Keith Snyder

Journal entries with ILY in the titles are about the short screen musical
I LOVE YOU, I'M SORRY, AND I'LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN,
currently in pre-production.

We're making a musical. Music's kind of important.

In a "regular movie" (because I can't think of a better term for one that's not a musical), there may be some consideration of the underscore early in the process, but for the most part, it comes afterward.

In a musical, you have to plan around the music. The way it's almost always done, you record the music in advance (including vocals), play it back on the set, and the performers lip-synch and dance. Then in post-production (which means everything that happens after you finish shooting: editing, scoring, special effects, etc.), you make the lips line up with the sound.

We were able to shoot CREDO on an infinitesimal budget because we didn't do it that way. Briefly, Larry sang a capella (without accompaniment) on the set, and I created music to go with it afterward. It worked so flawlessly because we figured out every technical step of the music/audio process before we even had a finished script.

The music for CREDO was mostly tempo di lorenzo. This looks like a musical term to most of you, but I just made it up. It means "in the tempo of Larry." Larry sang freely; afterward, I made the accompaniment fit his performance.

I LOVE YOU, I'M SORRY, AND I'LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN will be shot similarly--but there's a catch.

Here is an MP3 of the current state of the music.

It has no vocals yet, so it'll sound oddly bare in some spots, and a little too thick in others. What it does have is a tempo--a rigid one. This is groove music, and the performers have to be in that groove.

The solution will be to play a rhythmic click on the set. On shorter shots, we can probably play the click before we roll camera, and then stop it for the actual take. (Just about anyone can continue a rhythm they just heard, in pretty good tempo, for a short time.) On longer shots, we'll need to play the click all the way through, because by the time you get 30 seconds downstream from your last memory of the click tempo, you've probably drifted a little.

Obviously, a click that keeps occurring for no reason in the middle of scenes is fatal to a film. Rather than give up on the idea, though, I thought about how I could do it anyway. The rough solution I came up with was to show something in the gas station--a clock, a ticking radiator--that could be understood as making the clicking noise.

From there, it was a short leap from gas station clock to machines on factory floor, and then another short leap to the machine sounds could build during the course of the story. That's why although the toolbox is mentioned in the script, Eddie only drops it in the storyboard. It motivates the addition of the second machine: he drops the toolbox on the control panel, which causes the machine out on the shop floor to start up, BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM.

I know the factory I want to use, and have storyboarded accordingly. Whether I get to shoot there is another story.

That MP3 is also a "rough mix," which is sort of like a rough draft. It's missing instruments; it has placeholders where real instruments will replace virtual simulations; the balances between bass and treble, left and right, and instrument-to-instrument aren't necessarily right; things may be changed drastically to make room for (or complement) the vocal; and so on.

If you're really interested, take a look at the last few storyboard frames again while you're playing the beginning of the MP3. I've noted where the introductory brass swell starts, how the slamming door relates to the flute trill, and what happens on the downbeat.

Another issue we didn't have with CREDO is the fact that you can't dance all that energetically and sing at the same time. Holding a note while you jump up in the air and land on the floor doesn't work. It goes Laaaaaa-UH!-aaaa. That's one reason teenybopper pop stars lip-synch in concert. All that aerobic dancing isn't compatible with singing well. (Another reason they lip-synch is they can't sing in the first place. But that's a rant for another time.)

This dance/sing mutual exclusion didn't matter in CREDO because there's only one choreographed sequence, and it's very light choreography. Larry basically walks up a church aisle, singing, and uses his upper body expressively. No jumping.

I LOVE YOU, I'M SORRY, AND I'LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN is different. We've got a guy getting vigorously beat up. Lots of movement and exertion, not to mention pain being inflicted. However, although I've laid this out as a problem, it's not. One of the things I like best about not lip-synching is that it contributes to suspension of disbelief. If a sudden movement jars somebody's diaphragm and they go uhp! in the middle of a word, that's good, not bad. That's what happens when you move suddenly. It tells us "this is actually happening."

In opera terms, we're doing verismo.

I really hate when the voices on the soundtrack don't match the space the characters are inhabiting onscreen. It's worse in older movies; two guys are talking in a warehouse, mic'd from twenty feet away, and it sounds like it. Kind of boomy, not a lot of bass (because your ear is designed so the volume of bass frequencies appears to fall off more quickly than the volume of treble frequencies as you move away from the sound; that's why you have a VOLUME switch on your boombox: it's for when the volume's down low and your ear stops hearing the bass). Then suddenly, in this warehouse scene, there's an overdubbed line that was obviously recorded in a padded vocal booth, six inches from a microphone. Really dry sound, no boom, there's a ton of bass, and I don't know about you, but it's like I got punched in the ear and knocked right out of the fictive dream.

Shooting live performance means this never happens--but it's also risky. The fate of your entire production budget rests on the ability of your performers to do flawless takes on a tight schedule--and they have to be flawless in twice as many ways as an actor on a regular movie. In addition to hitting their marks, knowing their lines, and bringing characters to life, they also have to be on pitch, on tempo, and in the right place for the choreography at all times.

Which means, basically, that your talent has to actually be talented.

So on my productions, there's not really much risk.

[Best of the Blog| News & Notes about CREDO ]

Keith Snyder Door always open.
:: HOME :: EMAIL ::
Previous Entry :: Next Entry Read/Post Comments (2) Share on Facebook My new blog Follow me on: Twitter Bikeforums Facebook � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �		2005-06-23 11:40 AM ILY: Music Journal entries with ILY in the titles are about the short screen musical I LOVE YOU, I'M SORRY, AND I'LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN, currently in pre-production. We're making a musical. Music's kind of important. In a "regular movie" (because I can't think of a better term for one that's not a musical), there may be some consideration of the underscore early in the process, but for the most part, it comes afterward. In a musical, you have to plan around the music. The way it's almost always done, you record the music in advance (including vocals), play it back on the set, and the performers lip-synch and dance. Then in post-production (which means everything that happens after you finish shooting: editing, scoring, special effects, etc.), you make the lips line up with the sound. We were able to shoot CREDO on an infinitesimal budget because we didn't do it that way. Briefly, Larry sang a capella (without accompaniment) on the set, and I created music to go with it afterward. It worked so flawlessly because we figured out every technical step of the music/audio process before we even had a finished script. The music for CREDO was mostly tempo di lorenzo. This looks like a musical term to most of you, but I just made it up. It means "in the tempo of Larry." Larry sang freely; afterward, I made the accompaniment fit his performance. I LOVE YOU, I'M SORRY, AND I'LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN will be shot similarly--but there's a catch. Here is an MP3 of the current state of the music. It has no vocals yet, so it'll sound oddly bare in some spots, and a little too thick in others. What it does have is a tempo--a rigid one. This is groove music, and the performers have to be in that groove. The solution will be to play a rhythmic click on the set. On shorter shots, we can probably play the click before we roll camera, and then stop it for the actual take. (Just about anyone can continue a rhythm they just heard, in pretty good tempo, for a short time.) On longer shots, we'll need to play the click all the way through, because by the time you get 30 seconds downstream from your last memory of the click tempo, you've probably drifted a little. Obviously, a click that keeps occurring for no reason in the middle of scenes is fatal to a film. Rather than give up on the idea, though, I thought about how I could do it anyway. The rough solution I came up with was to show something in the gas station--a clock, a ticking radiator--that could be understood as making the clicking noise. From there, it was a short leap from gas station clock to machines on factory floor, and then another short leap to the machine sounds could build during the course of the story. That's why although the toolbox is mentioned in the script, Eddie only drops it in the storyboard. It motivates the addition of the second machine: he drops the toolbox on the control panel, which causes the machine out on the shop floor to start up, BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM. I know the factory I want to use, and have storyboarded accordingly. Whether I get to shoot there is another story. That MP3 is also a "rough mix," which is sort of like a rough draft. It's missing instruments; it has placeholders where real instruments will replace virtual simulations; the balances between bass and treble, left and right, and instrument-to-instrument aren't necessarily right; things may be changed drastically to make room for (or complement) the vocal; and so on. If you're really interested, take a look at the last few storyboard frames again while you're playing the beginning of the MP3. I've noted where the introductory brass swell starts, how the slamming door relates to the flute trill, and what happens on the downbeat. Another issue we didn't have with CREDO is the fact that you can't dance all that energetically and sing at the same time. Holding a note while you jump up in the air and land on the floor doesn't work. It goes Laaaaaa-UH!-aaaa. That's one reason teenybopper pop stars lip-synch in concert. All that aerobic dancing isn't compatible with singing well. (Another reason they lip-synch is they can't sing in the first place. But that's a rant for another time.) This dance/sing mutual exclusion didn't matter in CREDO because there's only one choreographed sequence, and it's very light choreography. Larry basically walks up a church aisle, singing, and uses his upper body expressively. No jumping. I LOVE YOU, I'M SORRY, AND I'LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN is different. We've got a guy getting vigorously beat up. Lots of movement and exertion, not to mention pain being inflicted. However, although I've laid this out as a problem, it's not. One of the things I like best about not lip-synching is that it contributes to suspension of disbelief. If a sudden movement jars somebody's diaphragm and they go uhp! in the middle of a word, that's good, not bad. That's what happens when you move suddenly. It tells us "this is actually happening." In opera terms, we're doing verismo. I really hate when the voices on the soundtrack don't match the space the characters are inhabiting onscreen. It's worse in older movies; two guys are talking in a warehouse, mic'd from twenty feet away, and it sounds like it. Kind of boomy, not a lot of bass (because your ear is designed so the volume of bass frequencies appears to fall off more quickly than the volume of treble frequencies as you move away from the sound; that's why you have a VOLUME switch on your boombox: it's for when the volume's down low and your ear stops hearing the bass). Then suddenly, in this warehouse scene, there's an overdubbed line that was obviously recorded in a padded vocal booth, six inches from a microphone. Really dry sound, no boom, there's a ton of bass, and I don't know about you, but it's like I got punched in the ear and knocked right out of the fictive dream. Shooting live performance means this never happens--but it's also risky. The fate of your entire production budget rests on the ability of your performers to do flawless takes on a tight schedule--and they have to be flawless in twice as many ways as an actor on a regular movie. In addition to hitting their marks, knowing their lines, and bringing characters to life, they also have to be on pitch, on tempo, and in the right place for the choreography at all times. Which means, basically, that your talent has to actually be talented. So on my productions, there's not really much risk. [Best of the Blog\| News & Notes about CREDO ] Read/Post Comments (2) Previous Entry :: Next Entry Back to Top