shift in perspective about doing scores
Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2015 12:47 pm
I recently had an epiphany about writing scores (in this case, a game) that I thought could be generalized. I can't go into what title I did work for, but anyway, I wanted the score to be serious, heavy, and paint a picture of a fairly huge world full of wars and battles. It wasn't to be a cliched "movie-like" soundtrack, or a fantastic, cartoon fictional game world.
The conceptual wall that kept bothering me was that the world (of the game) was indeed cartoony and light hearted characters, and it didn't have much weight or gravitas. Mainly to offset the fact that it was a world of war and violence, so of course the choice was to "lighten it up" to not get into the darker realities that such a world would bring about. I wanted the music to be the counterpoint to the "lightening" of things.. a darker, heavier weight that would anchor the world view down to something more real and believable.
Initial attempts were made writing about the world. Taking in environmental elements, matching sounds / fx to in game events, etc. But I still thought that was too "fake". Like the score was almost telling you just how fictional the world was. It was too aware of the world because I'd spent too much effort trying to portray it, most times through a literal sense. (it's windy, how do I represent wind? that sort of shit)
Then it occurred to me that I should write from within the world, so that the score was not even aware of the fiction. That from the perspective of the score, the world was as real as could be. The score would be a "real" citizen of the world. So I did away with the score explaining elements of the world. Instead I focused on what I would feel of the events in the world. How would I feel about tomorrow? What's going to happen 2 hours from now? What is happening right before my eyes? And decided to transfer those feelings directly into the score. It's so much easier to write this than to actually do it. I mean, how can you be sure you really "believe" in the world, to the point of it becoming reality. It's like acting, but at a more core level. It's more like self hypnosis.
And it worked pretty well. The amount of belief the score has in the world makes a huge difference. I don't think that can be generated through a check list or any sort of preset procedure. It's literally, sitting there, concentrating, imagining being in the world, and getting into the mindset. It took me about 2 days of trying to feel it. And once I was able to organize my feelings according to the world, then I could write from within. It's not an easy process.. it was quite taxing, but I think I've found a new "trick".
Well, so in all reality, I'm not sure if the product will ship in its current state (the music, at least) so I'm not certain it's made the cut, but at least I think I've made a breakthrough in terms of approaching scores. Especially for very whimsical fictional worlds. Now if I have to go back and change stuff I'll have to go back to that mental space.. and man, it's not a fun place to be. (world of just war, death, big machines, fire... ugh)
The conceptual wall that kept bothering me was that the world (of the game) was indeed cartoony and light hearted characters, and it didn't have much weight or gravitas. Mainly to offset the fact that it was a world of war and violence, so of course the choice was to "lighten it up" to not get into the darker realities that such a world would bring about. I wanted the music to be the counterpoint to the "lightening" of things.. a darker, heavier weight that would anchor the world view down to something more real and believable.
Initial attempts were made writing about the world. Taking in environmental elements, matching sounds / fx to in game events, etc. But I still thought that was too "fake". Like the score was almost telling you just how fictional the world was. It was too aware of the world because I'd spent too much effort trying to portray it, most times through a literal sense. (it's windy, how do I represent wind? that sort of shit)
Then it occurred to me that I should write from within the world, so that the score was not even aware of the fiction. That from the perspective of the score, the world was as real as could be. The score would be a "real" citizen of the world. So I did away with the score explaining elements of the world. Instead I focused on what I would feel of the events in the world. How would I feel about tomorrow? What's going to happen 2 hours from now? What is happening right before my eyes? And decided to transfer those feelings directly into the score. It's so much easier to write this than to actually do it. I mean, how can you be sure you really "believe" in the world, to the point of it becoming reality. It's like acting, but at a more core level. It's more like self hypnosis.
And it worked pretty well. The amount of belief the score has in the world makes a huge difference. I don't think that can be generated through a check list or any sort of preset procedure. It's literally, sitting there, concentrating, imagining being in the world, and getting into the mindset. It took me about 2 days of trying to feel it. And once I was able to organize my feelings according to the world, then I could write from within. It's not an easy process.. it was quite taxing, but I think I've found a new "trick".
Well, so in all reality, I'm not sure if the product will ship in its current state (the music, at least) so I'm not certain it's made the cut, but at least I think I've made a breakthrough in terms of approaching scores. Especially for very whimsical fictional worlds. Now if I have to go back and change stuff I'll have to go back to that mental space.. and man, it's not a fun place to be. (world of just war, death, big machines, fire... ugh)