Instant Soundtrack! Workshop
Published Feb. 29, 2008
As everyone filed into Forrest Theater Friday, expectations were high about what type of music and films they would experience from noted composers T. Griffin and Ionic Furjanic. After the first five minutes of mic and sound testing, True/False co-founder Paul Sturtz introduced the acts with a disclaimer: there music doesn't really sound like static. Without skipping a beat, both Griffin and Furjanic replied with "yes, it does."
Even though the composers struggled with the sound system, they showed clips of films they had finished or are in production and commented on how they came up with the scores.
Both joked throughout the presentation while acknowledging that they had just met that morning and had as Fujanic said "managed to never see each others work." The two have scored many documentary feature films and each shared how they work with the film.
Griffin stressed that when he works with a movie he wants the music to be "emanating from the picture, not sitting on top of it." He starts with photos from the film, so he can get a sense of what he describes the palette of the film. Griffin offers the following tips for how a composer should start when they receive a movie:
1) What does the director think the music should be?
Griffin and Furjanic both said they liked to start early with a script to be able to think about the music before having to write everything in post-production. Griffin and Furjanic both stress that the director and composer have to think outside the box when looking at a film and be willing to completely change the temp music. Directors often provide "temp music," which is already published music the director uses to show the composer what type of music they want for a scene.
2) What does it sound like? What does it say about the environment?
Griffin used "New Orleans, Mon Amour," a drama of a post-Katrina love story that is scheduled to come out in 2008, as his example of how music needs to feed on preconceived notions while also trying to go beyond what is expected. Griffin said the director wanted to essentially go the opposite direction of cliché big band New Orleans music, so the score wouldn't trigger stereotypical mental associations between Katrina and New Orleans. As he worked on the piece, Griffin realized that the film had to do with the musical baggage of New Orleans in a "recognizable, but doesn't feel easy and safe way."
"How can I make music that is horny, but doesn't feel like you are in a big brass band every five minutes?" Griffin said.
3) What does music do for the movie?
For Griffin's score, he wanted to use music to portray the devastation of New Orleans as a metaphor for the storm ahead for the two main characters relationship. When listening to the footage, he noticed the prevalence of strong wind, which for him seemed to be a reminder of Katrina. He tried to use this in his score by stretching out notes in an attempt to express the windy sound.
Furjanic took a different approach by showing scenes for a documentary he is working on about a couple, one American and one Iranian, dealing with the problems that arise from coming from two different backgrounds. The documentary is spliced with footage of historical events, such as the Iranian missile crisis, to also show the larger relationship of the U.S. and Iran.
He showed how the original scene of historical events had a more light traditional Iranian folk song used as temp music. After showing a woman in the middle of a protest, he said the music needed to reflect the rage going on at the time. By sampling a traditional folk song and using hip hop beats, he was able to create a sense of urgency and better convey the mood of the scene.
"I want my music to be always aggressive and bold and out there," Furjanic said. "Even though music is apart of a movie, it doesn't have to be in the background."