orchestrating a feature

[crystallions]

Some time back I told ya'll that I would be orchestrating a feature the next couple of months. Someone asked if I would share my experience and I thought that was a good idea. I have now worked on the score 3 weeks and have 3 weeks left of orchestrating. After that real instruments will be recorded (the final score will be a mix of midi and real instruments) and last the final mix will be made.The film is an indie feature about king Arthur. It is epic and the music reflects this. The sound of the score reminds of Narnia and Lord of the Ring. (Lots of fun!!! It is not every day you get to work on a film that uses that kind of music.) There are two main composers who have written all the themes and who makes the first draft for each cue. We are three people orchestrating. The other two orchestrators use the Vienna sound library and I use EW so we spent some time discussing how to divide the cues so that the sound still stayed close enough it would seem like "one orchestra". The final decision was that the other two orchestrators would be working on all the cues that needs aggressive music (the war scenes for example) and I do everything else. Most of what I orchestrate is beautiful, sorrowful and haunting and that works great for me since I really enjoy that kind of music. I am orchestrating about half of the score.I work with both composers (depending on who wrote the cue I am working on at the moment). They send me a DP file with a simple draft (4-5 instrumental parts) and the film clip from that scene. We keep Skype open all day so that we can talk at any time. Before I start on a cue we talk through "hits" (where something special needs to happen in the music to describe what just happened on the screen like an arrow hitting its target or something like that) We also discuss instrumentation and which instruments will be recorded live and what will stay midi. That tells me which instruments/parts I am going to need to tweak and mix until they sound realistic and which ones I don’t have to worry so much about right now since they will be replaced anyway.I start with analyzing the chord structure and making a copy of the theme. Then I usually delete everything and start over using the information I learned from their draft. Instrumentation ranges from one solo instrument in a couple of cues to full orchestra + choir in some. Once my version is done and I have a rough mix in place I send it over to the composer who wrote that cue originally and they let me know if they want any changes before I start on final mix. Once a cue has gotten an OK from the composer I send a general midi file of the parts that will be recorded with real instruments to a person who creates sheet music for the soloists and orchestra. The film has been divided in three acts and we are now halfway through act 2. I watched act 1 yesterday with music and Foley for the first time and it was a great experience. I am looking forward to the final version. This is really exciting as I have never been part of a larger team working on a score before. I have always done everything myself. I am really enjoying seeing how all the parts fall into place as we all do our piece of the puzzle. Let me know if you have any questions and I'll do my best to answer. ~ Lydia

[mazz]

Hi Lydia,Did the composers put markers where they want the "hits" or are you putting in your own based on your discussions?Do the DP files contain the tempo information? If so, how much are they changing tempos (and for that matter time signatures)?How will you deliver your audio files to the mix/recording session? Will it be a DP file with a click track for the conductor? Will you deliver stems or a stereo mix?How detailed are the drafts? Do they give you any orchestration preferences, like "cellos here"? How about things like accompaniment patterns? Do they leave that up to you or do they specify "strings in 8ths" or things like that?Sounds like a great, fun project!! Congratulations!!Mazz

[tedsingingfox]

Wow. This is VERY cool, Lydia. Congrats.Will be eager to hear things later...Ted

[guscave]

Hi Lydia,Thanks for taking the time to share this with us. Sounds like a lot of work but a lot of fun too...

[crystallions]

Sept 29, 2008, 10:22am, mazz wrote:Hi Lydia,Did the composers put markers where they want the "hits" or are you putting in your own based on your discussions?Do the DP files contain the tempo information? If so, how much are they changing tempos (and for that matter time signatures)?How will you deliver your audio files to the mix/recording session? Will it be a DP file with a click track for the conductor? Will you deliver stems or a stereo mix?How detailed are the drafts? Do they give you any orchestration preferences, like "cellos here"? How about things like accompaniment patterns? Do they leave that up to you or do they specify "strings in 8ths" or things like that?Sounds like a great, fun project!! Congratulations!!MazzHi Mazz,Lots of good questions... The DP files includes tempo information as well as time signature but usually not key signature. Most of the time they have already put in markers for the main hits. There have been a couple of cues where they just gave me the theme, told me what they thought was important with that scene as well as time code for start and end and told me to do whatever I thought would fit. Those times I chose where I thought the hits needed to be and I entered the markers myself. There are also times when I have added a "hit" even though they didn't say they wanted one there since I thought it would enhance the final result. So far that has always been fine with them.We are really working with cues and transitions. (rather than just cues) The cues are usually 1-2 minutes long (the longest I have done was 5 minutes) and then when I have two cues that will be back to back I go back and add a transition. That is usually where the tempo changes occur. I combine the cues + transitions in a new DP file. There are quite many cues that have a moment or a short scene with no music in between so there are fewer transitions being made than I originally thought we would need.I guess I actually should not say I delete everything and start over because I do keep the tempo map and the "hit" markers. I only start over with the music itself (using the ideas from their original draft as foundation so to speak). At first I tried keeping what they sent, cleaning it up and adding parts, but that ended up taking longer than "starting over". (to save time they don't quantize which leaves it up to me to decide exact duration of notes and where things really fall. Sometimes that gets tricky and it is easier to listen to it and re-record it in time with the metronome than to look at it and try to make sense of what I see)For the recording session I will send stereo audio files of the midi with a click track. They will record the real instruments using Pro Tools.I also realize I said I get the music OK'd before I start on the final mix. I will actually not do the final mix (combining the midi and audio) I will only mix the midi. (so I meant my final mix - not the final mix) I will deliver stems to the audio engineer who does the final mix. (who is a different person than the one who records the audio) Most of the drafts are simple having the melody in one instrument, a pad of strings under (chords) and some percussion. They usually tell me which instruments they want where (or give me a couple of options - for example "I was thinking solo viola or a solo alto for the melody for the first half of the cue with an accompaniment of mainly strings and possibly some woodwinds.") About the accompaniment pattern it is about 50/50 when they tell me exactly what they want and when they let me choose what I think fits.I hope that answered all of your questions. If you think of any more let me know. Sept 29, 2008, 10:42am, tedsingingfox wrote:Wow. This is VERY cool, Lydia. Congrats.Will be eager to hear things later...TedThanks! I am very excited!! Sept 29, 2008, 11:06am, guscave wrote:Hi Lydia,Thanks for taking the time to share this with us. Sounds like a lot of work but a lot of fun too... You're welcome! Yes, it is both a lot of work and a lot of fun. I decided to stop drinking anything with caffeine about two months ago (makes me jittery). That worked well until about one week into this film... Early mornings and late nights call for lots of coffee... ~ LydiaPS. My plan once the film is finished (early November) is to post some music (if the composers agree to it). I would like to give some examples of how the original draft sounded that I received versus my orchestrated version versus the final version that had a mix of midi and real instruments. I think that would be really interesting.

[remmet]

Quote:PS. My plan once the film is finished (early November) is to post some music (if the composers agree to it). I would like to give some examples of how the original draft sounded that I received versus my orchestrated version versus the final version that had a mix of midi and real instruments. I think that would be really interesting.Lydia - I look forward to hearing the results! Thanks for sharing this.Richard

[flood]

Lydia,Congrats on this awesome project.Are there special things you are doing in terms of dialogue? Are there specific areas of the score that have to be more sparse because of dialogue requirements, and how are you handling those? Are you using less instruments on sections like that?Hope these aren't newbish questions. I have not scored like that, as part of a team, on such an extensive work, and am interested.What about deadlines? It seems it woould be a bit trickier with three composers in the mix.Best wishes and thanks for your enlightening words!

[silvercord]

Hi Lynda..thanks for posting this..i admire you sharing the process with us!look forward to hearing it!peacegeoff

[llama]

Hey Lydia,Great post. Lots of insight and information. Sounds like you're having fun too. Thanks for posting it.Derek

[crystallions]

Sept 29, 2008, 5:01pm, remmet wrote:Quote:PS. My plan once the film is finished (early November) is to post some music (if the composers agree to it). I would like to give some examples of how the original draft sounded that I received versus my orchestrated version versus the final version that had a mix of midi and real instruments. I think that would be really interesting.Lydia - I look forward to hearing the results! Thanks for sharing this.RichardYou're welcome Richard! Sept 29, 2008, 5:16pm, flood wrote:Lydia,Congrats on this awesome project.Are there special things you are doing in terms of dialog? Are there specific areas of the score that have to be more sparse because of dialog requirements, and how are you handling those? Are you using less instruments on sections like that?Hope these aren't newbish questions. I have not scored like that, as part of a team, on such an extensive work, and am interested.What about deadlines? It seems it would be a bit trickier with three composers in the mix.Best wishes and thanks for your enlightening words!Thank you! Yes, for sections that are heavy on dialog I am using a thinner instrumentation and am focusing most of the music in the lower and/or higher ranges to leave space in the middle range for speaking voices. The melodies are very simple and sometimes there is no melody at all but rather a slowly moving pad of chords. No, your questions are great. This is the first time I am doing anything on this scale as well and am happy to share what I am learning. Before we started on the film we were given a set of deadlines telling us which cues had to be done when (they have divided them into groups and each week one set of cues is due).Sept 29, 2008, 5:16pm, silvercord wrote:Hi Lynda..thanks for posting this..i admire you sharing the process with us!look forward to hearing it!peacegeoffThanks Geoff! I am happy to share and hope it will help someone with their future projects.Yes, it will be fun to post some of the music in a month. Sept 29, 2008, 7:15pm, llama wrote:Hey Lydia,Great post. Lots of insight and information. Sounds like you're having fun too. Thanks for posting it.DerekThank you Derek! You are welcome.