Month: November 2024

When working on a clip for Blade Runner 2049, one of the most important aspects of composing the music was ensuring it synced perfectly with the visuals. To achieve this, I used beat mapping in Logic Pro, which allowed me to match the music to the film’s timing.

The process started by watching the clip without any sound or music and observing which scenes/cuts were the most important to sync with music, such as when Ryan Gosling first notices the bee on his hand, when he enters the mansion, and when he plays the piano. I followed by setting up markers in Logic Pro matching those actions. Then, using SMPTE lock was important, as it ensured that the clip and the markers were synchronised, so it would stay synched if I played around with the tempo.

By working with beat mapping, I was able to ensure that the music was in synch with the visuals, enhancing the emotional impact of the scene. You have to make sure the music supports the story without overpowering it. If the music is a reflection of every cut/scene or action of a character, the score could end up being too distracting or the film could end up looking a like a cheap music video.

This week, we were introduced to the term Leitmotif, which is a short, recurring piece of music that represents a specific person, place, idea, or emotion in a story, like in movies or operas. Each time the idea or character appears, the leitmotif plays, helping the audience connect the music to the story.

When working on a movie clip for Soul, I wanted to capture the heart of the main character’s journey through music. The scene was filled with flashbacks, each showing moments of joy, struggle, and growth in his life. To represent the journey he’s been on and his inner turmoil, I wrote a musical phrase exemplary of this idea.

I created a simple piano melody and it plays at the beginning of the clip when he lays down the different items on the piano, which triggers him to relive these emotional moments in his life. I wrote the phrase in the aeolian mode (natural minor) instead of the harmonic minor because its softer, smoother sound creates a sense of calm and reflection, avoiding the tension that the raised seventh in the harmonic minor would bring. Furthermore, the aeolian mode fits well with the character’s state of mind, his reflections about his past in a introspective way, while still carrying the great emotional depth of the past.

By the end of the clip, the leitmotif returned in a different key with a more complex instrumentation, as a reminder of his journey.

Using a leitmotif in this way helped make the flashbacks feel connected and gave the scene an emotional impact. It’s a simple, powerful tool to tell a story through music. It also helped me tie the beginning of the clip with its end.

CPT (common practice tonality) is usually found in radio hits and children’s lullabies, however, since the golden age of cinema, film composers have unanimously decided to heavily employ late romantic techniques in their work, which oppose cpt guidelines.

CPT “rules”:

• Only major and minor scales
• Begins and ends in the same key (tonally closed)
• Few uses of dissonance, and if used, they’re always resolved

Late Romantic Techniques:

• More complex/chromatic chords that are not in the key of the music
• Chromatic chord sequences like the hexatonic cycle, where each subsequent chord differs by one note moving up or down a semitone. eg: G Major, G minor, Eb Major, Eb minor, B Major, B minor, G Major

When working on the Soul clip, I used the hexatonic cycle during the flashback montage to create a sense of motion and unpredictability, reflecting the twists and turns of the character’s life. The alternating major and minor chords avoid a clear emotional atmosphere—neither purely happy nor purely sad—capturing the complexity of human experiences, where joy and struggle are often interlinked. Moreover, I avoided staying in a specific key during the flashback montage. I used modulation and augmented 7th chords to shift between keys, creating a sense of movement, exploration and unpredictability.