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Piece for animation

Discussion in 'Critique & Feedback' started by Lauri Koivisto, Aug 27, 2018.

  1. #1 Lauri Koivisto, Aug 27, 2018
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2018
    Alexander Schiborr likes this.
  2. Pretty cool, Lauri thanks for posting. I enjoyed the piece and textures!

    Any insight what virtual instruments you used here?
     
  3. thanks Alexander! They're all Orchestral Tools except harp is VSL and solo flute is from symphobia 2. It's a work in progress so any feedback is appreciated :)
     
    Alexander Schiborr likes this.
  4. I have only what you've posted to go by, context-wise, so with that in mind:

    In both excerpts you abandon your ideas within seconds and thus lose cohesion. In ex. 1, you state your material, and then it disappears at :24 never to be heard from again. If I spoke to you about a topic for 24 seconds, and then completely switched gears for another 2 minutes during which I talked about nothing related to the opening statement (in fact, talked about two other, unrelated things) you would not know why or what I was talking about. Or be particularly interested, I suspect. You'd be asking yourself the question, "What was he talking about in the beginning? What did that have to do with anything?" The answer must be: nothing... so.... ? Stringing together devices, however convincingly those devices mimic somebody else's work, doesn't cohesive, interesting statements make.

    A good exercise would be to take, say, ex. 1, and finish out the two minutes, developing them as you have, only NOT abandoning the original material, but expounding on it. This is is the essence of developmental writing/arranging/long-form composing/film scoring/etc.
     
    Dillon DeRosa likes this.
  5. #5 Alexander Schiborr, Aug 29, 2018
    Last edited: Aug 29, 2018
    Agreed with Mike, yet I find something likeable in that piece. And developmental structure can fall apart when the video material doesn´t let it allow to develop because the picture and story is not cohesive in its presentation?I dont know the filmmaterial to that music so I am guessing here, lets say the first couple of seconds are either related to a character in the movie or a scene in general, then the movie switches to something completely different. It would immensily help to have some video material attached. Apart from that sure the piece by itself lacks of cohesion in that regards, but question could be: What motivated that? My guess is the picture..so question could be also: How can you write a cohesive track to a given picture, story, presentation whatever which probably isn´t cohesive..?
    Lauri, would it be possible to see the music with picture?
     
    Dillon DeRosa likes this.
  6. Thanks Mike and Alex for your inputs. Hope this helps!
     
  7. Thanks for sharing. The animations are nice, but I don´t know what the fuck is going on in this 2 minutes storywise.. is that a trailer or something? Or is that the movie.
     
  8. yeah it's kind of montage. That animation is the creators thesis work when he graduated from some kind of animation school. I'm just rescoring that.
     
    Alexander Schiborr likes this.
  9. Yeah, while listening to your music I already felt either the video material is inconsistent or trailerish or like a medley montage. No wonder why your music has practically no time to say something. Maybe the first minute..could work. there you could try to overwork your things a bit.but all the rest..doesn´t make any sense to me in the video. I couldn´t write something cohesive there too.
     
    Dillon DeRosa likes this.
  10. And don´t feel bad at all, I would tell the guy: Come one dude..give some cohesive video material as long you want me to write some cohesive music to it :D Otherwise you have to think about a general theme to put it over without highlighting imo. You know like a general library music track which somehow is cohesive and tries a bit to reflect the pace. But normal classic scoring to picture..fails imo here completely..
     
    Dillon DeRosa likes this.
  11. Nice job. I agree with Mike's & Alexander;s points. I really have nothing else to add. Nice animation short/trailer. Definitely Ghibli and Miyazaki inspired.

    I would definitely try to connect your first idea and develop it further to the end of the trailer. The first part has that kind of scoring to the action sequence and following the main character but then the second half becomes the montage. This doesn't mean you should switch ideas or lose your themes. Just paint the overall story from beginning to end, that this is about an adventure of this guy. A fantasy like adventure.

    if it helps go listen to some Joe Hisaishi who's amazing. His track Kuuchuu Sanpo "Stroll Through the Sky" is exactly what your going for in this trailer. In the movie he paints the overall scene and mood, then it gets a bit action like exactly what this animator is lifting from (like exactly from Howls moving castle) around 40 seconds.. but then at 1:16 look how he develops his theme back to what he intended for it to sound like. This is what your music needed to do.

    Here is a dropbox link to the song. I couldnt find a youtube link for it.

    https://www.dropbox.com/s/admiv9etsogtz0u/03 Kuuchuu Sanpo (Stroll Through the.mp3?dl=0
     
  12. Yes seeing the video, I'd double-down on my reply. Don't play the action - play the drama; find the narrative through-line -or make one :( This video, despite being nothing, can have a throughline. It's always challenging to write dramatically for a video which possesses no drama, but honestly, it is rare to see anything with drama or interest anymore. They no longer teach the difference between plot and drama, so it's all plot - things happening, none of consequence. It's sometimes called, "and then" storytelling. This happens, and then this happens, and then this happens, and then this happens... none of which actually matter. All plot, no drama. Lots of dramatic things happening, but no drama. Those are different things. this is all major blockbusters now, which is why they're all forgettable.

    Still, it's a good challenge, and doable, to make a cohesive score for this thing. Find your one idea or tone - ingredients - which can fuel the entirety of it.
     

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