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Berklee College of Music
RESCORING A BLOCKBUSTER
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Degree of
Master of Music in Scoring for Film, Television and Video Games
Supervisor: Vicente Ortiz Gimeno
By Laura Blasco Llopis
Valencia Campus, Spain
July 2019
TABLE OF CONTENT
ABSTRACT......................................................................................................................... iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................... iv
1.
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................1
2.
BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW ..........................................................3
3.
2.1.
Background.............................................................................................................3
2.2.
Literature Review ...................................................................................................4
THE PROCESS OF CREATING, RECORDING, EDITING AND MIXING .................5
3.1.
First assignments ....................................................................................................5
3.2.
The making of “Battle of Ultron” ............................................................................8
3.3.
Musical and Narrative Analysis of “Battle of Ultron”..............................................9
4.
EXPERIENCE IN LONDON AND BACK TO REALITY ........................................... 16
5.
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................ 18
MULTIMEDIA RESOURCES ............................................................................................. 19
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ABSTRACT
This project shows the culmination of a year full of hard work and different
experiences happened in our Masters in Scoring for Film, Television and Video Games.
Going through all the processes that we have been taught during the year, we started from
finding a video to compose for, preparing a tempo map and markers, doing different versions
and preparing a proper Mock-Up, write a score, record in one of the most important studios in
the whole world, based in London, and editing and mixing the cue to premiere it finally.
I come from a classical background, and some of the parts of this process sound kind
of easy to do. But it is true that before doing this degree, I always composed directly on a
score, and doing it first on a DAW and then writing down the score was one of my main
concerns. But knowing that the goal was going to be recording with top musicians at Air
Studios, a famous recording stage where composers like Alan Menken or Danny Elfman
recorded, I knew the hard work would be worth it.
I only hope that this experience can help future students to understand better what the
SFTV Master’s Degree means, and share with everyone what my journey to London meant.
Keywords: composer, film scoring, orchestrating, conducting, sequencing, editing, mixing.
iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank first of all to all the SFTV Faculty for believing in me from the first
moment they decided to accept me and offer me a scholarship to study at Berklee Valencia. I
have been dreaming of this for 5 years, and now that I have come back from London from
recording the piece for this Culminating Experience, I still cannot believe that this year has
happened. Thanks for all the help and support during the year, especially on this last cue,
checking the cue, producing during the recording session and reviewing the mix.
Thanks also to Joe, Sarah, Chris, James and Simon for recording the dialogs of the
scene I chose for this thesis, thanks to Wai for double-checking my sound effects and thanks
to Kei for checking my English.
Special thanks to Mom and Dad, for supporting me since I was born, but especially
when I have taken important decisions, such as doing this Master’s.
I want to thank also all the amazing musicians that recorded my cue in Air Studios,
contracted by Hilary Skewes, and to the Recording Engineer, Jake Jackson. And I need to
thank Jasmin, Missy, McKinley, Kei, Josh, Erynn, Sandra, Francesc, Laura N., Felipe, Paula,
Elena, Erin and Simon for recording the choir part.
And last, but not least, a very special mention to the love of my life, Jorge, who has
been helping and supporting me since 2015, but has been part of this project in almost every
process of this Culminating Experience, from recording voice-overs, choir, checking my
conducting, accompanying me to London, etc.
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1. INTRODUCTION
In 2018-2019 I studied at my dream school, Berklee College of Music. I am in the
Scoring for Film, Television and Video Games (SFTV) program. I could not believe it! It had
been a long time ago since I started thinking about applying to this degree, and I was always
so afraid to not be selected in an application competing with so many people from around the
world. But yet, here I am, having learnt so many new things I never thought about, having
grown up during this year, not only as a composer, also as a person.
All started when I was 12 years old. I was traveling with my parents to Germany by
car when I listened to some music composed by John Barry, in this case, the soundtrack of the
movie Out of Africa, but also from Hanover Street, Born Free and Dances with Wolves1.
Those 4 were the ones that really moved my feelings. I could listen to them so many times
without being tired of them. I wondered what moved me so much about this music, much
more than classical music ever had moved me.
A couple of years later, in 2010, was the year that definitely made me find out that
soundtracks were a part of my life, a part of myself. The release of the movie Inception,
composed by Hans Zimmer, was illuminating for me. The last theme, called Time, opened my
mind. I listened to it over and over again, without becoming tired of it. That music touched
my feelings in such a big way, made me feel things that music had never done to me before.
Maybe because of the scene where the piece is being played, because of the meaning of what
the main character feels. The fact is that I have some kind of sympathy to him, and it is all
because of the music. And realizing that music could do that, that it could make you feel what
the characters are feeling, that it could add the “soul” to a story, was the definitive point that
1
The soundtrack of those 4 movies was composed by John Barry.
1
made me decide that I wanted to achieve that. I want to move feelings, I want to make people
get inside the movie with the help of music.
My first opportunity to compose a big piece came in 2012, when I was 16 years old. I
wrote my first orchestral piece with the help of my composition teacher to orchestrate it
properly, because I did not have any knowledge on how to do it. I had composed some small
piano pieces before, as a gift for my parents on their birthdays, but this was my first big
challenge. The piece is called Die Landschaft, the German word for The Landscape. And why
in German? Because I had studied in a German School in my city, in Valencia, since I was 3
years old, so German was also part of my background.
The composition of this piece began with a picture that was hanging above my piano
(I want to clarify that I am originally a piano performer) and I started playing a melody as I
gazed that painting. It looked very simple actually, only a couple of stones and very greyed
colored, but for some reason, I started imagining myself climbing those stones and arriving to
a perfect view of an amazing landscape. And that is what inspired me to do that piece. After
composing it, people started telling me that remind them of a medieval soundtrack, and after
its release in 2013 and sharing it with more people, I got my first opportunity to compose for
picture.
I started composing for media, only with Finale2, and recording sometimes the
soundtrack and trying to mix it on Reaper3. And after 7 short movies DIY4, I was at Berklee,
learning how to use a DAW5, making a lot of mock-ups and finding out how this soundtrack
world works.
2
Finale: Notation Software used to write scores down.
3
Reaper: Digital audio production application for computers used for recording, editing, mixing and mastering.
It is a free program.
4
DIY: Do it yourself.
5
DAW: Digital Audio Workstation. Software program used to create mockups, usually to show to a director or
producer a very close to reality version of a cue by the use of virtual instruments.
2
And believe me, this is the best decision I have ever made before. This was exactly
where I wanted to be, and this was exactly what I wanted to do: become a Film Composer.
After these intense 10 months of learning the steps to follow to composer music for
media, after 4 live sessions in the AKSS and in the Aula Magistral in the Palau de Les Arts
Reina Sofía, after 4 remote sessions with the Budapest Art Orchestra and after the most
important one, happening live in Air Studios London, I want to explain the full process that I
used for this last cue composed as a Culminating Experience for my Master’s Degree, SFTV.
2. BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1.
Background
As I was mentioning in the Abstract, I come from a classical background. Born in
Valencia in July 1995, my parents decided to move to a little village located 20 minutes away
to the south from campus by car. They still decided to bring me to school in Valencia to learn
a third language (I have been taught Spanish and Valencian since I was a baby), and German
was a big option to open up a future in a foreign company. At least, I could have more
opportunities than others.
The question is how I ended up in the music world. My progenitors thought that
making friends in the village was a bit difficult if I was not going to school there, so they
picked a hobby out for me. A hobby that, without them knowing it, was going to become my
profession after.
My first instrument was piano, I began taking classes when I was 6 years old. And
after 2 years, the people in the Unió Musical de Picanya obligated me to choose one more
3
instrument to play in their Banda6. I chose the violoncello. Why? Because I didn’t like to
blow, and all the instruments in a band are winds. All except the cello.
After finishing the basic degree, I decided to keep learning, and I got accepted in a
Medium-Level Conservatoire, the Conservatori Professional de Música de Torrent, to
continue with both instruments. And this experience took me study my bachelor degree in
Piano Performance from 2013 to 2017 in the Conservatori Superior de Música de València
“Joaquín Rodrigo”.
Spending 15 years of my life in the classical music world makes you listen to and
analyze a lot of music, going from Renaissance up to Contemporary. And having had all this
music by my side has influenced me to the point that I use harmonies and orchestration
techniques when I compose that have been used before by great composers.
2.2.
Literature Review
My favorite piece is Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. For me, that masterpiece means a
before and an after in classical music. Not to forget that his author, Ludwig van Beethoven,
was completely deaf when he composed it.
Franz Liszt has also been a big reference to me. My bachelor degree project was about
orchestrating a piano piece and demonstrating that Liszt, while he was composing for piano,
was thinking of a big orchestra hidden in that solo instrument. A remarkable piece from this
composer is his third symphonic poem, Les Preludes. Another great piece his Étude called Un
sospiro, but the one I like the most is the piece I orchestrated for my undergrad project, the
Vallée d’Obermann.
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Banda: In Valencia, there is a very old tradition of playing in a Wind Band, and it is very common to see
children, adults and retirees. Cities and big villages have more than one musical society, and those have usually
more than one musical group, from youth to senior band, or from orchestra to wind ensemble.
4
But not everything is meant to be classical. My favorite group is Queen, and songs that
inspire me completely are, for example, Bohemian Rhapsody or Who want to live forever.
I will expand what I have used from most of the examples named above in the cue
composed for this thesis in Chapter 3.3: Musical and Narrative Analysis of “Battle of Ultron”.
3. THE PROCESS OF CREATING, RECORDING, EDITING AND MIXING
3.1.
First assignments
I still remember the 3rd week of class, when our program director Lucio Godoy talked
about our first recording session that was about to happen a week after he gave us the
assignment. Wait, only one week? Can you compose 1.30 minutes of music in just one week?
The answer is yes. I mean, you have to do it. And yes, at the beginning sound like
complete stress. But do not panic. Business works like this, and it is better to get used to it
now. If someone would have told me that I would have been capable of creating, preparing,
recording, editing and mixing a session during 2 weeks at the most, I would have never
believed it was possible. So, do not worry, dear reader, because it will become one of the
most exciting experiences you have ever done until now if you come from a very classical
background and have not have too much contact with the industry. And if you have had the
opportunity before, enjoy also what is coming, because it will be worth it.
Our first assignment was based on a script called “The Note”. We had to compose for
a Woodwind Quartet (Flute, Oboe, Bb Clarinet and Bassoon), 1.30 long and, for me, my first
time composing for a script, not for image itself. It is a good training if you are expecting to
work in the industry and they call you to present a cue before they start recording footage.
We had 6 days to compose the cue, using in my case Finale to write the score, and
Digital Performer as my personal DAW to do the mock-up.
I want to point out that this is not the proper order to do a cue. But at that time, I did
not know how to do it yet.
5
The recording session was nice, I remember I was very nervous, we had only 18
minutes to record the piece. 18 minutes. To record 1.30. We should have enough time to do as
many takes as we wish. Well, it is not so easy, but you get used to it, because you think of the
London piece, that has to be a 3-minute long cue and recorded also in that amount of time.
Editing and mixing was a bit of a nightmare. I had used Reaper before, but I had no
idea about how to edit or mix. But most of the assignments for the different classes are
attached to a bigger assignment. For example, this one was given by Lucio for Advanced
Scoring 1: Narrative Analysis, but we had to prepare the mock-up for Vicente’s class,
Technology in Media Scoring, prepare the conducting with Sergio in Conducting for Scoring
Sessions, double-check the orchestration with Alfons in Advanced Dramatic Orchestration 1,
where we learned how to write properly for each of the orchestral instruments, and edit and
mix for Pablo in Recording, Editing, and Mixing Techniques for Film Composers 1.
The next assignments were all based on scripts and footage that the teachers gave us,
such as rescoring for movies that they have scored themselves originally, and the steps to
follow were basically the same that we used for the first project, although in my case, I tried
to compose first on the DAW, preparing a tempo map for the cue so I could sync some points
with the music, and then preparing a score after it to record it live or remote.
After the majority of the first semester had gone by, SFTV Faculty gave us the
guidelines to prepare ourselves for the last recording session in the program. Some of us
planned what to write for it over Christmas Break. It is true that we have been explained that
in the industry, you have to work very fast, but the opportunity of recording with a 51-piece
orchestra with high level musicians in one of the most important studios in the world with one
of the top Recording Engineers meant that I needed to prepare a very nice cue as my
presentation card to the industry.
6
“Compose the best 3 minutes of your life”. This was actually what my supervisor
proposed to me for this piece of music when I told him after the break that I had no idea of
what to compose.
My first option was to do a free-piece, or to write a script myself according to the
music I wanted to write.
The first sketches for this version were done around February, composing some
melodies for solo cello and solo trombone with piano accompaniment. But having such a big
orchestra in front of me to record 3 minutes of music and not taking advantage from all the
instruments would be a huge mistake.
So, my second version of this music was composed in March, around 3 months before
going to London and record it. I chose the final scene of the TV series Gran Hotel, originally
scored by our Program Director, and I had a very clear structure of the piece. It would be AB-A’, like a Sonata. And I wanted to write a first part mainly with strings, adding the rest of
the orchestra later (part A), a section in the middle with different harmonies so I could
modulate more and have in the foreground the medium-low brass section, adding the trumpets
later, and having strings and woodwinds in the middle- and background. To finish it, I
thought about a new melody in violins and flutes, motion in the rest of the mid-strings, some
counterpoints in the horn-section and give the rest of the motion and harmonies to the brass
and the double basses. For the very ending, I wanted to use similar harmonies used by Liszt in
Les Preludes and in Un sospiro (chapter 2).
After checking the cue with my advisor, he told me that it could sound good, but that I
could achieve more. And after taking some looks to it, I agreed and started a project from 0,
for the third time. I could tell that I was a bit frustrated, but for a big project like this, I wanted
to do, or at least try to do, the best piece I had ever done until now.
7
In addition, although we were not asked to do it for the thesis, I planned to prepare
Dialogs (DX) and Sound Effects (SFX) for the video, asking some of my classmates to record
the voices and searching myself different sounds to fit into the video. I learned a bit of how to
do DX and SFX in the Video Game Scoring Techniques class, taught by Sergio Jiménez
Lacima, but I struggled a bit with them. It has been a big challenge for me, but because it was
not mandatory, I thought it was a good opportunity to improve.
3.2.
The making of “Battle of Ultron”
Choosing a battle – epic scene for the thesis sounded like a cliché actually. I know that
almost everyone was planning to do a huge piece, but still, I wanted to do it. Everyone’s cue
was going to be completely different, besides going into a similar approach.
My boyfriend is a big fan of Marvel, so he suggested to me the final battle of the
movie Avengers: Age of Ultron, originally scored by Alan Silvestri. I liked it and I took it.
The first thing I did was preparing a DP7 session with the video to add markers in
some important sync points to hit them with the music. After that, I prepared a draft of a
tempo map that could work with the scene. The main point that I had very clear was that I
wanted to make a 3-section piece, with a long in crescendo ending. That’s the reason why I
decided to start composing the last 1.30 minutes of music.
Taking in consideration the tempo map, I could divide this section C into a 4-sentence
part with and introduction to it. So, main issue: getting a catchy melody.
Melodies are not my strong point, I always go more into doing interesting harmonic
changes than following a melody. But in this case, I did not do it that way. I composed first a
melody that could be used for other moments of the cue, adapting it to other meters. After
having my melody completed, I added the harmonies to it, and started orchestrating it, so I
7
DP: Digital Performer, designed by MOTU, is a DAW.
8
could think of different changes for countermelodies and the accompaniment. And whenever I
had finished this C section, I went like the crabs, backwards.
When I had a first draft of the cue, I started writing down the score. I realized that it
was still difficult to me to understand everything I was writing down, and to me, in a score, it
is much more clear. The piece was finished by the middle of May, so I had one more month
still to do corrections, prepare score and parts properly and double-check with some of the
Faculty and classmates.
After coming back from London, doing the edit and the mix of this cue became the
easiest part of the thesis assignment. But I will explain more in chapter 4: Experience in
London and Back to Reality.
3.3.
Musical and Narrative Analysis of “Battle of Ultron”
My final cue starts with an introduction of 17 bars, divided into 3 different sections.
First, from bar 1 to 6, I begin with E minor, going into C minor, that will be the main tone of
the piece. This is a harmonic change that I have liked always, and although it is a very
common one, it sounds also very dramatic. Exactly the same change was used in Queen’s
Who want to live forever, at the ending of the extended version8.
Figure 1: Beginning of Battle of Ultron, with the harmonic change from E minor to C minor.
8
Queen, Who wants to live forever, YouTube video, 4.13 to 4.17, accessed March 15th, 2019.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeJs91wz_PM
9
The melody is played by celli and trombones, as a tribute to my partner and myself,
and the harmonies are played by the rest of the strings, low brass, two flutes and a
contrabassoon stem9.
The 2nd section of the introduction uses a new melody, played by the horns, that
transitions to the 3rd and last section, doing a natural orchestral crescendo10 that ends on the
presentation of the main theme, in section A of the piece.
Figure 2: Example of natural orchestral crescendo, bars 11 - 17.
This new section goes from bar 18 to bar 33. The main melody is played by violins I
and celli from the string sections, by horns and the bassoon from the wind section, and by
altos and basses. As a foreground, I used the double basses and the tuba for holding the bass
and violins II and violas with an ostinato enhancing the harmony. The original melody, that
appears in section C, is written in 4/4, while the one in section A is transformed to fit into a
3/4 meter.
9
Stem: Audio that contains, in this case, musical information. I wanted to enhance the low frequencies from the
orchestra by adding a contrabassoon part prepared with midi and virtual instruments. After printing the stem, I
can import it into my mixing session.
10
A natural orchestral crescendo means to increase the volume of the piece not only dynamically speaking, but
also orchestration-wise, adding more instrumentation.
10
Figure 3:Difference between the melody in section A (picture above) and section C (below).
Section B is a full transition that has a lack of strings. From the very beginning I
planned to have an only-brass section, and this middle part was a good opportunity to do it.
Starting at bar 34, with the tempo lowering to the half, an oboe solo begins a question-answer
moment that transitions to that brass section, that finally ends on bar 46 to start that way the
last and also longest section of the cue, section C.
Figure 4: Question-Answer (bars 34 to 39)
11
Section C is composed of a 4-bar introduction, with the low register playing the
fundamentals of the chords, but still having some movement to make it an important line.
Up from this point, the melody shows up in bar 51, played by celli, violas, horns and bassoon,
and sang by tenors and basses. It is a 16-bar long phrase, formed by 4 smaller 4-bar long
melodies. The first one is divided into 2 little 2-bar long phrases, with a same leitmotiv
repeating in the first bar and resolving it in the second, although bar 3 and 4 (in the score, 53
and 54) of the melody are more conclusive than the other couple.
Figure 5: 2 + 2 bar melody.
This melody repeats its structure, this time including trumpets, during the bars 55 to
58, but instead of going directly to the dominant in the last bar, it makes a progression to
finish into a half cadence (I – V) so it takes you to the next semi phrase. In addition, violas
and violins II, and tenors and altos switch among themselves the melody to the
accompaniment and the other way around.
Figure 6: Bars 53 and 54 against bars 57 and 58.
12
Something to bring up is that the ostinato, while is played by the 1st violins or by the
flutes in this case, the first note of every beat belongs to the melody, to enhance it. In the
meanwhile, the trombones are adding some little counterpoints.
Figure 7: Ostinato playing the first note of every beat to enhance the melody
The internal B section of section C starts with the same motif, but retrograded and
modified.
Figure 8: Retrograded vs. original motif.
The structure of this 4-bar melody is the same, but the melody now is played by all the
strings besides double basses, horns, trumpets, bassoon, tenors and sopranos. The ostinato that
had been moving all section C until now, only happening among the strings, goes to the
woodwinds.
The last melodic phrase uses the same orchestration that was used in the last one, but
expanding the registers of the instruments to have a bigger sound. Now trombones are playing
also the melody, in addition to the ones that came playing it before, and horns switch to a
countermelody with violas, cellos, altos and tenors to have both together as a dialog,
enhancing what is happening in the scene, that is basically a big battle between the Avengers
and Ultron.
13
The cue ends with a 7 bar-long cadence that goes through different harmonies. A
chord progression from E flat minor to A minor happens at bar 67 and 68, using as a pivot
chord F sharp minor, and a different one from A minor, going down in steps of major thirds
with passing notes between each of those steps, ending in G major, dominant of the main tone
of the piece.
Figure 9: Chord progression from bar 67 to 71.
I wanted to finish in an E flat major chord at bar 73, like Liszt does in the Étude Un
sospiro (including the above-mentioned chord progression, or at least one very similar to it).
Figure 10: Ending of Un sospiro.
But some of my teachers rejected the idea, saying it was a “too-obvious” ending, and
in the end, the movie does not finish after the chosen scene, the battle keeps taking place. I
received different suggestions, but I ended up choosing the easy way. And not because it was
the easy one, but because I really liked the final result. It left the ending completely opened,
and although it was finishing in a dominant chord, it still did not have that opened flavor. So,
taking profit of that saddle moment of dialog, I brought the music down using a súbito piano
and a big crescendo (orchestral- and dynamic wise), to remark Hulk punching Ultron.
14
Figure 11: Bars 71 to 73, Woodwinds (left), Brass and Percussion (center) and Strings (right).
Narratively speaking, the music follows what is happening in the scene. It begins with
an introduction while Iron Man is trying to get a solution to win Ultron. Bar 18, section A,
when the main theme starts, the scene shows part of the Avengers fighting against the enemy,
but because it is not all of them and it is not the final battle, the music does not go so epic.
The snare drum helps adding rhythm to that moment.
Section B prepares and explains the arrival of the enemy, that has multiplied himself
into thousands of Ultrons, increasing the possibility of him winning against the Avengers.
That only-brass section enhances his monolog and the thought of the main characters that
they have lost any chance to defeat their enemy, and the last crescendo at bat 46 accompanies
the dramatic silence happening before Iron Man says how they can beat him: together.
Section C explains the whole battle, following some of the main sync points and
increasing slowly from a piano dynamic to fortissimo. Both the end of this section and the 7bar long cadence narrates how Vision, Thor and Iron Man end up defeating Ultron, and how
he asks for surrender, but Hulk punches him, hitting the punch with the very last chord of the
cue, with a hit of every instrument playing in the orchestra.
15
4. EXPERIENCE IN LONDON AND BACK TO REALITY
The title of this chapter tells it itself. London was a beautiful dream, and coming back
to Valencia, to reality, was very sad. But what is going to be sadder is finishing the degree in
less than 2 weeks and having almost everyone going back from.
But going to the point: our recording sessions in London were happening on June 13th
and 14th, and we needed to be in London, at least, the day before. We arrived on June 11th,
Tuesday, so we could have a day off, to prepare ourselves for the session, doing some
tourism, etc.
I remember I told almost everyone that it was impossible that they chose me to be the
very first one recording, because I thought my piece was difficult and the Faculty had told us
that they would put as in a comfortable order according to the players. And I also remember
the moment when I received the e-mail saying that, of course, I was the first one recording,
out of 30 people. I was really mad, and nervous, it was a big responsibility opening the
sessions.
I also knew I would be the only one that was not able to have the 18 minutes of the
session before me to get used to the headphones they use in London, or at least to the feeling
of how that studio sounds. But in return, I had 5 more minutes to practice the piece and let the
Engineer calibrate the levels before starting recording. In the end, it was a good deal, and if
the faculty decided this was best, it was for a reason. So, I trusted them, and prepared myself
for the experience.
That Thursday, we arrived to the studio at 9 a.m. to put all the parts in the stands (we
had printed them before in a special paper and taped them for all the musicians) and try to no
get too nervous. This was impossible.
When I went to the booth, I saw the 4 teachers there with the Recording Engineer,
Jake Jackson, finalizing details for the day. I will not forget when I listened to Sergio and
16
Vicente singing the melody of my cue. On the one hand, I was surprised that they could
remember it so good. Vicente is my supervisor, he knows my cue, but Sergio had checked it
only twice, during Office Hours and in the Conducting Preparation before London. On the
other hand, I felt relieved, the nerves did not disappear at all, but it felt very good knowing
that the melody was catchy. One point achieved.
At 10 a.m., Lucio said hello to the musicians, thanked them for being there and let me
go into the podium. Those 18 + 5 minutes went by so fast. I do not remember anything special
from it, only that I could not understand the musicians properly when they asked me things,
and that after the first take, excluding 2 little mistakes, I was almost done. Every new take that
we were doing, I felt more confidence. And those players, they were so amazing and
professional, always trying to make the best of the cue.
10.23 a.m. I was done. I thanked them, always with a big smile on my face and went
into the booth. As soon as I arrived, I started crying. Again, I was done. And I am writing
down these lines and I cannot avoid smiling just thinking of that moment of satisfaction.
We stayed the rest of the day, and also the day after, we got some feedback of the
musicians, and generally speaking, every session went pretty fine. Saturday June 15th was for
enjoying London and visiting a bit more the city, but next year we will try to do more
tourism. I want to go back to see the next class going and living this sensation. And although
London is very expensive, it was a beautiful time there.
Back to reality. I had to edit and mix the cue back in Valencia. And this ended up
being easier than I thought. Recording in such an important studio with all the possible
quality means that the edit and mix after will be touching saddle details, panning and
balancing.
In summary, an amazing experience that I will never forget.
17
5. CONCLUSION
Now that everything has finished, it is hard to believe that we are almost done. In less
than 2 weeks, we will have graduated. And I still remember when I got the acceptance letter a
year and a half ago.
I have been waiting for this SFTV Master for a long time, and it has been one of the
richest, and most illuminating experiences ever.
This thesis has meant an exercise of applying everything that we have been learning
this year, a full process of creation of music, preparation of mock-ups and scores, recording
and conducting (or sometimes producing) our music, editing and mixing what we have
recorded, and finally, releasing it.
Thanks for joining me through this journey, I am looking forward to enter in the
industry of Film Scoring and keep learning and growing. And I really hope that this story
helps you, my dear reader, to prepare yourself for the experience (in case that you are willing
to study SFTV) or to understand and enjoy what our degree means.
18
MULTIMEDIA RESOURCES
Barry, John. 1966. "Born free." Main Theme. Spotify.
https://open.spotify.com/track/7fdbViLHYfsh0Dqk6Mzh0P?si=KFYIvwCXQIarneR8
KleITQ
—. 1990. "Dances with Wolves." The John Dunbar Theme. Spotify.
https://open.spotify.com/track/4NzyM0AAmN2ucaBlTXbQQT?si=62rrPrptSsem5z1n
_eJPxA
—. 1979. "Hanover Street." Main Theme. Spotify.
https://open.spotify.com/track/7j5yn7dAVoZq0GVti4mV4f?si=VJLfvX7mT0WT_Hl
1VMal8A
—. 1985. "Out of Africa." Main Theme. Spotify.
https://open.spotify.com/track/6qLLYJGpPhHPF7M4o53qJB?si=Dx7cJiEQT7aIf3L7
wIWWrg
Beele, Laura. 2013. "Die Landschaft." YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I15taXGUAgg&t=5s
Beethoven, Ludwig van. 1824. "9th Symphony." Spotify.
https://open.spotify.com/album/3PFXzb8ySwZMDjyD25c6Bt?si=TYxesuKYQv6XR
8HdVZmVpg
Liszt, Franz. 1854. "3rd Symphonic Poem." Les Preludes. Spotify.
https://open.spotify.com/track/2dAS0rEAgaq9v79gyNILwY?si=cwQ4nyqfT7masYeF
oS-YLw
—. 1842. "Années de Pèlerinage." Vallée d'Obermann. Spotify.
https://open.spotify.com/track/34y6Gie19NTeapGMoqCHhl?si=HE7CeiOiQJ2Ec69z
wLgNsQ
—. 1911. Un sospiro. Edited by Ferruccio Busoni. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel. p. 18 - 26,
accessed April 24th, 2019. http://hz.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/c/c0/IMSLP04887Liszt_-_S144_Trois_Etudes_de_Concert.pdf
Queen, 1986. Who wants to live forever, YouTube, accessed March 15th, 2019.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeJs91wz_PM
Zimmer, Hans. 2010. "Inception." Time. Spotify.
https://open.spotify.com/track/6ZFbXIJkuI1dVNWvzJzown?si=ff0fZLqwRdiDhzPLreymA
19
RESCORING A BLOCKBUSTER
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Degree of
Master of Music in Scoring for Film, Television and Video Games
Supervisor: Vicente Ortiz Gimeno
By Laura Blasco Llopis
Valencia Campus, Spain
July 2019
TABLE OF CONTENT
ABSTRACT......................................................................................................................... iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................... iv
1.
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................1
2.
BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW ..........................................................3
3.
2.1.
Background.............................................................................................................3
2.2.
Literature Review ...................................................................................................4
THE PROCESS OF CREATING, RECORDING, EDITING AND MIXING .................5
3.1.
First assignments ....................................................................................................5
3.2.
The making of “Battle of Ultron” ............................................................................8
3.3.
Musical and Narrative Analysis of “Battle of Ultron”..............................................9
4.
EXPERIENCE IN LONDON AND BACK TO REALITY ........................................... 16
5.
CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................ 18
MULTIMEDIA RESOURCES ............................................................................................. 19
ii
ABSTRACT
This project shows the culmination of a year full of hard work and different
experiences happened in our Masters in Scoring for Film, Television and Video Games.
Going through all the processes that we have been taught during the year, we started from
finding a video to compose for, preparing a tempo map and markers, doing different versions
and preparing a proper Mock-Up, write a score, record in one of the most important studios in
the whole world, based in London, and editing and mixing the cue to premiere it finally.
I come from a classical background, and some of the parts of this process sound kind
of easy to do. But it is true that before doing this degree, I always composed directly on a
score, and doing it first on a DAW and then writing down the score was one of my main
concerns. But knowing that the goal was going to be recording with top musicians at Air
Studios, a famous recording stage where composers like Alan Menken or Danny Elfman
recorded, I knew the hard work would be worth it.
I only hope that this experience can help future students to understand better what the
SFTV Master’s Degree means, and share with everyone what my journey to London meant.
Keywords: composer, film scoring, orchestrating, conducting, sequencing, editing, mixing.
iii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank first of all to all the SFTV Faculty for believing in me from the first
moment they decided to accept me and offer me a scholarship to study at Berklee Valencia. I
have been dreaming of this for 5 years, and now that I have come back from London from
recording the piece for this Culminating Experience, I still cannot believe that this year has
happened. Thanks for all the help and support during the year, especially on this last cue,
checking the cue, producing during the recording session and reviewing the mix.
Thanks also to Joe, Sarah, Chris, James and Simon for recording the dialogs of the
scene I chose for this thesis, thanks to Wai for double-checking my sound effects and thanks
to Kei for checking my English.
Special thanks to Mom and Dad, for supporting me since I was born, but especially
when I have taken important decisions, such as doing this Master’s.
I want to thank also all the amazing musicians that recorded my cue in Air Studios,
contracted by Hilary Skewes, and to the Recording Engineer, Jake Jackson. And I need to
thank Jasmin, Missy, McKinley, Kei, Josh, Erynn, Sandra, Francesc, Laura N., Felipe, Paula,
Elena, Erin and Simon for recording the choir part.
And last, but not least, a very special mention to the love of my life, Jorge, who has
been helping and supporting me since 2015, but has been part of this project in almost every
process of this Culminating Experience, from recording voice-overs, choir, checking my
conducting, accompanying me to London, etc.
iv
1. INTRODUCTION
In 2018-2019 I studied at my dream school, Berklee College of Music. I am in the
Scoring for Film, Television and Video Games (SFTV) program. I could not believe it! It had
been a long time ago since I started thinking about applying to this degree, and I was always
so afraid to not be selected in an application competing with so many people from around the
world. But yet, here I am, having learnt so many new things I never thought about, having
grown up during this year, not only as a composer, also as a person.
All started when I was 12 years old. I was traveling with my parents to Germany by
car when I listened to some music composed by John Barry, in this case, the soundtrack of the
movie Out of Africa, but also from Hanover Street, Born Free and Dances with Wolves1.
Those 4 were the ones that really moved my feelings. I could listen to them so many times
without being tired of them. I wondered what moved me so much about this music, much
more than classical music ever had moved me.
A couple of years later, in 2010, was the year that definitely made me find out that
soundtracks were a part of my life, a part of myself. The release of the movie Inception,
composed by Hans Zimmer, was illuminating for me. The last theme, called Time, opened my
mind. I listened to it over and over again, without becoming tired of it. That music touched
my feelings in such a big way, made me feel things that music had never done to me before.
Maybe because of the scene where the piece is being played, because of the meaning of what
the main character feels. The fact is that I have some kind of sympathy to him, and it is all
because of the music. And realizing that music could do that, that it could make you feel what
the characters are feeling, that it could add the “soul” to a story, was the definitive point that
1
The soundtrack of those 4 movies was composed by John Barry.
1
made me decide that I wanted to achieve that. I want to move feelings, I want to make people
get inside the movie with the help of music.
My first opportunity to compose a big piece came in 2012, when I was 16 years old. I
wrote my first orchestral piece with the help of my composition teacher to orchestrate it
properly, because I did not have any knowledge on how to do it. I had composed some small
piano pieces before, as a gift for my parents on their birthdays, but this was my first big
challenge. The piece is called Die Landschaft, the German word for The Landscape. And why
in German? Because I had studied in a German School in my city, in Valencia, since I was 3
years old, so German was also part of my background.
The composition of this piece began with a picture that was hanging above my piano
(I want to clarify that I am originally a piano performer) and I started playing a melody as I
gazed that painting. It looked very simple actually, only a couple of stones and very greyed
colored, but for some reason, I started imagining myself climbing those stones and arriving to
a perfect view of an amazing landscape. And that is what inspired me to do that piece. After
composing it, people started telling me that remind them of a medieval soundtrack, and after
its release in 2013 and sharing it with more people, I got my first opportunity to compose for
picture.
I started composing for media, only with Finale2, and recording sometimes the
soundtrack and trying to mix it on Reaper3. And after 7 short movies DIY4, I was at Berklee,
learning how to use a DAW5, making a lot of mock-ups and finding out how this soundtrack
world works.
2
Finale: Notation Software used to write scores down.
3
Reaper: Digital audio production application for computers used for recording, editing, mixing and mastering.
It is a free program.
4
DIY: Do it yourself.
5
DAW: Digital Audio Workstation. Software program used to create mockups, usually to show to a director or
producer a very close to reality version of a cue by the use of virtual instruments.
2
And believe me, this is the best decision I have ever made before. This was exactly
where I wanted to be, and this was exactly what I wanted to do: become a Film Composer.
After these intense 10 months of learning the steps to follow to composer music for
media, after 4 live sessions in the AKSS and in the Aula Magistral in the Palau de Les Arts
Reina Sofía, after 4 remote sessions with the Budapest Art Orchestra and after the most
important one, happening live in Air Studios London, I want to explain the full process that I
used for this last cue composed as a Culminating Experience for my Master’s Degree, SFTV.
2. BACKGROUND AND LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1.
Background
As I was mentioning in the Abstract, I come from a classical background. Born in
Valencia in July 1995, my parents decided to move to a little village located 20 minutes away
to the south from campus by car. They still decided to bring me to school in Valencia to learn
a third language (I have been taught Spanish and Valencian since I was a baby), and German
was a big option to open up a future in a foreign company. At least, I could have more
opportunities than others.
The question is how I ended up in the music world. My progenitors thought that
making friends in the village was a bit difficult if I was not going to school there, so they
picked a hobby out for me. A hobby that, without them knowing it, was going to become my
profession after.
My first instrument was piano, I began taking classes when I was 6 years old. And
after 2 years, the people in the Unió Musical de Picanya obligated me to choose one more
3
instrument to play in their Banda6. I chose the violoncello. Why? Because I didn’t like to
blow, and all the instruments in a band are winds. All except the cello.
After finishing the basic degree, I decided to keep learning, and I got accepted in a
Medium-Level Conservatoire, the Conservatori Professional de Música de Torrent, to
continue with both instruments. And this experience took me study my bachelor degree in
Piano Performance from 2013 to 2017 in the Conservatori Superior de Música de València
“Joaquín Rodrigo”.
Spending 15 years of my life in the classical music world makes you listen to and
analyze a lot of music, going from Renaissance up to Contemporary. And having had all this
music by my side has influenced me to the point that I use harmonies and orchestration
techniques when I compose that have been used before by great composers.
2.2.
Literature Review
My favorite piece is Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. For me, that masterpiece means a
before and an after in classical music. Not to forget that his author, Ludwig van Beethoven,
was completely deaf when he composed it.
Franz Liszt has also been a big reference to me. My bachelor degree project was about
orchestrating a piano piece and demonstrating that Liszt, while he was composing for piano,
was thinking of a big orchestra hidden in that solo instrument. A remarkable piece from this
composer is his third symphonic poem, Les Preludes. Another great piece his Étude called Un
sospiro, but the one I like the most is the piece I orchestrated for my undergrad project, the
Vallée d’Obermann.
6
Banda: In Valencia, there is a very old tradition of playing in a Wind Band, and it is very common to see
children, adults and retirees. Cities and big villages have more than one musical society, and those have usually
more than one musical group, from youth to senior band, or from orchestra to wind ensemble.
4
But not everything is meant to be classical. My favorite group is Queen, and songs that
inspire me completely are, for example, Bohemian Rhapsody or Who want to live forever.
I will expand what I have used from most of the examples named above in the cue
composed for this thesis in Chapter 3.3: Musical and Narrative Analysis of “Battle of Ultron”.
3. THE PROCESS OF CREATING, RECORDING, EDITING AND MIXING
3.1.
First assignments
I still remember the 3rd week of class, when our program director Lucio Godoy talked
about our first recording session that was about to happen a week after he gave us the
assignment. Wait, only one week? Can you compose 1.30 minutes of music in just one week?
The answer is yes. I mean, you have to do it. And yes, at the beginning sound like
complete stress. But do not panic. Business works like this, and it is better to get used to it
now. If someone would have told me that I would have been capable of creating, preparing,
recording, editing and mixing a session during 2 weeks at the most, I would have never
believed it was possible. So, do not worry, dear reader, because it will become one of the
most exciting experiences you have ever done until now if you come from a very classical
background and have not have too much contact with the industry. And if you have had the
opportunity before, enjoy also what is coming, because it will be worth it.
Our first assignment was based on a script called “The Note”. We had to compose for
a Woodwind Quartet (Flute, Oboe, Bb Clarinet and Bassoon), 1.30 long and, for me, my first
time composing for a script, not for image itself. It is a good training if you are expecting to
work in the industry and they call you to present a cue before they start recording footage.
We had 6 days to compose the cue, using in my case Finale to write the score, and
Digital Performer as my personal DAW to do the mock-up.
I want to point out that this is not the proper order to do a cue. But at that time, I did
not know how to do it yet.
5
The recording session was nice, I remember I was very nervous, we had only 18
minutes to record the piece. 18 minutes. To record 1.30. We should have enough time to do as
many takes as we wish. Well, it is not so easy, but you get used to it, because you think of the
London piece, that has to be a 3-minute long cue and recorded also in that amount of time.
Editing and mixing was a bit of a nightmare. I had used Reaper before, but I had no
idea about how to edit or mix. But most of the assignments for the different classes are
attached to a bigger assignment. For example, this one was given by Lucio for Advanced
Scoring 1: Narrative Analysis, but we had to prepare the mock-up for Vicente’s class,
Technology in Media Scoring, prepare the conducting with Sergio in Conducting for Scoring
Sessions, double-check the orchestration with Alfons in Advanced Dramatic Orchestration 1,
where we learned how to write properly for each of the orchestral instruments, and edit and
mix for Pablo in Recording, Editing, and Mixing Techniques for Film Composers 1.
The next assignments were all based on scripts and footage that the teachers gave us,
such as rescoring for movies that they have scored themselves originally, and the steps to
follow were basically the same that we used for the first project, although in my case, I tried
to compose first on the DAW, preparing a tempo map for the cue so I could sync some points
with the music, and then preparing a score after it to record it live or remote.
After the majority of the first semester had gone by, SFTV Faculty gave us the
guidelines to prepare ourselves for the last recording session in the program. Some of us
planned what to write for it over Christmas Break. It is true that we have been explained that
in the industry, you have to work very fast, but the opportunity of recording with a 51-piece
orchestra with high level musicians in one of the most important studios in the world with one
of the top Recording Engineers meant that I needed to prepare a very nice cue as my
presentation card to the industry.
6
“Compose the best 3 minutes of your life”. This was actually what my supervisor
proposed to me for this piece of music when I told him after the break that I had no idea of
what to compose.
My first option was to do a free-piece, or to write a script myself according to the
music I wanted to write.
The first sketches for this version were done around February, composing some
melodies for solo cello and solo trombone with piano accompaniment. But having such a big
orchestra in front of me to record 3 minutes of music and not taking advantage from all the
instruments would be a huge mistake.
So, my second version of this music was composed in March, around 3 months before
going to London and record it. I chose the final scene of the TV series Gran Hotel, originally
scored by our Program Director, and I had a very clear structure of the piece. It would be AB-A’, like a Sonata. And I wanted to write a first part mainly with strings, adding the rest of
the orchestra later (part A), a section in the middle with different harmonies so I could
modulate more and have in the foreground the medium-low brass section, adding the trumpets
later, and having strings and woodwinds in the middle- and background. To finish it, I
thought about a new melody in violins and flutes, motion in the rest of the mid-strings, some
counterpoints in the horn-section and give the rest of the motion and harmonies to the brass
and the double basses. For the very ending, I wanted to use similar harmonies used by Liszt in
Les Preludes and in Un sospiro (chapter 2).
After checking the cue with my advisor, he told me that it could sound good, but that I
could achieve more. And after taking some looks to it, I agreed and started a project from 0,
for the third time. I could tell that I was a bit frustrated, but for a big project like this, I wanted
to do, or at least try to do, the best piece I had ever done until now.
7
In addition, although we were not asked to do it for the thesis, I planned to prepare
Dialogs (DX) and Sound Effects (SFX) for the video, asking some of my classmates to record
the voices and searching myself different sounds to fit into the video. I learned a bit of how to
do DX and SFX in the Video Game Scoring Techniques class, taught by Sergio Jiménez
Lacima, but I struggled a bit with them. It has been a big challenge for me, but because it was
not mandatory, I thought it was a good opportunity to improve.
3.2.
The making of “Battle of Ultron”
Choosing a battle – epic scene for the thesis sounded like a cliché actually. I know that
almost everyone was planning to do a huge piece, but still, I wanted to do it. Everyone’s cue
was going to be completely different, besides going into a similar approach.
My boyfriend is a big fan of Marvel, so he suggested to me the final battle of the
movie Avengers: Age of Ultron, originally scored by Alan Silvestri. I liked it and I took it.
The first thing I did was preparing a DP7 session with the video to add markers in
some important sync points to hit them with the music. After that, I prepared a draft of a
tempo map that could work with the scene. The main point that I had very clear was that I
wanted to make a 3-section piece, with a long in crescendo ending. That’s the reason why I
decided to start composing the last 1.30 minutes of music.
Taking in consideration the tempo map, I could divide this section C into a 4-sentence
part with and introduction to it. So, main issue: getting a catchy melody.
Melodies are not my strong point, I always go more into doing interesting harmonic
changes than following a melody. But in this case, I did not do it that way. I composed first a
melody that could be used for other moments of the cue, adapting it to other meters. After
having my melody completed, I added the harmonies to it, and started orchestrating it, so I
7
DP: Digital Performer, designed by MOTU, is a DAW.
8
could think of different changes for countermelodies and the accompaniment. And whenever I
had finished this C section, I went like the crabs, backwards.
When I had a first draft of the cue, I started writing down the score. I realized that it
was still difficult to me to understand everything I was writing down, and to me, in a score, it
is much more clear. The piece was finished by the middle of May, so I had one more month
still to do corrections, prepare score and parts properly and double-check with some of the
Faculty and classmates.
After coming back from London, doing the edit and the mix of this cue became the
easiest part of the thesis assignment. But I will explain more in chapter 4: Experience in
London and Back to Reality.
3.3.
Musical and Narrative Analysis of “Battle of Ultron”
My final cue starts with an introduction of 17 bars, divided into 3 different sections.
First, from bar 1 to 6, I begin with E minor, going into C minor, that will be the main tone of
the piece. This is a harmonic change that I have liked always, and although it is a very
common one, it sounds also very dramatic. Exactly the same change was used in Queen’s
Who want to live forever, at the ending of the extended version8.
Figure 1: Beginning of Battle of Ultron, with the harmonic change from E minor to C minor.
8
Queen, Who wants to live forever, YouTube video, 4.13 to 4.17, accessed March 15th, 2019.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeJs91wz_PM
9
The melody is played by celli and trombones, as a tribute to my partner and myself,
and the harmonies are played by the rest of the strings, low brass, two flutes and a
contrabassoon stem9.
The 2nd section of the introduction uses a new melody, played by the horns, that
transitions to the 3rd and last section, doing a natural orchestral crescendo10 that ends on the
presentation of the main theme, in section A of the piece.
Figure 2: Example of natural orchestral crescendo, bars 11 - 17.
This new section goes from bar 18 to bar 33. The main melody is played by violins I
and celli from the string sections, by horns and the bassoon from the wind section, and by
altos and basses. As a foreground, I used the double basses and the tuba for holding the bass
and violins II and violas with an ostinato enhancing the harmony. The original melody, that
appears in section C, is written in 4/4, while the one in section A is transformed to fit into a
3/4 meter.
9
Stem: Audio that contains, in this case, musical information. I wanted to enhance the low frequencies from the
orchestra by adding a contrabassoon part prepared with midi and virtual instruments. After printing the stem, I
can import it into my mixing session.
10
A natural orchestral crescendo means to increase the volume of the piece not only dynamically speaking, but
also orchestration-wise, adding more instrumentation.
10
Figure 3:Difference between the melody in section A (picture above) and section C (below).
Section B is a full transition that has a lack of strings. From the very beginning I
planned to have an only-brass section, and this middle part was a good opportunity to do it.
Starting at bar 34, with the tempo lowering to the half, an oboe solo begins a question-answer
moment that transitions to that brass section, that finally ends on bar 46 to start that way the
last and also longest section of the cue, section C.
Figure 4: Question-Answer (bars 34 to 39)
11
Section C is composed of a 4-bar introduction, with the low register playing the
fundamentals of the chords, but still having some movement to make it an important line.
Up from this point, the melody shows up in bar 51, played by celli, violas, horns and bassoon,
and sang by tenors and basses. It is a 16-bar long phrase, formed by 4 smaller 4-bar long
melodies. The first one is divided into 2 little 2-bar long phrases, with a same leitmotiv
repeating in the first bar and resolving it in the second, although bar 3 and 4 (in the score, 53
and 54) of the melody are more conclusive than the other couple.
Figure 5: 2 + 2 bar melody.
This melody repeats its structure, this time including trumpets, during the bars 55 to
58, but instead of going directly to the dominant in the last bar, it makes a progression to
finish into a half cadence (I – V) so it takes you to the next semi phrase. In addition, violas
and violins II, and tenors and altos switch among themselves the melody to the
accompaniment and the other way around.
Figure 6: Bars 53 and 54 against bars 57 and 58.
12
Something to bring up is that the ostinato, while is played by the 1st violins or by the
flutes in this case, the first note of every beat belongs to the melody, to enhance it. In the
meanwhile, the trombones are adding some little counterpoints.
Figure 7: Ostinato playing the first note of every beat to enhance the melody
The internal B section of section C starts with the same motif, but retrograded and
modified.
Figure 8: Retrograded vs. original motif.
The structure of this 4-bar melody is the same, but the melody now is played by all the
strings besides double basses, horns, trumpets, bassoon, tenors and sopranos. The ostinato that
had been moving all section C until now, only happening among the strings, goes to the
woodwinds.
The last melodic phrase uses the same orchestration that was used in the last one, but
expanding the registers of the instruments to have a bigger sound. Now trombones are playing
also the melody, in addition to the ones that came playing it before, and horns switch to a
countermelody with violas, cellos, altos and tenors to have both together as a dialog,
enhancing what is happening in the scene, that is basically a big battle between the Avengers
and Ultron.
13
The cue ends with a 7 bar-long cadence that goes through different harmonies. A
chord progression from E flat minor to A minor happens at bar 67 and 68, using as a pivot
chord F sharp minor, and a different one from A minor, going down in steps of major thirds
with passing notes between each of those steps, ending in G major, dominant of the main tone
of the piece.
Figure 9: Chord progression from bar 67 to 71.
I wanted to finish in an E flat major chord at bar 73, like Liszt does in the Étude Un
sospiro (including the above-mentioned chord progression, or at least one very similar to it).
Figure 10: Ending of Un sospiro.
But some of my teachers rejected the idea, saying it was a “too-obvious” ending, and
in the end, the movie does not finish after the chosen scene, the battle keeps taking place. I
received different suggestions, but I ended up choosing the easy way. And not because it was
the easy one, but because I really liked the final result. It left the ending completely opened,
and although it was finishing in a dominant chord, it still did not have that opened flavor. So,
taking profit of that saddle moment of dialog, I brought the music down using a súbito piano
and a big crescendo (orchestral- and dynamic wise), to remark Hulk punching Ultron.
14
Figure 11: Bars 71 to 73, Woodwinds (left), Brass and Percussion (center) and Strings (right).
Narratively speaking, the music follows what is happening in the scene. It begins with
an introduction while Iron Man is trying to get a solution to win Ultron. Bar 18, section A,
when the main theme starts, the scene shows part of the Avengers fighting against the enemy,
but because it is not all of them and it is not the final battle, the music does not go so epic.
The snare drum helps adding rhythm to that moment.
Section B prepares and explains the arrival of the enemy, that has multiplied himself
into thousands of Ultrons, increasing the possibility of him winning against the Avengers.
That only-brass section enhances his monolog and the thought of the main characters that
they have lost any chance to defeat their enemy, and the last crescendo at bat 46 accompanies
the dramatic silence happening before Iron Man says how they can beat him: together.
Section C explains the whole battle, following some of the main sync points and
increasing slowly from a piano dynamic to fortissimo. Both the end of this section and the 7bar long cadence narrates how Vision, Thor and Iron Man end up defeating Ultron, and how
he asks for surrender, but Hulk punches him, hitting the punch with the very last chord of the
cue, with a hit of every instrument playing in the orchestra.
15
4. EXPERIENCE IN LONDON AND BACK TO REALITY
The title of this chapter tells it itself. London was a beautiful dream, and coming back
to Valencia, to reality, was very sad. But what is going to be sadder is finishing the degree in
less than 2 weeks and having almost everyone going back from.
But going to the point: our recording sessions in London were happening on June 13th
and 14th, and we needed to be in London, at least, the day before. We arrived on June 11th,
Tuesday, so we could have a day off, to prepare ourselves for the session, doing some
tourism, etc.
I remember I told almost everyone that it was impossible that they chose me to be the
very first one recording, because I thought my piece was difficult and the Faculty had told us
that they would put as in a comfortable order according to the players. And I also remember
the moment when I received the e-mail saying that, of course, I was the first one recording,
out of 30 people. I was really mad, and nervous, it was a big responsibility opening the
sessions.
I also knew I would be the only one that was not able to have the 18 minutes of the
session before me to get used to the headphones they use in London, or at least to the feeling
of how that studio sounds. But in return, I had 5 more minutes to practice the piece and let the
Engineer calibrate the levels before starting recording. In the end, it was a good deal, and if
the faculty decided this was best, it was for a reason. So, I trusted them, and prepared myself
for the experience.
That Thursday, we arrived to the studio at 9 a.m. to put all the parts in the stands (we
had printed them before in a special paper and taped them for all the musicians) and try to no
get too nervous. This was impossible.
When I went to the booth, I saw the 4 teachers there with the Recording Engineer,
Jake Jackson, finalizing details for the day. I will not forget when I listened to Sergio and
16
Vicente singing the melody of my cue. On the one hand, I was surprised that they could
remember it so good. Vicente is my supervisor, he knows my cue, but Sergio had checked it
only twice, during Office Hours and in the Conducting Preparation before London. On the
other hand, I felt relieved, the nerves did not disappear at all, but it felt very good knowing
that the melody was catchy. One point achieved.
At 10 a.m., Lucio said hello to the musicians, thanked them for being there and let me
go into the podium. Those 18 + 5 minutes went by so fast. I do not remember anything special
from it, only that I could not understand the musicians properly when they asked me things,
and that after the first take, excluding 2 little mistakes, I was almost done. Every new take that
we were doing, I felt more confidence. And those players, they were so amazing and
professional, always trying to make the best of the cue.
10.23 a.m. I was done. I thanked them, always with a big smile on my face and went
into the booth. As soon as I arrived, I started crying. Again, I was done. And I am writing
down these lines and I cannot avoid smiling just thinking of that moment of satisfaction.
We stayed the rest of the day, and also the day after, we got some feedback of the
musicians, and generally speaking, every session went pretty fine. Saturday June 15th was for
enjoying London and visiting a bit more the city, but next year we will try to do more
tourism. I want to go back to see the next class going and living this sensation. And although
London is very expensive, it was a beautiful time there.
Back to reality. I had to edit and mix the cue back in Valencia. And this ended up
being easier than I thought. Recording in such an important studio with all the possible
quality means that the edit and mix after will be touching saddle details, panning and
balancing.
In summary, an amazing experience that I will never forget.
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5. CONCLUSION
Now that everything has finished, it is hard to believe that we are almost done. In less
than 2 weeks, we will have graduated. And I still remember when I got the acceptance letter a
year and a half ago.
I have been waiting for this SFTV Master for a long time, and it has been one of the
richest, and most illuminating experiences ever.
This thesis has meant an exercise of applying everything that we have been learning
this year, a full process of creation of music, preparation of mock-ups and scores, recording
and conducting (or sometimes producing) our music, editing and mixing what we have
recorded, and finally, releasing it.
Thanks for joining me through this journey, I am looking forward to enter in the
industry of Film Scoring and keep learning and growing. And I really hope that this story
helps you, my dear reader, to prepare yourself for the experience (in case that you are willing
to study SFTV) or to understand and enjoy what our degree means.
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