a film by Martin Scorsese
music by Howard Shore
music technical direction and music programming by James Sizemore

a film by Jeff Rosenberg
music by James Sizemore

a film by David Cronenberg
music by Howard Shore
music technical direction and music programming by James Sizemore

ACOUSTICS

My students often ask what piece of gear is the most essential, and I usually think that the answer is the room itself. No matter what studio monitors you are using, the room you are in is going to dramatically alter the sound of the mix you are working on. A good audio production room has a good combination of both sound absorption and reflection. For sound absorption, I recommend Owens Corning 703 compressed fiberglass sheets. This works well for insulating homes, and also works well for absorbing sound. Purchase some fabric bags to put them in and hang strategically in your studio. You will be surprised at how quiet you can make a room. Consult with a company like www.readyacoustics.com to insure you get a good balance of high and low frequency absorption. For diffraction, there are a number of excellent diffusors made by companies like Auralex. If you are on a budget, line the back wall where your monitors are facing with bookshelves and fill with books of varying sizes. After installing your acoustic treatment open a Sine tone generator in ProTools, Logic, or other software of choice and sweep from 20Hz to 20kHz. If any particular frequency drops down in volume dramatically, then you have a trouble spot, and you need to move your absorption around. Also try playing pink noise through both speakers and move around the room listening for dead spots.

Owens Corning 703 wrapped in fabric

I also keep all of my gear in a ventilated closet attached to the main room of my studio. Since I manage all the technology in a professional studio in the Catskill foothills, I mainly use my personal studio for music programming, tracking small ensembles, and mixing, and this room allows me to do all of these tasks on a modest budget.

MIDI

My studio gear is built around 2 Mac Desktop computers. I recently abandoned my PC that I was using for GigaStudio and I now have 1 new 8 core Mac Pro and 1 older 2 core Power Mac. My sequencer of choice is Digital Performer 6, the favorite of many film composers, but for tracking and mixing I’m usually working in Pro Tools 8. I’m using my Power Mac as a Virtual Instrument host running Kontakt 3.5. Digital Performer triggers up to 64 different instruments in my Kontakt host using  OS X’s Network MIDI. I can even send MIDI data over WiFi which means I could do programming on my laptop and run all my synths and samplers from the desktops without taxing my laptop’s processing power. In addition to my Kontakt host on my Power Mac, I also run an instance of Kontakt on my Mac Pro, along with some of my other favorite synths such as Reason, Omnisphere, EastWest’s PLAY, Synthogy Ivory, MetaSynth, etc.

OS X Network MIDI

AUDIO

The 2 Macs are linked together using 2 32 channel M-Audio Profire Lightbridges. These are used exclusively for digital audio over 4 8 channel ADAT Optical connectors and prevent me from having to convert the audio from digital to analog, and back to digital again. Since the mockups that I create are used to not only demo the cue, but are also often used to supplement the live musicians, I need to record all of my various electronic instruments to separate tracks. These 32 channel Profire interfaces allow me to record 32 channels at a time without an outboard mixer using pristine digital audio. On my main Mac Pro I am also using a MOTU 896 AD converter as my main audio input from my pre-amps and out to my monitors. I’ve been a fan of MOTU converters for a long time, and although I would love to have a Benchmark DAC, Apogee, or Lynx converters, I can’t justify spending the huge amounts of money required for these converter for the work I’m doing in my personal studio. I will say that my dream setup would be to to use a Prism ADA converter to output 16 channels to a Dangerous 2-Bus for analog summing, but considering that would cost as much as a new car, I’ll have to wait on that purchase.

M-Audio Profire lightbridge – 32 channels of ADAT Digital I/O

KEYBOARD

I have a behemoth, bright red keyboard controller from a fairly new company called CME. The model I have, the VX8, has 88 professional graded hammer action weighted keys. When combined with Synthogy Ivory, it feels and sounds just like a real piano. The great thing about the VX8 is that it not only works great for performing music, it is also very effective for mixing. The keyboard includes 9 motorized flying faders, and up to 64 controllers, so I have all the tools under my fingertips to make the music expressive and exciting without having to spend all my time mousing around. It even includes 12 programmable beat pads, so I can actually bang out my drum and percussion beats by hand.

CME VX8 Keyboard Controller

MONITORS

I am currently using a pair of Event PS8 speakers for my monitors, as well as a 5.1 set of Logitech Z-5500 speakers. I can’t do any serious surround mixing on the Logitechs, but they do allow me to get the feel of the surround sound experience while I’m programming. I’ve calibrated my speaker levels to 83dB SPL so I can be sure the sound I’m hearing will be similar to the mixing levels at the dub and the playback level in the movie theatre (more on the magic of 83dB SPL in a future article). I’ve also been admiring the JBL LSR series of monitors which I’ve used a few times, but my trusty PS8 monitors seem to be doing the job for now.

Well that’s my newest studio updates which I’m excited about. I also have some pres, other interfaces, a mic closet, and other gadgets and doo hickeys but for brevity’s sake this article highlights some of the gear that I most often use for composing and music programming. Thanks for reading!

a film by David Slade
music by Howard Shore
music programming by James Sizemore

Trailer

a film by Jessenia Nauta and Jesse Flores
music by James Sizemore

a film by Martin Cambell
music by Howard Shore
music programming by James Sizemore

Trailer

At times, however, a filmmaker will want the audience to step back and appreciate the “bigger picture”, so to speak, in order to allow the audience to reflect on their emotions or take in a broader scope of the story line. While it is known that cinematography can create a sense of this subjective/objective experience by using wide shots or close-ups for instance, it is also the music that draws us in and out of the film. This in fact, is what also dictates the form of film music.

All westerners have an innate sense of form in music. We are subjected to it our entire lives, whether it be the verse, chorus, bridge form heard in popular music, or the sonata, rondo, or fugue forms heard in concert music. Film music form for the most part, however, must follow the action on screen. In fact, it is the degree to which film music follows the form of the picture that creates the subjective/objective experience. When the music follows very closely with set hit points it draws the audience into the picture, whereas when the music does not follow the picture it creates a more subjective viewpoint of the action on screen. To illustrate, let’s look at some examples.

This first clip is from Spiderman 2 and it illustrates how Danny Elfman’s music helps to draw the audience into the scene. This scene features an intense brawl between Spiderman and Doc Oc, and the cinematography and sound design does an excellent job of making one feel that they are part of the action. The music also does it’s part by following the action on screen by “hitting” certain sections of the film. In this example, Elfman’s music is almost serving more as sound effect then music to add to the hyper-realism of the scene, and the action onscreen dictates the form of the music.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

Now compare this Spiderman 2 clip to another action scene in Gladiator. While this is still a fighting scene, it has a distinctly different character.

[See post to watch QuickTime movie]

In this example all other elements are stripped from the soundtrack, and Hans Zimmer’s score takes the forefront. Contrary to the first example, the music here does the opposite of the picture, with slow music going against the grain of the fast paced editing and action onscreen. This allows the audience to have a more objective viewpoint of the story.

This use of music in Gladiator, where music is used to pull the audience out of the scene in order to demonstrate the horror of battle, has almost become a Hollywood cliché ever since Oliver Stone’s use of Barber’s Adagio for this effect in Platoon. Nonetheless, these 2 examples illustrate how music can be used to pull the audience in and out of the picture. In addition, they show 2 approaches to film scoring, being underscoring and thematic scoring. The Spiderman example underscores and supports the film with few musical motifs, whereas the Gladiator example presents one of the central musical themes of the film that will recur throughout.

One of the really beautiful things about this approach is that it shows the extent to which film scoring is a collaborative effort. A composer can approach a scene using either method, but it is the choice of the director that will determine the scene’s impact.

For more in depth reading on this topic, check out how these ideas fit into experimental psychologist Annabel Cohen’s article How Music Influences the Interpretation of Film and Video: Approaches from Experimental Psychology or legendary sound editor Walter Murch’s article Dense Clarity, Clear Density (another post on this article will be forthcoming). Happy Filmmaking!

a film by John Patrick Shanley
music by Howard Shore
music programming by James Sizemore

Trailer

a film by Jeff Rosenberg
music by James Sizemore

Trailer