Things I forgot to mention...

In the last post I wanted to talk about the scoring of the video that was made for the Living Dead Festival in honor of the 40th Anniversary of the Night of the Living Dead. The pictures that were used in the footage were a combination of stills from the making of the movie and promotional material made at the time. Gary Streiner and I worked really hard in finding the right mood. The first mood that would be an obvious choice is horror right? Yes BUT there is a nostalgic reason for making this video. It was to showcase the makers and cast of the original film. So there has to be a feeling that goes with that kind of remembering. One of the ways I work is through sketching out ideas in the sequencer, then adding to, taking away or just plain old throwing out pieces till something hits the mark. So I would have a meeting with Gary, I would then go and compose something. Then send the track to Gary. The next morning I would find an email that would say things like "closer, but more..." or "I like it, but not right for the section..." or "Now we're getting some where." We would have Skype meetings and talk about the movie and sections of footage and how we wanted the audience to react. Sometimes we would come full circle and end up wanting a piece that I started with in the beginning. But I think you need that kind of exploration. Of course there where times when I thought I was finished and Gary would say something like "...I had an idea. Let's do xyz.....sure it will screw up your cues but I think it would be great! " So I'd go back and add a few seconds. Or sometimes totally rewrite a cue like I did for the "Portrait" section. Gary didn't like what I wrote originally, but like part of a piece I wrote weeks prior. I tried working with it but it went no where. At 11pm I started on a new piece. I tried a different time signature. I had listened to Elfmans work on Nightmare Before Christmas as well as some other composers work that was done for a horror film and I realized the music was written in 3/4. I thought I'd like to try that. A dark, haunting piece in 3/4 would give Gary what he was looking for. Something spooky, yet appropriate for the Portrait sequence honoring the makers and cast of the film. The music came together quickly which is always a good sign. It grew on Gary and ended up in the video. 

Something that always worries me is mastering. I'm not the best sound engineer for mastering. Probably because by the time I get to the mastering part of the process my ears are beat. Due to budgets I'm usually mastering my own stuff. As a result I'm nervous about whether it will sound as good as it does in my studio. This video was no exception. I played the pieces on various rigs and got different results from each of them. Luckily though the music sounded live exactly as it did in my studio. Whew!