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On the 19th of November, 2021, I finished conducting my recital to a crowd of over 150 people, alongside the 17 musicians, 1 sound technician, 15 animators and 5 voice actors who made it possible. It was an amazing night filled with lots of excitement, love and support for this project I've been working on for over a year and a half. STORING & DISTRIBUTING THE WORK The scores and technical / logistical requirements for the whole show were documented in a google drive that all the performers, animators, voice actors and sound technicians had access to. All aspects of the recital's content were organised into these respective folders: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yEqAKuzWYmTqXcJUUt-MTm2sVwyKMRRe?usp=sharing The "Audio Files" folder contains snippets of dialogue that the animators could time their work to. None of the musicians had access to these audio files - just the music files, rehearsal videos and logistics folders. The "Music" file contained sheet music and midi audio of all of the scenes of music (with and without dialogue). The sheet music section contained the updated versions of the conductor's score, the individual scores of each scene and the individual scores for each performer that they could print out themselves. The "Logistics" folder contains all of the technical requirements for the show including a yearly timeline for when each section of the composing and animating process needed to be complete by (including when rehearsals should be), a list of the number of chairs, stands, mics, and other equipment we needed, the layout of the RGA and a run sheet for the night of the show. The "Scripts & Scenes" folder was mainly for the voice actors so they could read and annotate their own lines when we were recording in the downstairs WAAPA sound studio or my home studio. However, there is an annotated version of the script that the Producer and Director used to divide up the scenes into more manageable chunks for each of our storyboarding artists to illustrate. And of course, any of the "Design" or "Storyboard" folders were strictly for the animators to upload their work into once they had completed a scene or section of work. We would have weekly Monday night meetings on our Discord Server for this project where the animators would touch base with the director and producer to say what scenes or designs that they had completed and what scenes or designs we needed. A link to the full first draft of timed storyboards with dialogue and music can be found here: drive.google.com/file/d/1RZfGUB2pbE0OP6KxSeZW8oAOLSSMT7Uk/view?usp=sharing THE COMPOSITION PROCESS My process for writing the score for the recital was to piece together the thumbnails for the storyboard panels in Final Cut Pro with the dialogue. Then, I would export it into Logic Pro so I could compose to what was happening on the screen and time it to the dialogue and action. Before this, however, I figured out:
I would also determine whether the scene needed music at all. This pre-planning stage of deciding where there should be music is what the film industry calls “spotting” and normally happens with the editor, director and composer. Since I took on all three of these roles, I had the creative freedom to choose where the music would have the most narrative impact. For example, the start of scene 9 had such strong acting performances that I didn't want to take away from the moment by overdoing it with underscoring. Instead, the music sneaks in at the turning point of the argument between Chase and Asim and makes a call back to a previous scene at Asim's house where he is looking after his father by himself. This choice works better to emphasise Asim’s own cycle of loneliness and self-reliance and more importantly, it marks the start of his character development by asking for Chase's help. All of this preparation I did before diving into the actual composing was written down in my Composition Seminar notebook over the course of this year. The PDF of the complete conductor's score is just below.
SCORING ISSUES Some of the biggest issues I faced during this process were with translating the MIDI score into an XML format. Any time it was opened in Muse Score or Sibelius, the instruments wouldn’t be converted over and the score would be a mess, with rhythms in the wrong places and note heads pointing the wrong way. This was slightly infuriating, and I managed to curb some of the frustration by making certain that the Logic Pro session was entirely quantised before converting it into an XML. This was easier but still difficult to work with and made the editing process longer, when I was trying to rush to finish the scores in time for the first rehearsal. I used Muse Score as I found the user interface easier to manage than Sibelius. Using MuseScore also meant that I was able to work from home, and that saved me the travel time of going to and from uni. As frustrating as this was, I believed it to be an easier method for composing to film and it felt more natural to me than some of the other scoring options were. In general, working with Alice Humphries, my principal study teacher, was what helped me with composing and arranging my scores the most. She really got me to think about my scores and arrangements in a more intricate and structured way, such as voicing brass chords with the overtone series. This means that tonics and fifths would sit in the bass instruments like Trombone, as they naturally incorporate the early harmonics of the treble instruments like French horn and trumpet, which would be playing the thirds, sevenths and seconds of a chord (the later harmonics of the tonic being played by the Trombone). This way of writing, where you have to actively consider the size and timbre of your ensemble, hadn't crossed my mind and really made me re-think the dynamics of the whole recital. Showing her the updates and edits of scores and arrangements over the course of each week was an invaluable experience that helped me write these scores to the best of my abilities. She also calmed my nerves about my scores feeling unpolished for the first rehearsal, saying that unless I needed to add more music or swap bars entirely, that cutting bars and adding extra dynamic annotations during the workshopping process was a normal thing to do. A piece of advice that really helped me during the scoring process was from Jeremy Zuckerman, the composer for the hit Nicklodeon TV series, Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra. I was feeling burnt out halfway through the semester and had developed writers block for composing for the scenes. So I sent him a message over facebook, and to my great surprise, he sent me this as a reply: "Hi Hannah! Thanks for the kind words. I think this is the time for you to not always get everything 100% right. So first off, I'd remind you to have fun and enjoy this process. Don't be afraid to take risks and try things you're not sure will work. That's how discoveries happen... One piece of advice, if you're having trouble with a scene, ask yourself what the music is doing. What is it's purpose? If you don't know, then there's a good chance you don't need it there. Also, remember to play with density/complexity. Sometimes all you need is a very simple, functional cue for a scene. Something that doesn't really stand on its own but is there simply to serve. Good luck!!" This piece of advice was a lovely reminder that I was doing this because I actually enjoy writing music. So if I was feeling stressed, I should try to take a step back to just enjoy it and relax into it. After this, I did double back on some of the scenes I'd already planned out, and reduced the number instruments in them, now realising that a solo instrument could be better for a scene than a quartet would: Because the music is there to serve the scene - not to overshadow it. Once I'd completed all of the scores, the first rehearsal went fairly well and we ran through the biggest pieces e.g. scene 2, scene 8 and scene 10 & 11, where the whole ensemble was involved. We realised that some of the pauses in the music were confusing to count so I decided to mark them as G.P. (general pause) and asked my musicians to mark the start of the next bar as a new section. This meant that instead of trying to lock in with the click track when I got lost, I could lock in with the dialogue and cue the instrumentalists when I heard the next line coming. I wrote extra annotations in my first conductors score with what each dialogue cue was for each sting so that I knew where I was in each scene (or whether we were too far ahead and had to pause the episode, which I did in fact do on the night). Since it was my first time conducting an ensemble like this, I was quite nervous but got some good tips from all of the performers, such as when to use the 6 beat patterning for 6/8 time and when to stick with the 2 beat pattern of it. This was good for helping to keep everyone on the right track. Unfortunately, I didn't communicate enough with the musicians when writing the score beforehand, and used too many "octave above" and "octave below" symbols, since I was unaware of how comfortable the musicians felt reading too high or too low on the ledger lines. I also discovered a bit later on in the process that French horn players are more comfortable reading without key signatures. I asked my French Horn player, Milly, if she would be okay to read the sheet music with all of the key signatures and she confirmed she was okay with that (which gave me some confidence). Some of the brass parts were written a bit too high for some of the players, so I suggested to pencil in an "octave below" symbol whenever that was the case, so that it sat more comfortably in their range. Where possible, I tried to ask musicians how they felt with their registers when writing the music and how they preferred certain phrases to be dictated. For example, dictating a legato line differed in style from instrument to instrument and it was especially useful when asking the woodwind players and comparing that to the string players. This was the same for vibrato, tremolo and other terms such as "martele" for the strings (an annotation note handed to me by Kathy Potter, who was also an amazing source of guidance when learning how to communicate and workshop with the instrumentalists). Aside from the odd miss-type of different time signatures or wrong notes, this is where most of the issues with the score come to an end and where the issues with the logistics of the rehearsals and the performance come in. LOGISTICAL AND AESTHETIC ISSUES / SOLUTIONS One of the biggest problems I had when conceptualising this recital, was how to sync up the click track with what was playing on the projector screen. Initially, I had imagined creating two different versions of the video, one with a click and one with dialogue, and then just trying to hit play at the same time on both devices. However, after consulting with Arran O'Mara, we realised that the easiest way to do this was to simply use Logic Pro as the software that both the click and the video were playing from and to use my iPad as an extra controller / interface where I could turn the click track send up or down as I liked and I could even pause the whole thing so that the music could catch up. This whole setup was amazing, however, it did have some very particular specifications that it needed to run as smoothly as possible.
We ended up being able to do all of this, with Arran adjusting the dialogue audio where needed when the music was too loud. However, on the night of the performance, there were still some glitches happening in Logic Pro which made it slightly delayed and made the levels of the microphones for the ending credits song way too low at the start of the piece. On the night, these were small nitpicks, but on a re-run of this performance, it would be crucial to have more time to sort out these bugs in the performance space. Another issue with preparing for this performance was organising rehearsals for everyone. I knew it would be hard to have a rehearsal with all the musicians present, so I booked 3 rehearsals in the last week of October and told my musicians to make at least 2 of them. Most of them did, some of them didn't and there was a musician who had agreed to help me but was too injured to play and never got back to me in time for the first rehearsal, so I had to replace them with another player. This made it quite tricky when reminding players to fill out their new annotations. I would encourage them to check with other players in the ensemble for any new notes and recorded 3 of the rehearsals. I then uploaded them to the google drive and sent a link to the performers group chat via messenger. However, in many cases, some musicians hadn't had the time to do this until the day of the performance because of work, uni commitments and sickness. The day before the recital, one of my flautists came down with tonsillitis, so I madly scrambled for a replacement and was very VERY lucky to find one in time - she was sent all of the annotations for the music from our previous flautist, who did everything she could to help, considering the circumstances. My solution to performers being unable to make rehearsals was to record small videos talking about how I would approach the conducting, send links to the rehearsals videos and send updates of where the newly cut bars and general pauses should be. I think this helped to mitigate some of the confusion but unfortunately, not all of it. On the night, there were quite a few slip ups and the performers got so lost in some cases, that they would refuse to play any cues in the piece. This was a little disheartening, however, I later realised that the huge crowd of people may have made them slightly more nervous than our rehearsals had, since previously, the number of musicians on stage had outnumbered the small crowd during our soundcheck. Luckily, this confusion was offset by a very strong finish to the final ensemble pieces and a very encouraging and appreciative crowd. Other issues we had were that our front of house crew were only able to test out the lighting during our soundcheck. I was fortunate enough to run the lighting for Heather's recital the night before and had become familiar enough with the lay out of the RGA's lighting to create a lighting sheet for them which was apparently, easy enough to follow. To ensure that I didn't have too many people running up to me before the show, asking lots of questions, I made a technical requirements sheet along with the running sheet for Remal's and my recital and soundcheck that night. This had a "To-Do List" for all of the musicians, crew and composers for the night to make sure they had everything they needed, and that if they had a problem not addressed by that sheet, to then come up and ask myself or Remal. Thankfully, I had my friend Gem run around and post that up in the Green Room on the whiteboard just before our soundcheck, which, when I arrived, Ethan Bellhouse, Tayla Rattray, Cass Evans-Ocharern and Arran O'Mara had already set everything up for soundcheck, since I was running late having picked up the final edited video file. This really helped to reduce the amount of stress I was feeling after the soundcheck since I knew that I had done all that I could to make the night run as smoothly as possible for everyone. And when the performance was finished, I was ushered outside by all of my musicians before I could even start packing up and had bouquets and hugs thrown my way. It was a wonderful feeling to have so much love and support for this project and it was especially cool, because I finally got to meet all of my animators in the flesh! They all sat in the reserved seating in the front row, where they wore black and white outfits to the performance to differentiate themselves from the rest of the crowd. It was fantastic to see them and to get to thank them for all of their hard work at the end of the performance, where the whole audience could hear it. SO WHAT WAS THE POINT ... After explaining a years worth of hard work from the dozens of passionate people that were involved with this project... Why did I decide to do this in the first place? The first and most obvious answer is because I really REALLY wanted to. Film score is something I've always been intrigued by, and TV shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender shaped my childhood and my tastes in media. I was also struck with inspiration by the WASO concerts where they perform the scores for epics such as Star Wars and Lord of the Rings live to the film playing in the background. All of these things, plus my love of writing, combined together to make this project possible. Although that was my first reason for beginning the project, my main aim was to explore the impact of working collaboratively with others in the film-making process as a composer. As Australian Screen Composer, Brett Aplin, stated earlier this year in our composition workshop, "Being a composer can be a lonely and often isolating process. Most of the time, it's just you working by yourself, and sometimes, the director and editor will judge your work". It's common knowledge that in the film industry, composers often get treated as an after thought, when the entire film has already been shot and edited, resulting in very little time to score and record the music for the film. Ultimately, this means there's very little time to get to know and care for the film you're supposed to be scoring for. Naturally, I am a social person and the idea of such a lonely and stressful profession for an intricately human art such as music and film seemed wrong to me on so many levels. When directing this whole process, I wanted to be involved in as many aspects of it as possible - sometimes as a director or writer, sometimes as a composer and editor. I know that by working with the animators every Monday night, they helped me to build a greater sense of identity for the whole project through the music. I sprinkled in some leitmotifs here and there, I was able to re-time the scenes either to the music or to the animation and I was even able to get a sense of how each individual animator was interpreting the music. The added layer of involvement and collaboration made the process of composing the music more enjoyable and rewarding for everyone involved. Watching the animators get excited when seeing a scene come together with the music was really encouraging for me. On the flip side, getting to watch a scene unfold timed out the beats or mood I'd laid out for the montage scene or the battle music inspired me to write even more. The whole process was a collaborative work, and it never would've LOOKED or SOUNDED as cohesive and unique as it did without the animators, directors and voice actors having a sense for the piece by hearing snippets of the scores or by knowing how a character sounded, looked or moved. This type of collaborative film making is unique in the world of film score, and there are very few composers who ever get to be onboard with a project before it's even been filmed or animated. My developing philosophy is that the best art comes from collaboration. Sure, it may start as one person's vision, but that vision will grow into something more vibrant if it's allowed to be interpreted influenced by other creatives. If the cast and crew aren't familiar with one another, too much of the responsibility for the creative identity of the project falls onto the shoulders of the director and it can lead to them getting burnt out, and the film having a narrow field of view. The BEST work that happened on this project was when an animator, director or voice actor said to me "actually, how about we do this instead?". Let me share a few of the many examples from this year. I was editing the script with the visual director, Robin, in January of this year. I read it aloud whilst they gave me notes whenever a scene felt too long, too difficult to pull off from an animation standpoint, or just unnecessary. At scene 3 when Chase arrives home, we had a character named 'Auntie Jackie', who races out the door to the Dojo to teach a class. Robin just said to me "You don't need this character - that's a whole other design that would have to be drafted and finalised and it makes the cast too big". Initially, I was defensive, since Auntie Jackie's character hinted at Chase's familiarity with martial arts. But the more I thought about it, the more I knew that Robin was right. I didn't need the character there, I could just allude to the fact that this character existed and frequented a Dojo in the dialogue. When I was recording the voice lines for Yoshizumi, we had tried to go for an American accent (as is typical of anime English voice overs). But it just didn't seem to be working with the dialogue and I had no idea what to do about it... until the actor said something along the lines of "How about I go for a low key English accent? He seems a little more put together and more 'Obi-Wan-ish' than Asim does". We re-recorded the previous lines and they sounded so much more suited for a calm, dry English accent. When we were designing the character for Yoshizumi, Coda (the producer) asked me if he had more of a "relaxed, Literature / Drama kid energy." I was working on Yoshizumi's theme at the time and as soon as I said yes, he added some cool earrings and some big, round glasses for the character, something I'd never considered before when drawing him previously. And it just WORKED. The flowing, water-like music fit perfectly with the relaxed character design, almost completely by accident - all because we were working on them at the same time. When I received the thumbnails for scene 2 for the first time around August, I had no idea what I was going to get. All the animator had for the scene was the music and some basic descriptors of each character's journey home. What I got was both charming and HILARIOUS - Sally Henderson was the set designer for the project but soon we realised that their visual comedy was outstanding. In the scene, Chase looks behind to see if anyone spots her cutting through the supply closet to get to the bus on time and she ends up with her feet sticking straight up in the air. It added a lightness to the scene that I'd never would've known to convey otherwise. Same thing with the thumbnails for scene 3 B when Asim enters his house. I had written descriptors of making Asim feel small and insignificant in the frame and what I got was these wonderful dramatic wide shots of Asim walking through his mansion with the windows casting enormous shadows on top of him. I hadn't even written the music for this scene so receiving such striking imagery really helped me to build a sense for the weight of it - so I wrote these yearning suspended, seventh chords in the strings to convey it but no melody. I could tell from looking at it that the music in the scene needed space to breathe. In scene 6, our animator, Anna Brockless (who did the incredible stylised opening scene) dived into the realm of horror conventions, using intimidating low angle shots of the characters, stepping inside the classroom to see the Spirit of Manners literally dripping onto the teacher. I had initially struggled to write the music for this scene but as soon as I edited the shots together and imported it into Logic where I could see the frames, it was much easier to hear what it should sound like and what the scene needed from the music.
The point I'm trying to make is that when creating a film or an episode or a video game or generally any kind of multi-media art, you will work best when you work with other people who can bring something else to the table that you can't. And this doesn't just apply to the film's director - this applies to everyone who is apart of the film making process. I want to see sound designers involved in the spotting process and checking in with the composer to see how they can work together to declutter the sound, or even when no music or no sound effects would work better to convey narrative meaning (or would just sound cooler). I want composers working with cinematographers and asking if mimicking the sweeping shot of the battle field with a sweep in the orchestra would be awesome, or, if they reckon it wouldn't work with the tone of the shot. I want to see composers throwing little leitmotif cues at the character designers and to watch as they listen to it on repeat as study music when illustrating them. I desperately wanted the process of creating something like "Gradient" to be more than scoring a picture locked version of the script by myself. I wanted to rely on the expertise and experience of my animators, and to let them inspire me. I wanted them to get excited about the project by being included in each step! That includes the voice acting, the scripting and most of all, THE MUSIC. When I got into the swing of writing the music, it lit this spark in the project. When people got to see the scenes they drew actually scored and timed and feeling like a fully produced episode, they got excited. It was at that point, I no longer needed to keep them invested and motivated to finish the project. Everyone wanted to finish it because we started to see what we were creating as a team. And I can say with certainty that this project was everything that I wanted it to be and I am so unbelievably grateful and thrilled that team got to prove that it was possible and made it happen. In July / August, our animation team finished most of our final designs and initial thumbnails (the storyboard drafts) so I could finally get stuck into the full scoring process! This consists of stringing together the drafted panels on final cut pro with the dialogue and "spotting" where certain cues are needed. Once my one on one lessons with Alice Humphries was underway, she suggested using a timbre map to help keep track of timbral transitions needed between scenes so it wasn't too jarring switching between different sections (at least not on purpose like it is between scene 1 A - 1 B). Later, I would also create a table indicating the mood & atmosphere of each cue and how complex the arrangement would be in each scene / part.
I had already arranged and scored the final fight scene and the travel montage scene as I knew that these scenes would heavily rely on the beats and timing of the music so panels could be edited to it. For the other scenes, I worked out the motives for each character / set so that I'd have some musical scaffolding I could use. This has proven very useful, especially when transforming these themes to fit with the tone of certain scenes and character interactions. Fun Fact! Chase & Asim's themes are actually written in the relative minor / major of each other and use the inverted intervals of each other's melody! I thought this was the best way to convey the related but opposite natures of "Yin & Yang" through our two main characters leitmotifs. The character, creature and set designs and the storyboard drafts are all uploaded onto a shareable google drive folder that each of our crew has access to. This includes the musicians, so that when I ask them about the register and complexity of certain score parts, they can find what I'm talking about and say whether they feel confident to play it or not. Although I am the soul composer and script writer, this recital has undeniably been a group effort and it's been so fun to work with such professional and passionate people. Below is the size chart for each of our main characters.
Link to my sound mastering assignment to master an "EP" including one of my own reocrdings / Mixes (for which I re-recorded "Close For Comfort" with live string players).
Sound Mastering EP Assignment 2021 My 3rd year recital presentation, describing my animatic with a live score performed to it and the process of working with the animators and writing the script & music / sound. Below are the rough drafts of the technical and logistical requirements for my recital in the Richard Gill Auditorium. The proposed night is Friday the 19th of November alongside Remal, who's composition recital will be using a similar set up to mine with the projector and an ensemble.
Due to the COVID lockdown during mid semester, we had to postpone / cancel many of the sound spectrum concerts, including the ecuatorial concert I was going to perform my piece at. I rehearsed with Raph, Belinda and Hanae for a Piano, Clarinet and Viola trio called "Young Truth". This piece is an extended character theme for one of the main characters in my recital named "Yoshizumi". Of the three main characters, he is the level headed and emotionally mature member of the group - the "literature driven, emotionally chill drama kid" as my visual director for my recital.
We were forced to record in a rehearsal room as when I showed up for my sound studio booking, the grand piano was removed from the room. So I had to improvise and ask a favour from the loan store guys at WAAPA, as they provided me an interface, two XLR cables, two microphones and two microphone stands. We were very lucky to find an available rehearsal room during study week on such short notice and the recording went very well, especially with Ethan Bellhouse's help in setting up and packing down. What was really cool about this is that the animators were finishing the final character designs for Yoshi when I was finishing the compositional piece. When we had our next discord meeting, we shared our files and were pleasantly surprised with how well the visuals of the character and the soundscape matched up. You can see the character design here (including the animators notes on how to avoid drawing harmful stereotypes when drawing characters of diverse backgrounds). Soundcloud Young Truth I forgot to post this here last semester, so I thought it'd be a good idea to do so now. This piece is an experiment on the themes, motives and overall atmosphere of the musical landscape for the world and characters of an urban fantasy narrative I've been building this year. Below is fan art of the two lead protagonists ,courtesy of the artist Hollow Chimes, Chase & Asim, who have newly stepped into the role of hosts for the Yin & Yang spirits: The Spirits of Balance. The score and all its parts can be found below as a PDF.
This was a difficult assignment, partly due to it's open ended nature and partly due to my struggle to nail down what I wanted to do / accomplish with this assignment. From the start, I knew that I wanted to mess around with sampling, additive synthesis and vocoding as it was what engaged me the most during class. However, my initial ideas gradually felt more and more stale to me as the semester went on so it took me a while to get started.
When I finally asked myself what I really wanted to make, I discovered that I actually wanted to make something dumb and light hearted; something I didn't have to pour my soul into and could just laugh at with some friends. So, I downloaded the audio from an episode of a let's play that I'm a fan of, cut it up and sampled it into additive synthesisers to remix it with loops, play around with logic's sculpture synths and generally have a fun go about it. I'm surprisingly chuffed with the outcome, after seeking some help from a few friends who are more well versed in the world of sampling and synthesisers than I am. The link to the track can be found below on my Soundcloud. Oaki's Pilgrimage (Trial By Arrows) |
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Artist SummaryI'm a WA Fremantle based singer-songwriter / composer. Here, you can have a gawk at my studies, compositions and performances. Archives
August 2022
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