[Written by Paul Davies]
There is a strange and porous border in film sound and that is the
one that exists between music and sound design, it is not a sealed and
clearly defined boundary, but an open, shifting and nebulous one, easy
to cross over back and forth, sometimes inadvertently and other times
boldly and deliberately, by both the composer and the sound designer.
One might ask what is the difference between music and sound design? A
flippant answer would be royalties. A better answer would be at times a
great deal and at others not much at all. For the most part the roles
of music and sound design are clearly defined, music in film continues
the role of the “pit” orchestra from the days of silent cinema,
commenting, narrating and guiding the audience emotionally through the
action.
Sound design mostly exists within the world created on screen, but
from time to time it steps out from this perhaps “functional” role and
crosses over the borderline into music, and it is this area of overlap
and blurring of distinction between the two that I find increasingly
interesting. The films of David Lynch and the work of his sound designer
Alan Splet are good examples of this ambiguity and were an early
inspiration for me, their early film “Eraserhead” in particular.
Most sound designers have a musical background, which may be a formal
one or perhaps, like me, their love of sound started in manipulating
electronic instruments and discovering the wonders of the recording
studio. The reason I call the supposed divide between music and sound
design a strange border is because it is often an arbitrary one, for
example an atmospheric drone can be created by a composer and it is a
music cue, similar material created by a sound designer is a sound
effect.
In the past I have contributed sound design elements to films that I
felt had crossed that border from sound design into scoring, I’m
thinking in particular of moments in the films Love Is the Devil and
Chatroom. I used to have a rule for myself that I restricted what I did
to utilising un-pitched sounds – pitch and rhythm being the province of
the composer. However, I have recently crossed over this border and, I
must hasten to add, did so by the invitation of the filmmakers
themselves.
One such film was The American, another is the most recent Lynne
Ramsay film We Need to Talk about Kevin. In The American I was asked by
the picture editor Andrew Hulme to supply for certain sequences in the
film, “compositions” formed from what might be termed atmospheric sound
design elements, that he felt would be better able to convey the tension
in those scenes then perhaps “traditional” music cues would.
In Lynne’s film, because I had started work early in the film editing
process, I supplied a few music/sound design pieces to Lynne and the
picture editor Joe Bini to help them with the cut, a composer hadn’t
been chosen at the time, and I also provided them with some further
pieces from other composers and sound artists. About four of my cues
found their way into the final mix and some others exist as underlying
tonal elements. The score was written by Jonny Greenwood and my elements
and his music seemed to combine in a unique and fortuitous way.
I’m not trying to set myself up as a film composer I don’t have the
necessary skills and I have too much respect for the craft of people
like Jonny Greenwood, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Adrian Johnson, Dickon
Hinchliffe amongst the many composers I’ve worked with, but I think what
skills I do have are suited to those occasions and those films that
sometimes require sound/music elements that lie “in-between” the border
of music and sound design. The “compositions” may contain little
traditional musical material, but they somehow convey emotion and drama
more than just a drone or atmosphere sound would do, perhaps they do
this by shifting and transforming themselves through the scene, and if
they do have a musical element it is a very simple one.
I realise that I can only speak for myself and my own experiences,
but it’s interesting to note that one of Hans Zimmer’s collaborators Mel
Wesson has for a long time provided similar elements on films such as
“Inception”, “The Dark Knight”, “Michael Clayton” and many other films.
Mel’s term for this is Ambient Music Design (and further information can
be found at
his website
with the interesting caption on the main page “music is noise”). So I’m
sure that I’m doing nothing new here, and I wonder how many others find
themselves contributing “music” cues through sound design, whether that
is acknowledged on the cue sheet or not.
In terms of technology, I love using the midi functionality of
Nuendo, as well as having a liking for Mackie’s sequencer Tracktion,
which features very impressive time stretch and pitch shifting
capabilities, software instruments and effects from Native Instruments
and Waves diamond bundle and GRM Tools for processing, I regret to say I
haven’t plugged in my hardware synths and effects for some time, but
keep on meaning to getting around to it.
For those who may be interested examples of music/sound design I’ve
contributed to films and other bits and pieces can be found at
SoundCloud
