When I first read the script I imagined the Magician character to have a steam-punk like appearance, an 18th Century gentlemanly attire with a more contemporary grounding. Below is an amalgamation of possible characters/influences for his costume.
The Joker
The Mad Hatter (Comic & Wonderland Versions)
Speaking of Jonny Depp Characters..: Willy Wonka
Contemporary interpretations of Sherlock Holmes
Sirius Black
Actual Magician characters from The Prestige/The Illusionist
All of the above feature a fairly consistent fashion trend, a richly coloured velvet jacket/trench-coat, elegant waist coat, pinstriped trousers, top hat, some form of neck/bow-tie, a cain... A fairly stereotypically antiquated look for the magician should create a greater contrast between his world of magic and the grounded realism of the world the market seller inhabits.
Overall I'm pleased with the finished score, it manages to set a suitably dark tone that compliments the visuals. One of our main concerns was that the linear audio and backwards video wouldn't match well when brought together however when combined they were surprisingly effective at conveying our story.
The piano part was the first thing I wrote, inspired by aforementioned influences, and from there I began adding various layers and textures. I wrote several parts for synthesisers that were eventually dropped for sounding a little too Sci-fi/80s pop before settling on a more subtle sculpture modelling synth that had a greater ambient quality.
After altering the resonance and ADSR I also applied a digital delay to the synths and changed the Tap Delay time to 10000ms for a greater etherial quality.
This delicate drone features throughout the piece's different movements and though initially it has a fairly neutral presence it later adopts a more ominous quality. Through modulation on a midi controller and a slight shift with the pitch wheel I tried to orchestrate Dean's growing mistrust and anger, which I later realised after the fact sounds a lot like the Joker's theme from The Dark Knight (2009), which uses a droning violin gradually increasing in pitch until the tension is brimming. Sorry Hans.
The foley was a lot of fun to create, from recording the arbitrary movements and objects to making out with my own hand to mimic kissing. The real joy was in bringing the beating to life in a way that would really hit home with the audience in the absence of the visuals. I recorded my experimentations with various foodstuffs and bludgeons for your viewing pleasures despite the fact i look ridiculous doing it.
The melon and chicken provided the most convincing sounds by far, with a nice fleshy slap that still evidenced the force of the impact behind it. In Soundtrack Pro I then selected the best takes yielded from each object and processed them with the channel EQ, suppressing the higher frequencies and boosting the low end for a more resounding wallop.
I also experimented with overlaying these higher hits with deeper thuds from hitting a sofa arm for a well rounded impact, which sounded fine on its own, but when put into the final mix it sounded too damp and was drowned out by the commotion from the other tracks. I stuck with the original sounds and used compression to maximise their impact without making the volume spike into undesirable decibel territory.
As the beating progressed i also underlayed the punches with the squished banana sounds as his face is turned into a fine pulp and used the baseball bat smashing melon to represent a nose breaking. When combining it all with the actor's performance it paints a convincingly grizzly picture.
The use of non-sync sound gave me the luxury of selecting the best takes of each actors lines and stitching the conversation together without worrying about it not matching up with the visual take used. I also made sure to get ADR of all the lines just incase. The final result is somewhat of a frankenstein job of various takes and ADR, however this was the best way as many of Deans takes were a little quiet on the actors part/the proximity I was able to get the boom without casting shadows in shot.
I adjusted volume accordingly and had to normalise one or two of his lines to get the level right. I created space through the use of panning on the foley and dialogue as she puts on her coat and walks back out the door.
I reverberated the footsteps for the underpass shot using a Space Designer, altering the wet/dry parameter send-back to give the right amount of echo.
Overall I think I did well to sonically tell the story and create an ominous mood reflecting the events on-screen, with some believable violent sound effects to bring it all to life (or rather, death).
A few days after presenting our film I noticed some striking similarities whilst reading a Walking Dead novel and thought I'd whack them on here as a retroactive influence...
The angles, black and white colouring and spouses attempt at intervention mirror the sequence in our own film!
Reading also prompted me to re-watch the first season which features another extreme drubbing incident that looks all too familiar. There isn't a decent quality version on youtube so between these two videos you should get the picture..
This eerie scene from Eyes Wide Shut (1999) in which Tom Cruise's character is being followed uses a simple piano ostinato to create a menacing atmosphere. By only moving between a semi-tone (F-F#) that recalls John Williams notorious theme for Jaws (1977), a sense of unease and incompletion is aroused that lends to the cat-and-mouse like quality of the scene. The introduction of bass notes with the octave shift conveys an ominous presence, something I will try to incorporate into my own score.
Although the music for the stalking and subsequent fight scene should have an ominous quality to express the suspicions of Dean, the overall score will hopefully have an ambient style that is both emotive and atmospheric.
I accompanied a friend on a photography shoot centered around the idea of distance and intimacy, voyeurism with a private-eye aesthetic, and filmed it to familiarise myself with the Z1 camera. The accompanying song, called Music Is Math by Boards of Canada, compliments seedy night-time locations with a resonating ambient synth and a horn that reminds of film noir soundtracks.
Ambient rock group Hammock's emotive and ethereal music is something Jordan and I both had in mind inspirationally when trying to convey the end of the characters relationship. This kind of ambience can quite easily be created by sticking digital delays and reverbs on the majority of the instruments.
As previously mentioned Einaudi's music has also been influential, a piano and cello are the two primary instruments in my own score and the second video displays some of his darker tones.
