I am currently working on the musical themes for the film, looking for inspiration everywhere and jotting down a ton of ideas.

As I do this work I always refer to a concept for the score, which I have clarified in my mind using a few words:

1. Magic
2. Adventure
3. Quest
4. Fun

And just a few minutes ago another one hit me as being very important to get the right mood: story-telling.

These words help me clarify the general concept, or metaphor, that will unify all the music in the score, regardless of the mood the music has to express in any given cue.

So if it’s a sad moment, an action or suspense cue, these five words should still apply.

If a melody starts getting too comic-book superhero, or if another starts to get too romantic, or too dark or whatever, I will know it doesn’t fit the mood of the film because I took the time to understand it and express it in those few words.

There are sad moments in the story, and sure, I can write a sad melody, but writing a sad melody with a subtext of story-telling and magic, that’s better!

Or writing mindless, pounding  action music that could belong in a Michael Bay slow motion explosion-fest, that would just be wrong. The action music in this film should retain a magical feel to them and never get too, too serious.

As I write the melodies, harmonies and rhythms, I am looking to establish a specific sound or musical language that will run through the score and help me be cohesive in my musical choices.

And my personal goal; to adhere to the conventions and idioms of the genre while still making it fresh, inventive and honest.

So back to work!

Alain

Well, I can finally give some details!

• Title: “The Legend of Silk Boy”
• Type: Computer animated feature film
• Written by Neil Every and Christopher Donaldson,
• Directed by David Liu,
• Produced by Red Motion Animation.
• Starring; Jackie Chan.

It is not a Kung-Fu movie, but rather a fantasy adventure, a heroe’s journey, a quest, and more importantly, a really great story that has the potential of being a great film!

Also, it’s the kind of film that I wanted to score since I was a boy! Orchestral fantasy writing? Are you kidding!?

The film is being produced in China but aims at a world wide audience, so the script was written in English and all the voices done in English as well.

I got on the project through Neil, one of the writers, with whom I have worked before an a short film he directed called “Say Yes”.

Neil liked my music and my work ethic enough to tell the director about me, saying that I would work on it “as if it was my own film.”

So David, the director, listened to my music and heard the score for a short animated film I scored called “Our Dance.” He loved it! When I spoke with him the first time, he told me this was the “best melody he ever heard”! (Go here to listen to it.)

And the rest, as they say, is history!

When I got signed on, there was no Jackie Chan. It’s a pretty small movie, the first one for this new studio, but they managed to get associated with the Shanghai World Expo in 2010! So Jackie got wind of it and signed on!

Needless to say, that makes me pretty happy. Going from no familiar names to Jackie Chan is good for the movie’s visibility and, as a result, mine.

So because of this, the score has gone from synth to full, live orchestra, so all is well! Now, I just have to make the music live up to the project…

I spent the better part of last week going over tons of music, priming the creative environment for the writing of the orchestral underscore.

But now it is time to start writing! And the first order of business is: themes.

And just in time I received the animation for the first 10 minutes of the film this morning, and it looks great! This is going to help a lot to get me inspired.

This morning I spent some time on Stravinsky’s Firebird, listened to and transcribed some Chinese traditional music and then started working on the themes.

You know, this is the start of the underscore and I tell you, I was really nervous! Not quite hands shaking kind of nervous, but I could feel the stress in my chest.

Now that I have been writing for the past few hours I feel less nervous.  I wrote 16 ideas and the wheels are now officially turning. But still, I want my melodies to measure up to the great melodies of film and TV.

So I wonder, what makes a melody something people like, something that they remember instantly and for years after?

What does John Williams know about melody writing that most don’t, that make his melodies so damn good and memorable?

Because you know, I have two boys and they sing and recognize John Williams’ melodies more than the ones in the cartoons they watch all the time.

That’s what I want to achieve; writing tunes that my boys (and all other kids and parents all over the world) sing all the time after seeing this movie!

To achieve that, I have been playing and analyzing in depth a bunch of classic tunes  and coming to some conclusions which I hope serve my writing well!

We shall see!

Alright! I have been waiting for this day since I signed on to this project! Time to write some orchestral underscore!

This project will have advantages and challenges that are specific to working in animation: namely that I will have a very generous schedule to work with, but that I will be writing without seeing all of the film first.

On some animation projects you get to see an animated story board, or even story board, but so far I have only seen the character designs, some stills (like the one above) and read the script four times.

So I have to turn to the script for the architecture of the score right now. This is fine, because Neil and Chris’ script is very, very solid.

Architecture?

By architecture I mean; what characters, things and events will have themes, where will the themes appear, how will these themes develop and be used, and how will they relate to each other and to the story. That sort of thing!

The themes have to fit the characters as well, so I must understand the characters, their motivations and their function within the story.

And that is exactly what I did today, which gave me a nice detailed list, which looks like this.

1. 16 distinct musical sections
2. 10 character themes
3. 11 other themes

With this list I will not overlook anything!

And now time to start writing! Well, almost… first I am going to soak up some music.

Writing awesome, memorable themes is an important goal! and something I continually wish to improve at.

To that end I will be listening to and analyzing some melodic models from classical music, songs, and film music by the likes of John Williams, Mancini and those guys who really knew how to do it.

Other orchestral music I will listen to this week to build the sound world of the film will come from the usual suspects: Ravel, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Grieg, Liszt, Bartok, Dukas, Lutoslowasky, and of course, John Williams.

On the playlist is also Chinese traditional music, since it is a big part of the story. (Although the director does not want a big, Chinese sound to the film. Just a hint of it in certain parts.)

I do this kind of work for every project, but in this case, this groundwork means that I will have my musical materials ready so I can hit the ground running when I start getting scenes to score, which will be any day now!

Cheers!

Alain
PS: I will announce the info about the film in a few days!

All pre-production music is done! Took a while, but I had a while, maybe that’s why it took a while…

Anyway, that’s three songs and one instrumental guitar-hero thing. All tracks are off to the singer, Cary Shields, and the stems to mixer Josh Rosario.

Time management is important in film work, requiring foresight and planning and a bit of proper planet alignment so that all elements come together at the right time.

Before the project began I planned what the writing process was going to be. That overall scheme was; songs first, underscore after. Based on the script I loosely figured out how many minutes of music the score would be (100 minutes.)

The director only knew that he wanted songs but not what they would be or where. He kindly asked for my thoughts, so I read the script thoroughly and communicated with Neil Every, half of the screen-writing team, and came up with some options.

The total came to three songs, one in the first act, one in the second and a last one at the very end.

Before I started writing the songs, though, it was important to make sure they would have a great voice. So I contacted singers far in advance, including my top choice, Cary Shields. Luckily, Cary was completing his time on Rent at the time and was going to be available! Perfect timing!

Cary was a guitar student of mine for a couple of years. He was in Vancouver, taking time off from Broadway. I got to hear his voice just sitting three feet in front of him, it was amazing. We had a great time and I always wanted to work with him someday!

So the planets aligned and Cary was free just at the right time!

I also needed someone to mix the songs, because mixing requires special skills, knowledge and interest, all of which I don’t have!

So, also before I started writing the songs, I asked for references from a composer friend and contacted them. But it was through the magic of Craigslist that I found my guy: Josh Rosario.

It turns out that Josh had posted only once on Craigslist, so it was luck that brought me to search when I did. Josh is young, driven, he knows his stuff and eager to learn. And he lives 5 minutes away! I could not have asked for more.

With the singer and mixer in place, I could then start writing the songs!

As I wrote the songs, I had to get ready for the coming work on the underscore because now there would be an orchestra involved! (More on that in a later post.)

I needed someone to do the engraving that could read my complete short score and understand what to do. I found the perfect guy in Brad Stark.

A few months prior I had received an email from Brad who shared a similar outlook on music. He is currently doing his doctorate in music composition at UBC, where I studied, and wanted to get involved in music for the media.

So when I had to find someone to help me with the orchestral score, Brad came to mind. Turns out he has the perfect combination of available time, skills, knowledge and motivation to help me out. Brad is a pro on Finale and has much experience with the orchestra. Perfect!

It seems that the planets did align on this project, but there is more! For another post.

[Check out screenwriter's Neil Every's blog.]