My Goals

I have been tasked with writing a goal, and this was back before I completely changed my subject, so at first I really struggled with it. At the time, I was still sticking with my conspiracy theory blog idea, but I realized that I couldn't find a real goal to blog about. At first I chose to set a goal of blogging 20 times throughout the year, but that wasn't allowed.

Then I thought of this idea, and totally redid my blog as a whole. I even came up with a goal completely unrelated to the blog or to school, and it sounds like that was what we were supposed to do. Any who, I might as well get into the goal. In the mean time while I collect my thoughts, here's a picture of a penguin that just reached a goal (I think).

A very happy penguin. He must have completed a goal. Courtesy of a2ua

I've decided to blog about 30-40 times (25 or so movies which = 1 every week or so; 5-15 blogs about other stuff), which is ambitious, but should be fun. However, I then realized that it wouldn't be counted as an actual goal.

I then came to my final decision. By June, I want to have gained enough knowledge of film scores and composing from watching movies to be able to have written a total of four different pieces of music. That will include both absolute music and film scores. I won't be including other projects that I've already started and/or finished before publishing this, which is two in the past three months and four in total.

I've decided to set this goal because I want to choose something that could actually have an impact on my life. In this case, I'll be able to gain experience to expand my hobby/career. I also want to get to a point where I can write a good ten minutes of music within the span of a week, and right now it takes me an average of five hours per minute, so there's a lot of improvement to be made.

I just read an article that lists fifteen reasons why you should blog. Out of all the fifteen, I suppose I'm blogging because of the second reason, "You'll become a better thinker". In a sense, I'm not really becoming a better thinker about life in general, just about music. I've already seen that I'm paying more attention and seeing (or hearing) more things in music than before. And by the time I've hit as many posts as I'd like to, I'll probably be a five times better music listener and composer than before.

Film Score Review #1 - The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe

Fair warning, I've always been a huge fan of this movie and the books, so I might sound a little bit biased while talking about it.

I've been doing a close listening of the score from first Narnia movie, and it's actually much more in depth than I thought it was.

For a quick synopsis of the movie, it's based on a book written by C.S. Lewis, and it's surprisingly accurate for the most part. It follows the story of four siblings during World War 2 as they stumble through a wardrobe into "Narnia". They soon discover that they're supposed to fulfill some sort of prophecy (saving the world and whatnot... pretty cool stuff). And of course, because it's a movie, there's a big fight scene, then somehow everyone is happy again.

The original score was composed by Harry Gregson-Williams, apprentice and close friend of legendary composer Hans Zimmer. Aside from the Narnia series, he's done all of the Shrek movies and on a more recent note: The Martian. He's so far gone without an academy awards or nominations, but he was nominated for a Golden Globe for his work on this movie.

Harry Gregson-Williams Conducting the Score. Courtesy of IMDB

My general thoughts are fairly positive towards this score as a whole. G.W. did a great job writing the score, and it's my favorite piece that he's ever done. The hardest job of a composer is creating a theme that sticks in someone's mind. G.W. did a great job with that. He was able to create a triumphant and majestic theme that would play throughout the movie. Another important part of a composer is to refer back to the theme as much as possible. This allows the emotion in the movie to have roots somewhere in the movie. In this case, it's the connection between the kids and pretty much all of Narnia. 

It seems like a very broad emotional connection, but it totally works. We first hear the theme (sorry if you don't know it, blogging certainly does have it's limitations) when Lucy opens the wardrobe for the second time during the night. However, it's very different from the full ensemble playing the complete theme. In this case, it's just a flute playing the melody. The flute is also used with Lucy more than any character, so it fits a lot. 

The first time we hear the theme in it's full glory is when the kids and the beavers are attempting to cross the melting river to get closer to Aslan and his army. We have a moment of quiet silence when we see that they've sunken underwater. Suddenly, we see Peter's sword and hear the entire ensemble playing the theme. It's triumphant, bold, majestic, and certainly fits the movie. Throughout the rest of the movie, the theme is used and referenced often, and it's hard to explain how important this is. 

Sadly, I don't have enough time of patience to go into more detail about this score. But in general, I would rate it an A-. It's done well, it's full of emotion, it's a great movie, but I can't think of the theme without Pirates of the Caribbean getting stuck in my head as well. This might just be me, but it's tragically annoying. 

 

Music in Film

I hear too many people say that the music in movies isn't important. It's sadly false. In the words of George Lucas, "The sound and music are 50% of the entertainment in a movie." I have to say, I couldn't agree more. As a film buff and high school musician/composer, I'm actually excessively passionate about this subject. I don't know how, but I'm going to do my best to explain just how right Lucas was when he said that quote.

Music in movies can be used to make you feel a certain way without even realizing it. There are so many great example that I don't think anyone could list all of them after a decade of writing. That might be a hyperbole, but I'm just trying to get the point across. I've been spending the last twenty minutes trying to figure out how to explain my strong opinions on this subject, but I still haven't thought of anything. I figure I'll just try to use some examples, but it's really up to movie watchers to decide if they agree with me.

If you've ever watched something sad in a movie, when you listen really carefully, there's always emotional music playing on in the background. If you've watched something triumphant happening in a movie, then the music would portray similar emotions. You can list off all the thoughts and emotions that you can think of, and every single one can be put to music.

I don't know about everyone else, but I've never seen a really good movie with really bad music. Similarly, I've never seen a really bad movie with really good music. It's not one or the other, it's a good movie and good music or a bad movie and bad music. The movie effects how good the music can be, and the music effects how good the movie can be.

Take Lord of the Rings as an example (any of them, they're all great and done by the same composer: Howard Shore). There are so many different leitmotifs (I'll explain one day) within in the movie and they're all so pronounced that you can almost tell what's happening in the movie without actually watching it. And in my opinion, you can't listen to the Hobbit theme without smiling out of the pure joy that the music portrays.

Another great example is Pixar and it's movies (except Big Hero 6, it's not a very good example). Pixar knows how to use music to multiply the emotions you feel by ten times. They build a theme between two characters and use that theme later on to really make you sad or happy, depending on the situation of course.

It's much more difficult to explain how important music is in movies than I thought it would be. Just watch any movie without the music and you really get a sense of what I'm trying to say.