MDM Task 6 – Percussion Score for American Beauty (1999)
MDM Task 6 – Percussion Score from Pablo187 on Vimeo.
Report:
My objective when creating this task was to score a movie clip with percussion sounds. First I wanted to highlight cheerleaders dancing. Then the main focus went on a solo dance highlighting movements of the girl and the whole atmosphere of desire. I chose all the small movements and gestures as they are very important in this clip because they work as a substitute for words. I decided to adopt Thomas Newman’s approach from American Beauty and I created a piece with similar flavor using exotic sounds and drum kits. One audio-sequencer technique I applied in this task, which I had not applied before was syncing the tempo of my project to the movie’s audio by “adjust tempo by selection and locators” in the sample editor window. Gracias. One music technique I learned through doing this task was working on one project in a different sequencers. I did half in FL Studio and the rest in Logic with the help of Akai drum machine and MIDI keyboards. In my view this is an example of practice as research as when creating this task I went through a lot of hassle to match the tempo of my project to the clip. Plus investigating the structure of Thomas Newman’s Root Beer to perfect my composition. I would give myself an average mark for this task because even if I like it very much I think it may not be everyone’s cup of tea.
Word count: 242
Bibliography:
Film:
American Beauty. (1999) [Film] dir. S. Mendes. USA: DreamWorks Pictures
Online Resources:
IMDb. (1990-2011). Thomas Newman. Internet web page at: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002353/. (Accessed 27.03.11)
Books:
Karlin, F. & R. Wright, eds. (2004) On The Track: A Guide To Contemporary Film Scoring, Great Britain: Routledge
Music:
Thomas Newman (1999) Root Beer, USA: Universal I.S. B00001X4Z6. CD, 1.07min.
