COMPOSING FOR FILM:

Composing Music for a Film:

Tips:

Immerse Yourself: You could start by watching a film through once. You will then discover the story and you could then watch the film again to start seeing different things and you will get into the rhythm of the film. 

Feel the Product: You could have a film play in the back when you are doing things such as house work or sending emails. Your brain will then get used to it more. 

Watching the film without any sound: You could play the film without any sound by putting the film on mute. You will get to see more details and notice other things. The style of filming and video will then stand out more.

Select the correct instruments: The instruments in a film are chosen depending on the atmosphere. The instruments you have chosen may have been used before and then  at this point the video will dictate to you what is required. 

Sticking to the feeling of the film: When composing music for films it is about the emotion. You have to make sure that you really understand the emotion that the producer is trying to emulate. The emotion may vary from one second to another. 

Don't ask for feedback: When you in the creation process, somebody's feedback may not be helpful. You will need to be confident enough to know exactly what you're going to create in terms of emotion and intention. 



The Dark Knight: 

Hans Zimmer and Christopher Nolan worked together to create the soundtrack of for The Dark Knight film. Nolan started off the process by sending Zimmer still images of what he has visions of the character being like. Zimmer would then look at the stills and then begin to put together a huge amount of sounds that he thought might work. Nolan would then listen to all the sounds and then they would come together and decide on what works well. 

Hans Zimmer began by creating many different sounds that might be suitable to use for the sound of the joker. He would create a nine hundred bar recording with hundreds of different sounds. He then refine the sounds down to only a few that would really work. He took an idea and tried to refine it to the character with just only two notes. This was all completed with experimentation by trying out different sounds and creating different sounds. 

Zimmer didn't want to create a happy blockbuster, he wanted to be thew creator of something that people would hate. He wanted to create a minimal sound. A sound that you could listen to for one second and the audience would know the Joker was lurking around a corner somewhere. 

Final Score:
When listening to the final Joker score I can feel a sense of power. I can feel the tension rising as the sound goes on. The sound makes the viewer feel that the Joker is lurking around somewhere and that it is with them whilst they are watching the film. I think that the final score does work and that the Joker is known by that sound from the film.