“The Pianist” (2002) by Roman Polanski – Orchestration with Woodwinds
MDM Task 5 – Orchestration with Woodwinds from Pablo187 on Vimeo.
My objective when creating this task was to score a clip from a movie “The Pianist” and to make it sound like this music was a part of this movie originally. I wanted to highlight the whole situation in it, not too much the particular tiny moments. I wanted to make kind of a death march music for the people shown. Mainly this “death march” can be heard in the scene when people were being packed onto the train. Another scene gently but visibly highlighted is the last scene of a lonely walk of a main character. I decided to mainly adopt John Williams’ approach with his main theme for “The Schindler’s List”. I made a piece using mainly strings and woodwinds just like in his piece. His music portrait of the holocaust is just perfect for me and has that familiar “atmosphere” to me. This “atmosphere” was developed in my piece by this example yet just in one part of the clip. One audio-sequencer technique I used for this track was working in automation and smoothing in, smoothing out and moulding the sounds. I’ve learned through doing this task how to apply different layers of a violin, one accompanying another, and NOT just in a different octave with the same melody. It’s an example of practice as research as I was experimenting with melodic structures to find the ones that suited the most.
I would give myself a good mark for this task as I feel my composition is rich in emotion suitable for this clip, the use of woodwind instruments is satisfactory and well used, and the overall effect is pleasant.
Word count: 273
Bibliography
Online resources:
‘Schindler’s List’
Internet web page at: http://www.soundtrack-express.com/osts/schindlerslist.htm
(accessed 07.03.11)
Skelton, M. V. (1997-2011) ‘Paths of Fantastic Film Music: Examining Film Scoring Techniques in Films that Alter Space, Time and Death’
Internet web page at: http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/features/skelton.asp
(accessed 08.03.11)
Filmography:
The Pianist. (2002) [Film] dir. R. Polanski. USA: Universal, Focus
The Schindler’s List. (1993) [Film] dir. S. Spielberg. USA: Universal Pictures
