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paulspurrier
Cadet 1
Joined: Sep 30, 2006
Member#: 15787
Posts: 2
   
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 Posted:
Sat Sep 30, 2006 11:05 pm Post subject: Soundtrack for 'P' |
 
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Dear Sirs,
May I introduce myself. If this is the wrong section of the forum, I hope you will forgive me.
I have directed two feature films. The first was a film called 'Underground' - about youth rave culture. The soundtrack comprised 23 tracks of contemporary rave music.
This was a licensing nightmare, and a disaster from a financial standpoint, as a large portion of any profit returned must go to the music licensors.
My next film was a Thai ghost film called 'P'
I was in fact the first Westerner ever to direct a Thai language feature film.
This was created for Thai audiences, and one of the things I needed to research was Thai film music.
There were a few things I noticed.
1. Thai films often emulate a Hollywood style, so often there is very little Thai instrumentation in soundtracks, and almost all use a Western musical scale.
2. There are almost no films that have ever had a real orchestral score. The only exceptions are a couple of prestigious films that have been composed by Richard Harvey. This is usually a result of budget limitations. The entire budget of a Thai film is often less than the music budget on a Hollywood production.
3. Most Thai films use a synthesised orchestral type score. However, the samples are sometimes so poor that they sound like the 'strings' knob on a cheap Casio keyboard.
I have always loved film soundtracks.
I hate to be unoriginal, but John Williams really is the master. Jerry Goldsmith I find to be a little bit less predictable, but I love some of his work. I love Georges Delerue, Michael Nyman, Tan Dun, etc. Perhaps my favourite soundtrack is 'The Go Between' by Michel Legrand.
Anyway, I had always seen 'P' as requiring an orchestral score.
This would require me finding
a. An orchestral composer
b. An orchestra
c. A venue and recording engineer.
There is no full-time orchestra in Thailand. However, there are at least three part-time orchestras. But they are really not at all experienced at doing session work. It was a real worry that they did not have the experience at picking up a piece of sheet music and playing.
The venue was also tricky. There are no purpose-built orchestral stages. There are few concert halls. However there is a university with a large hall which has been used for accoustic recordings. I had very little joy in finding a sound engineer who knew how to record an orchestra.
Since I had no idea how to do this myself, I wasn't sure where to turn. I even contacted a few foreign sound engineers for advice.
However this whole process became a bit futile when I couldn't find a composer.
I gave three composers the first scene from the film and asked them to give me an idea of what they would compose for it.
I tried to explain what as director I had imagined.
However, for someone with a very limited musical vocabulary in English, and even more limited in Thai, this was tough, and I think this was the main reason that I really didn't like any of the tracks that were returned to me.
I was grumbling to a friend - Nick Elphinstone in a local pub that I was unable to communicate what I wanted.
He asked me if I knew what I wanted.
I said that 'yes' - it was pretty much in my head - I just couldn't communicate it.
Nick used to be a drummer in a band, and is very musically talented, but now works in computers.
He suggested a computer program called Reason - which is a standard sequencer program, but designed for idiots - with a wonderfully easy interface, so that anyone can fasten it to a keyboard and record musical parts - note by note if necessary.
It also comes with a limited selection of orchestral instruments. The samples are not great, but they would be good enough just to get ideas together.
I spent about four days trying to learn the program, and get around the fact that while I love music and have enjoyed soundtracks for at least 25 years, I have no formal music training.
Anyway, a sample track sort of stumblingly emerged, and then came the biggest problem. When producers were presented with the four tracks composed for the first scene, all selected my track.
I thus began the task of composing what became over eighty minutes of music for the film.
This was perhaps the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, and it took around seven weeks working at least ten hours a day. It was mostly a process of trial and error - stab on the keyboard till I found a note that worked and play it in note by note - quite torturous.
Perhaps my biggest error was that I had failed to understand the musical bar structure in the sequencer, so most of the pieces totally disregarded bar structure, and would have been orchestrally unplayable. Creating sheet music would have been a nightmare task.
Luckily I found a talented Englishman called Jack Arnold who had the Vienna Symphonic Library sample collection.
He was able to take my midi files and track them to high quality orchestral samples.
These are some of the finest samples you can get. However, they have one big drawback. Every instrument is recorded in isolation in a totally 'dry' accoustic environment.
When the finished track is played back, it sounds dreadful.
It requires very careful mixing - effectively simulating an accoustic environment for these 'dry' instruments - and thus bringing them to life.
This was a tricky task - one that I hadn't anticipated. Luckily a chap called Tim Beale at Hitso studios in Bangkok took it on, and did a great job.
So, did it work?
Well, I think unfortunately you will still always be able to tell that it wasn't a real orchestra. But I hope that the result at least isn't grating on the ears.
I think at times it achieves the 'big' feel that I wanted, whilst at others remaining intimate.
One of the difficult things was to know how to handle the 'shock' moments where something jumps out at the audience. We used a small amount of electronic sound design in addition to the musical score.
I never really knew whether it was better to provide the 'stab' with the score or with the sound design or both.
The result was that although the sound designer did a great job, much of what he did duplicated what the music was already doing. Unfortunately time constraints meant that we were both working at the same time, so often couldn't hear what the other was doing. So a lot of the sound design didn't work with the music and ended up being left out of the final mix.
I think if I ever did this again, I would try to include at least a couple of real solo instruments. I think the samples can work quite well in the background, but solo instruments give the game away.
At the end of the day, I am not a composer, and I would still have enjoyed the experience of working with a great composer.
But ultimately, people have enjoyed the film, and few seem to have even noticed the music, which is perhaps a compliment.
You can check out the website on:
www.pbar.info
The film will be released in the US later this year.
You will find a section on the website of 'music from the film', where almost all the music from the film is available in MP3 format.
I would love to make it available on streamingsoundtracks, but I think they will only accept works which are commercially released.
Please send me your feedback.
Best wishes,
Paul Spurrier |
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 Luther_III
Commander
Joined: Jun 20, 2005
Member#: 10621
Posts: 846
Location: New Orleans
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Posted:
Sun Oct 01, 2006 3:48 pm Post subject: |
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Paul,
Thanks so much for your post!! As for me, it was fascinating getting the inside scoop on a director's / composer's experience in producing an original score with very limited resources. I think you will find that a number of members of this community are budding composers, amateur and otherwise, who will likewise be very interested in what you have shared. 
As for including your score in the SST library, it's of course up to the admins, but I think you will find support for it. One of our members (I belive) was a co-composer for a Star Wars Fan Film whose score is here, and it had a very limited commercial release.
Good luck, and I hope to hear your score here in the near future!
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