SUSPENSEFUL RHYTHM)
Drums and percussion... (DRUMS BOOM)
It's just one key.
And, as you can see, my score for this
is really a lot simpler than the one
where I was trying to emulate John Williams.
And this is kind of the future of film music, I think.
It's easy to make on computers,
it's cheap, it's quick.
And it's quite stylish. It's what people want to hear today.
(LIVELY 1920S PIANO MUSIC)
(DRAMATIC ORCHESTRAL MUSIC)
(SPAGHETTI WESTERN MUSIC)
(DRAMATIC TRUMPET FANFARE)
(OMINOUS CHORD)
(GASPS)
(CLACKING)
And, so, that's how you score a film...
..or five films.
(APPLAUSE)
Well done!
Well done, you, too. That was some amazing acting.
It's pretty incredible to see how film scores have evolved,
and even just film, in itself, over the last century.
And as we've seen in previous episodes,
when music is combined with a really strong image,
that impact is just so much more powerful.
It has been very lovely making cinematic magic with you, Dan.
Likewise. And now can I have some popcorn.
Yeah. Hold it back. OK.
Mm? Mm-hm.
Further. Ah...
(ORCHESTRAL FINALE PLAYS)
Captions by Red Bee Media
Copyright Australian Broadcasting Corporation