The Abstract

This paper is an analysis of the history of music and sound in cinema from the early silent film era up through modern cinema. The sound and music in modern cinema is almost as important as the image on the screen. Ranging from the score to the sound effects and even the dialog, post production sound helps create a coherent and powerful film. Sound and music in film has several purposes, and those purposes have changed since the invention of the movie. Initially used to mask the sound of the projector in movie theaters and played by live musicians with little regard for the on screen action. As the process of making movies evolved so did the sound. The music in movies has slowly developed into a very specific art form with several key composers. In modern cinema the music serves as a signifier of emotions, a tool for narrative development, and as a way to create a sense of unity and continuity in a film. The research for this paper was abstracted from several books, articles, journals, all dealing with the history and or processes of music and sound in film, as well as various film scores and first hand accounts of working in the medium of sound for film.

And it is proposed...

For my capstone I am proposing to complete all of the sound for a student made film titled Captain Tomorrow, including replacing all of the dialogue with dialogue recorded in the studio, doing the sound effects, which will include some amount of Foley work, and composing and recording the score, which will include a theme song and several variations for the rest of the film.
The movie is expected to be approximately 25-30 minutes. The filming and editing of the movie has been completed. Since all of the production sound is being replaced with re recorded materials, the first part of my capstone will be recording all of the dialogue in the movie. I will start doing this on September 9th and complete it by the end of the month.
The main intro theme song, which will be written in the style of Ron Wesserman, will be composed by the October 15t, and recording will be completed no later than the 15th of November, depending on the availability of studio time. I would like to book studio time between November 12th and the 15th to record the music for the film. I expect this process to take 16 hours. Mixing will be an ongoing process throughout the recording stage, and the final mix will be completed in early December. The movie will be released in late December, and I am hoping to have a release party at the world theater or music hall.
So far as costs go, hiring an engineer will run $15.00 per hour, for sixteen hours, which comes to $240.00. The fees to rent out the studio are $300.00 per day for a 10 hour day, so I will estimate the studio fee cost at around $600.00 total. Since this movie will not be duplicated for release there will be no duplication charges. I will also be bringing in musician to perform on the album. At least one drummer and a guitar player and a piano player, and I anticipate paying them $25.00 per hour including the time it takes to practice. I am planning on using each musician for approximately 10 hours, which comes to $480.00. The total cost of this project comes to $1080.00.
In doing this project I will not only be utilizing the knowledge I have learned and am learning in my MPA classes but also the TAT I am taking for my minor. I will be recording the soundtrack, utilizing what I learned in MPA 307,308, and 408, as well as in extra lessons with Dr. Drew Waters. I will use the knowledge I gained in my theory classes, MPA 101 and 102, to compose background music for the movie. I will also be using knowledge I gained from TAT 237 and 337 to help me understand how sound fits into film and to create a professional quality soundtrack.
It is my desire that, with this project, I will be showing the CSUMB community that we have the tools, and students with the experience and training to create a realistic and professional sounding sounds cape to a movie. This project brings together TAT with MPA in a way that exists in the professional world. Directors and producers rarely record the sound for the movie themselves, they hire someone who is an expert in the field of sound or music to make sure that it is done right. I really hope that this movie helps encourage more collaborations between MPA and TAT, and creates a higher expectation for student films.

The Begining

This week I finally started my recording sessions for the ADR for my capstone project. I spent most of the week getting ready for the recording session on Thursday night. There were several things I had to do in order to get ready for this. First of all I had to schedule all of the talent for the record. The characters with speaking lines in the movies are: Captain Tomorrow, Reese Ridgeback, Lamar, Viper, The Chief, Renee, Russian drug dealer #1, lady cop, young cop #1, and Henchman. The first obstacle I faced was coordinating time slots for all of these people. I also didn't realize quite how long the process would take, and as such slightly over booked the recording session. For example, the movie is about 25 minutes long, and much of that is action sequences, with little to no dialogue, and as such I had planned that Captain Tomorrow, (the main character, and character with the most speaking lines), would take about an hour. And I thought that would be a generous amount of time, and I would have a little extra time afterwords to start picking out takes and syncing dialogue. It ended up taking over two hours to get his part done. Despite this set back I still finished recording all of the characters I had planned to record last night, with 1 exception. So as of this moment, the chief, lady cop, young cop #1, Russian drug dealer #1, Lamar, and Captain Tomorrow are finished with their lines. This leaves Reese, Viper, the henchmen and Renee. Viper, the henchmen, and Reese should be done by this weekend. Renee is hard to get a hold of and I need to get her to commit to a time to record her lines. She only has 2 scenes, and doesn't say much, so I am not too worried about getting her lines done.

I also did a fair amount of work on my paper in the form of research. I have 6 books from the library and another on its way and have spent a great deal of time reading and taking copious notes on them. My plan for the paper has deviated slightly. I have decided to pick a composer from each of the historical eras of film to focus on in each heading for my paper instead of just doing a single heading highlighting several composers from various generations. By focusing on a single composer from each era, I can illustrate points through real examples. An example of this is in my section on silent film music, as I am recounting the history of silent film i will use the work and techniques of Edmund Meisel to illustrate my points with concrete examples and or the 1035-1950 section I will focus on composer Max Steiner's work ect. All in all I am ready to start flushing out my notes and writing my paper.

Headings and Subheadings

Headings:

Early Film Sound, the 1920’s
-Why music was paired with film.
-Kinobibliothek and “specific suggestions for music”


Introduction of the “Talkie”
-Early expierements with combining sound and film
W.K Lauie Dickson and the Kinetophone
- De Forest and the vacumm tube
-Tri- Ergon, the first sound on film
electromagnetic recorder and a string galvanometer.
-Phonofilms
-Film sound come of age, the 1930s

Fantasia
-Fantasound
-Specially built theaters for screening
-technical advances
the click track
dispersion-aligned loudspeaker system with skewed-horn
the pan-pot
control-track level-expansion
overdubbing of orchestral parts
simultaneous multitrack recording
and the development of a multichannel surround system.



Dolby
-A-type noise reduction
- stereo variable soundtrack
before dolby noise reduction stereo was impossible because “it was too noisy to have two optical channels on a piece of 35mm film.”
-Surround in the 1970s

Digital Age
-Electronic Instruments in Film Scores
-Modern techniques for recording and synch


Foley
-what is foley?/ Jack Foley
-examples of creative foley.
Phantom Menace ect.

The Music Video
-setting popular music to video.

Important Composers
Bernard Herrmann
John Williams
Clint Mansell
Alan Silvestri

Capstone Essay Proposal

The History of Sound and Music in Visual Entertainment

For the essay portion of my capstone I will be writing a 20-25 page historical research paper on the development of sound in movies. The paper will start with the transition from silent films played while live orchestras or organ players accompanied the films, up through the development of stereo in the 30’s and 40’s and up into the modern digital age. I will discuss several prominent music composers, including John Williams and Alan Silvestri. I will focus on important scores that these composers wrote, and the effect they had on the future of movie making. I will also discuss their techniques for composing. I will also discuss the development of sound effects in film, and how the process of recording Foley has evolved over the course of film history. I would also like to look at the history of the music video, and the rise of creating video content to supplement music, rather than creating music to supplement video and film.

Headings:

Early Film Sound, the 1920’s

Introduction of the “Talkie”

Fantasia

Dolby

Digital Age

Electronic Instruments in Film Scores

Foley

The Music Video

Important Composers

Bernard Herrmann

John Williams

Clint Mansell

Alan Silvestri

Annotated Bibliography:

Beck, Jay, and Tony Grajeda. Lowering the Boom: Critical Studies in Film Sound. Urbana: University of Illinois, 2008. Print.

This book is a collection of essays from various members of the music and sound community. The topics range from the rise of Dolby to the importance of silence in movies. Several of the essays deal with how various soundscapes effect the tone of a movie, and the theory behind choosing how to design sound for different movies.

Cooke, Mervyn. A History of Film Music. New York: Cambridge UP, 2008. Print.

Mervyn Cooke creates a comprehensive history of major trends in film music. Ranging from the early days of silent film, through the golden age and up through present day movie making, Cooke creates a very informative look at film music history. One of the most interesting aspects of this book is it does not confine its history to that of Hollywood films, but also takes a deep look at film music in several foreign countries, including the U.K, France, and the Soviet Union.

Darby, William, and Bois Jack Du. American Film Music: Major Composers, Techniques, Trends, 1915-1990. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1990. Print.

This Book takes a detailed look at several prominent film composers. It covers almost the entire history of movies from 1915-1990 through specific composers and musical examples. It also takes a look at film scores that were not good, and dissects what causes a film score to flop. The book also takes a look at different composers techniques.

MacDonald, Laurence E. The Invisible Art of Film Music a Comprehensive History. New York: Ardsley House, 1998. Print.

This book addresses the art of writing music for the soundtracks of movies, and how that process has evolved from the late 20's up through the 90's. This book is organized chronologically and spotlights several important composers in film history.

Smith, Jeff. The Sounds of Commerce: Marketing Popular Film Music. New York: Columbia UP, 1998. Print.

Jeff Smith's book focus' on the presence of popular music in film throughout history. He starts with the days of sheet music sales, all the way up through MTV and the pop music that is so prevalent in modern soundtracks. Smith analysis what makes film music commercially successful, and breaks down pieces of music to illustrate his points.