Music is the essential, universal language. It expresses emotion, a story, and records a generation in history. In the classical and baroque era, music was written to tell a story and emphasize the emotion within that story. Music still tells stories today; movies, games, and regular songs tell stories with emphasized emotions. Games require music to set the mood and energy for specific scenarios.…
Star Wars episode IV A New Hope is a 20th century classic which embodies: the socio-cultural dynamic that the power balance throughout the galaxy constantly changes, a show of respect for elders on both the good and bad sides of the force, and a diverse cast of individuals all working together towards a similar goal. The film begins as a Rebel transport ship with Princess Leia finds itself flying into an area within which the imperial starship essentially forces the rebels to cede their territory. Imperial forces invading the rebel transport occurs for two primary reason. Darth Vader wanted to attain the disk to which contained information in regards to the structural design hierarchy of the “mobile planet” referred to as the Death Star.…
This film is so exceedingly dependent on the music that if you were to take away the music there would not be a…
In conclusion, this song is made up of all types of musical elements. While evaluating this scene, I discovered that this song was the perfect choice for it. It helps the audience to understand what’s going on in the scene and relate it to their own emotions. I learned the importance of every detail that goes into making music for a movie.…
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that” (A Testament of Hope, Martin Luther King Jr.). George Lucas is a filmmaker and entrepreneur best known for the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises. After reading Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Lucas wanted to write a story mixing mythology, science fiction, and archetypes. The trilogy begins in media res, following the story of Luke Skywalker, an orphan on the planet of Tatooine who lives with his aunt and uncle.…
James Horner: Some of the best movies made today are so great thanks to the advances in video production technology and special effects. However, one of the biggest contributors to a successful motion picture is the soundtrack. The soundtrack to a movie sets tone for the action on the screen and has the ability to truly enchant the audience, creating an emotional stage of relativity between the movie storyline and the audience. We recently lost one of the greatest American composers of such a soundtrack all too soon; James Horner, born August 1953 lost his life in an unfortunate plane crash on June 22nd 2015 ending a successful career of producing some of the most incredible soundtracks we know and love. Horner’s assistant said, “We lost an…
During the World War One music was used as propaganda. Music was used on the home fronts and battlefields. Most homes had a pianos, it was a common form of entertainment and socialization. The government used it to inspire passion, pride and patriotism in order to gain power, homeland, support and funds. Composers and Publishers wrote music to promote wartime happiness.…
One insanely popular film that was announced the highest-grossing film of 1976 that won three oscar awards would be “Rocky” written by and starring Sylvester Stallone. Meanwhile, the American composer of the film “Rocky” is William Conti, who was also the composer for the other four films of the series. Bill Conti was nominated an academy award for best original song for two different films, including the theme song of “Rocky” and “007.” Towards the end of the film, the song “Gonna Fly Now” composed by Bill Conti is introduced while Rocky Balboa is training for a huge boxing fight. As Rocky begins running through the city on an early morning, the trumpets are playing gracefully and mezzopiano at a largo tempo.…
The song entitled, Firetrail, was intended to be a fusion of Western and non-Western concepts that explores within the realms of a film score. Firetrail was the name given to the song in order to invoke a visual image which can also be said for the various themes within the composition. The main source of non-Western influence comes from Japan, in regard to the instrumentation and scales used, however influences from Brazil's Samba music can also be heard be heard within this piece. Extensive research has been undertaken in order to achieve this mixture of cultures, through both readings as well as compositions from these cultures. The piece has been purposed as film score and thus has been through composed as opposed to more common forms of…
Ravenous has a lot of black comedy elements that I missed when I saw it in theaters back in 1999. It's strange what seventeen years can do to your perspective. Regardless Ravenous is a great film no matter how you cut and didn't deserve the large amount of negative reviews it got upon its release. The black comedy and satirical elements are laid on a bit thick in place, but it's those elements that's really made Ravenous hold up over time. That and it's loosely based on elements of both the Donner Party and Alferd Packer.…
The film also uses the playlist of old time music such as Thriller, Love is a Battlefield or Crazy for You as the film’s soundtracks. Those songs are used not only because they were the favorite ones in that decade, but also because of their lyrics, whose meanings are similar to the situations of the film; they enhance the atmosphere and set the theme of the…
When no score is present, other diegetic sounds add to the overall audio-visual environment of the film. The usage of the alternate versions of Okuribito at different points of the film coincide with research by Boltz, Shulkind, and Kantra, (1991, pp593-606) stating background music has a profound effect on retention of filmed events. This is further solidified by “opening credit and end title music…as recurring musical themes that come to represent characters or situations within the film” (Libscomb & Tilchinsky, 2005, p10). With such complex usage of sound and music, the film is able to foreground its dialogue and visual aesthetic without saturating the scene with too much music, instead opting for ambient sounds while only allowing the score to play when attempting to elicit and emotional response. The control of sound was a main theme that most likely earned the film an…
The director does an brilliant job of portraying the them of balance with the use of distinct sounds and abstract camera angles. The use of background sounds in the film play a major role in maintaining the theme of balance. The music that is played throughout the movie foreshadows what is going to happen. For example, there is suspenseful and dark music whenever they Cobra Kai are around.…
Finding Forrester is an amazing literary movie created by director Gus Van Sant who is a musician, photographer, and an Author from Louisville, Kentucky. Finding Forrester is a coming of age/drama movie set in the Bronx of New York City. The film is a fictional movie, but seems like a true story to some. Finding Forrester is about a unique relationship that develops between a free spirited, reclusive novelist, named William Forrester (Sean Connery) and a young gifted scholar-basketball player, Jamal Wallace (Rob Brown). When Forrester finds out that the young boy is an amazing writer, he secretly takes him as his apprentice.…
Accordingly, this source provides useful insight into the purpose that dictate the stylistic measures of music that is apparent within the arena of film studies. Therefore, the source ranks towards the primary resources in regard to the usefulness and reliability of the information presented. Jeff Smith elaborates upon Gorbman 's references to the degietic and non diegetic modes of production within his article, Bridging the Gap: Reconsidering the Border between Diegetic and Nondiegetic Music. The prime focus of the article is to outline the modes of music production for diegetic and non-diegetic music in films. The intended market for this resource is film students that require an in-depth analysis of the mechanics of diegetic and non-diegetic music.…