Here is the video link for the alternative "Dead Island" trailer I created;
Really enjoyed writing the music for this and was able to get in the ballpark for a suitable pace really easily. Without actively watching and matching, I picked a tempo of 82 BPM, but upon writing the music and playing them both back together this seemed a bit too quick, but only slightly. I then reduced the tempo by 6 beats and that just happened to fit perfectly, by my view anyway.
The heartbeat bass drum was going to be featured from the offset but upon writing more so to the visual, I placed it to begin from bar 9 and from there works really well with the third flashback of the girl running.
Well, a wee bit of a shame that I didn't get to do my presentation in the end, but on a positive note I picked out a lot of examples of clips that I found really effective in terms of their use of both music and sound, and in end I wanted to talk a bit about all of them.
My initial example from the offset was going to be the shoot-out scene from Sam Mendes' "Road to Perdition".
This excerpt deals with the final confrontation between Sullivan and Rooney with Sullivan taking out all of his men and finally Rooney himself. The music from the film was scored by my favourite film composer Thomas Newman and adds a lot of poignancy to the visuals.
The most important thing I noticed (when watching with the analytical eye) was the how the sound effects and music were balanced during the development of this scene, more importantly with the music against the rain sound effects / layer. Upon their leaving of the diner, we hear both the rain and the music begin to swell. The rain layer then fades as the music gains prominence following the gangsters approach to the car. It is hear we get our first obvious sound cue comprising of Rooney failing to open the car door and in turn, starts frantically shaking the whole car where upon the drivers head dives upon the horn, yet we still only continue to hear the music alone.
It is in this moment the gangsters know that they are not alone in the rain. Rooney's men then begin to fall as we see the flashes of machine gun fire in the distance. Rooney stays still as the camera pans around him, along with the glistening bells and descending piano echoing his perceived stillness in time.
(Currently devouring a lot of Batman animated media after revisiting "Rocksteady's" Arkham titles!)
I have for once been busy with some productive procrastination and produced an alternative soundtrack for the innovative and hard hitting trailer for Dead Island. This soundtrack features only music as both a personal preference and as an experimental feature to see what effect (if any) it would have on the visual presentation. I shall post this up soon... Here is the original -
Cubase has also decided that it won't import videos. Goody.
Well greetings and welcome to my audio production methods blog! I'd like to open by saying that I am a very keen enthusiast and lover of music, film, animation and video games and like to consume as much as I can when I get the opportunity!
