Your advice much appreciated on this one. Thanks for your suggestions / directions.
Quite long explanation below, to set the mood ...
I am now giving the finishing touches to the video part of my last endeavour. It will be a Family Movie reporting my summer holidays in the amazingly beautiful Island of Bali (one month before the bomb, thank heavens).
Not to my taste or to my habit, it will have to be a long movie. There was so much and so good material in there that I ended up with 2.5 hour footage (!!) that I can't definitely not abridge. So, I will make it a 2-part "thing".
Strange as you may find, my relatives actualy *love* my movies and are always eager to see new productions ... I put a lot of work in them and I am always able to surprise the folks with the result. I must be very careful not to knock down sleeping the grannies or the in-laws, and be able to please the life-spanning friends as well ... so far it has worked nicely.
This means that I am always very critic to every minute of film: is this scene too long (or too short) ? am I overkilling with FX ? is this *boring* ? does the audience relate with this ? shall I stop now ? shall I swap these scenes ? shall I introduce here some "wake-up" scene ? etc. etc.
After I finish my visuals, I go back I start the "treatment of the ear". The original audio is almost always very difficult to manage on location, so everything ends up being filtered, cut, moved and pasted, subdued, erased ...
On top (or bottom) of all this, I always lay down a bed of music. Most of the times it ends up being the extra touch, the cherry on top of the cream. It must be something related to the subject that, by itself, brings something "extra" to the final work, and my audience is now used to be pleasantly surprised with the scores that I put together for my "productions". I usually like to stick to instrumental only (no vocal). However, the Beach Boys and Chuck Berry went very well in the Florida clip, and the Catalan Choirs dropped in the Barcelona clip wonderfully. Not to tell you what I did with the New Orleans production ...
But, you know, it just happens that the Balinese Music is *dead boring* !!! I don't mean that the folk representations are boring on location (they really aren't !!) but that kind of music does not seem to fit well in my movies, for more that 30 or 60 seconds each time. That means that I have restricted myself from including more than 40-50 sec of folkloric scenes each time, and to separate them quite well throughout the movie.
Now, to the mood music. I am looking for something that is *engaging* but, at the same time, related with that beautiful world spot. It must be melodic, smooth but rhythmic at the same time (to wake up the folks).
And, I confess, so far I have not been able to decide what to use !!!
I give you report of my findings so far. I have a lot (3000 cd's) of music that specializes in anglo-saxonic from 60's to 90's, with Jazz and Blues and also some Classics thrown in. I have also picked in the Net some mp3 samples of balinese contemporary music, as well as 2 ethnic cd's bought on location.
My trials, to give you some hints of the ways that I am following:
- the balinese contemporary music is something that you wouldn't want to have in your movies, so ...
- I sampled some instrumental bits of one 60's celtic group called Tir Na Nog. They sing, but the play in between has an "asiatic" touch, and I picked only the instrumental part.
- did the same with some selected riffs from Mark Knopfler and also Chet Atkins and Stevie Ray Vaughan (who would have guessed ?), very few musical interludes from Van Morrison, Oscar Peterson gigs, some musical scores from Enio Morricone (not the westerns)...
- Vangelis did not come out well, but I picked one nice score from Jon & Vangelis. Jean Michel Jarre did not pass the filter (the China Concerts have that irritating voice mumbling behind). Elevator music came and went (Hooked on Classics anyone ?). Jean-Luc Ponty may have something useable (Cosmic Messenger).
- moving to classics: Dvorak may have a possibility with "New World" and maybe Sybelius and the "Water" thing. Many of the others are too much "europeish" to fit. And not Gershwin or Bernstein, of course.
Now, my inspiration dried out, and I am seeking for advice. All inputs welcome, provided that the initial requisites are met: engaging, melodic, athmospheric scores.
And, of course, I can go to the Net anywhere, if I know it.
Please, do give your opinions. Thanks in advance.
Quite long explanation below, to set the mood ...
I am now giving the finishing touches to the video part of my last endeavour. It will be a Family Movie reporting my summer holidays in the amazingly beautiful Island of Bali (one month before the bomb, thank heavens).
Not to my taste or to my habit, it will have to be a long movie. There was so much and so good material in there that I ended up with 2.5 hour footage (!!) that I can't definitely not abridge. So, I will make it a 2-part "thing".
Strange as you may find, my relatives actualy *love* my movies and are always eager to see new productions ... I put a lot of work in them and I am always able to surprise the folks with the result. I must be very careful not to knock down sleeping the grannies or the in-laws, and be able to please the life-spanning friends as well ... so far it has worked nicely.
This means that I am always very critic to every minute of film: is this scene too long (or too short) ? am I overkilling with FX ? is this *boring* ? does the audience relate with this ? shall I stop now ? shall I swap these scenes ? shall I introduce here some "wake-up" scene ? etc. etc.
After I finish my visuals, I go back I start the "treatment of the ear". The original audio is almost always very difficult to manage on location, so everything ends up being filtered, cut, moved and pasted, subdued, erased ...
On top (or bottom) of all this, I always lay down a bed of music. Most of the times it ends up being the extra touch, the cherry on top of the cream. It must be something related to the subject that, by itself, brings something "extra" to the final work, and my audience is now used to be pleasantly surprised with the scores that I put together for my "productions". I usually like to stick to instrumental only (no vocal). However, the Beach Boys and Chuck Berry went very well in the Florida clip, and the Catalan Choirs dropped in the Barcelona clip wonderfully. Not to tell you what I did with the New Orleans production ...
But, you know, it just happens that the Balinese Music is *dead boring* !!! I don't mean that the folk representations are boring on location (they really aren't !!) but that kind of music does not seem to fit well in my movies, for more that 30 or 60 seconds each time. That means that I have restricted myself from including more than 40-50 sec of folkloric scenes each time, and to separate them quite well throughout the movie.
Now, to the mood music. I am looking for something that is *engaging* but, at the same time, related with that beautiful world spot. It must be melodic, smooth but rhythmic at the same time (to wake up the folks).
And, I confess, so far I have not been able to decide what to use !!!
I give you report of my findings so far. I have a lot (3000 cd's) of music that specializes in anglo-saxonic from 60's to 90's, with Jazz and Blues and also some Classics thrown in. I have also picked in the Net some mp3 samples of balinese contemporary music, as well as 2 ethnic cd's bought on location.
My trials, to give you some hints of the ways that I am following:
- the balinese contemporary music is something that you wouldn't want to have in your movies, so ...
- I sampled some instrumental bits of one 60's celtic group called Tir Na Nog. They sing, but the play in between has an "asiatic" touch, and I picked only the instrumental part.
- did the same with some selected riffs from Mark Knopfler and also Chet Atkins and Stevie Ray Vaughan (who would have guessed ?), very few musical interludes from Van Morrison, Oscar Peterson gigs, some musical scores from Enio Morricone (not the westerns)...
- Vangelis did not come out well, but I picked one nice score from Jon & Vangelis. Jean Michel Jarre did not pass the filter (the China Concerts have that irritating voice mumbling behind). Elevator music came and went (Hooked on Classics anyone ?). Jean-Luc Ponty may have something useable (Cosmic Messenger).
- moving to classics: Dvorak may have a possibility with "New World" and maybe Sybelius and the "Water" thing. Many of the others are too much "europeish" to fit. And not Gershwin or Bernstein, of course.
Now, my inspiration dried out, and I am seeking for advice. All inputs welcome, provided that the initial requisites are met: engaging, melodic, athmospheric scores.
And, of course, I can go to the Net anywhere, if I know it.
Please, do give your opinions. Thanks in advance.