FAUST - THE FILMSCORE

one last note

2009-01-21T16:37:00.003+01:00

i can now report that faust has been successfully finalized, even the text between the scenes is now done, this was the last piece that had been missing. the faustderfilm.com webpage will soon reflect these news and we are looking forward to distribute faust as good as possible, which is quite another story for itself. for now: please watch faustderfilm.com for updates!

all the best,
alex.

farewell

2008-10-10T22:30:00.003+02:00

now faust is done, the orchestra score has been mixed down, the voiceovers have been flewn in, the color correction is finalized and the animation has been finally adjusted to maximum impact...the text between scenes has yet to be done...we are looking forward to distribute faust to as many festivals as there are who want to show the film. philipp is in the process of making a dvd for me that i can use for promotional purposes (the first one had no chapters and most dvd players were unable to cue it due to its high data rate) and for distribution to the festivals. we'll see what happens...

it's been a long time that i've been working on faust and i enjoyed it, but now the time has come to say goodbye...well maybe not completely, there will be a making of, but i doubt that i will write any new music for it...although there are new projects that i'm already working on this will be the final entry into this blog and i hereby consider it closed...

if you want to know any more about faust, gretchen and mephisto than you can read in goethes original, that is, if you want to know any more about their fate in the film, you'll have to go and watch it...i hope it will be viewable at one or another festival, and of course there will be the point when the dvd will be released and distributed, probably through the home page, so stay tuned. i know nothing about a theatrical release which would be great, but we don't know anything about a possible distributor...i'm sure philipp will look for one, though...

so i hope you'll go and watch - and listen to - faust, the film, and i hope you will find it enjoyable...other than that i hope you have a good time...and thanks for stopping by!

all the best,
alex.

done!

2008-08-21T13:56:00.003+02:00

we're done! the soundtrack has been bounced to 5.1 and 3.1/2.0 mixes and is ready for distribution. philipp is working on producing a final copy of faust on dvd as well as on digi beta (he ran into trouble initially because the video studio where he wanted to do the transfer had an ancient avid version that was incompatible with the version that has been used to work on faust). i volunteered to find a copy of dvd studio pro that we could use, so this will probably be the program that we will use to finish the final dvd with 5.1 sound. some dvd programs had the ability to do the menu the way philpp wanted it and some could do 5.1 sound, but not both at the same time. with dvd studio pro we should be able to produce a cd with the menu philipp wants as well as 5.1 sound. yesterday i rendered the 5.1 and 2.0 ac3 files so we're ready to incorporate the soundtrack into the dvd. i'm quite excited since a 3 year work period has ended and faust is ready for prime time. in the following months (years) we will distribute faust to as many festivals as possible, hopefully some will be interested. i'm really curious how the audience will receive the film and the music, a first test will be done really soon when we will have a pre premiere for the team that worked on the film. i'm curious about what the actors will have to say about the music...
so there is no final medium with faust on it yet, but we'll have one or more masters really soon, i'll keep you posted how the work proceeds...

mixing faust

2008-08-13T15:00:00.003+02:00

hi there!

after cutting together the whole thing i managed to start mixing the project. that sounds easier than it is. cutting faust took me about two months. you have to imagine that i was cutting 28 tracks minimum at once and that my computer slowed down during the process so that it almost came to a halt. it worked out somehow, though. now that everything has been cut and also two organ parts have been recorded (with a live church organ) i started mixing the project. first i tried to do it in logic, which turned out to be impossible because logic is somehow not compatible with the digidesign interfaces in the studio where i do the mixdown. so i turned to pro tools and this works fine. i slapped some great sounding surround reverb on the tracks and started to mix. meanwhile i'm almost done, a few finishing touches are still missing, but i will finish the mix this week i hope. the voices of stefan and georgij have been integrated into the mix as well as some additional instruments that i won't talk about too much. choir and organ are there as well. sounds great in 5.1 surround so far...
after finishing the 5.1 mix i will also generate a downmix to dolby stereo (3.1) and stereo (2.0), so we'll be ready for any occasion.
in the meantime i already started to work on my next project, which...but that's a whole different story...i'll let you know when faust is ready...

long time no see

2008-03-16T01:18:00.003+01:00

it's been some time since i wrote an entry here...meanwhile the final scene of faust has been finished as well as the walpurgisnacht. we even had a recording session with the orchestra (sinfonia piccola-kammerorchester robert stolz). it was about the largest setting which you could still call a chamber orchestra - 34 musicians. we had a lot of fun, but we were also severely tested by our equipment, that is, by our computer running logic studio, which tried to do something else but recording during the first two days, mainly trying to crash all the time. on the third day we figured it out, sort of, and were able to work at a decent pace. anyway, we still have to do another recording session to be able to finish the film. the walpurgisnacht was so tricky musically (13/8 and 7/4 bars throughout the tune) that the orchestra had a hard time staying close to the click. playing to a click as an orchestra by the way is a whole seperate issue altogether. it works, but it doesn't always work well. there were several times when vladimir, our conductor, had to keep the orchestra from a ritartando at the end of a phrase, which would absolutely make sens musically, but which wasn't programmed in the click. i'll keep that in the back of my head for the next project.

nevertheless the recording sessions were a thrilling experience and we borrowed the best equipment we could lay our hands on. there were three millenia media hv3d preamps, a sebatron vmp4000, 20 schoeps mics, 7 neumanns and one akg. there were rme and apogee converters (the latter bought in the last minute by me, figuring i'll need it in the future anyway). i used my genelec monitors and my trusty old imac to record everything. we even had a behringer headphone amp (that was an insider joke now).

the result is a very warm orchestra sound in the absolute absence of anything like noise or analog hiss. very nice. from a technical point of view i'm absolutely satisfied. also musically the sessions were great. we'll see if i can cut everything togethere nicely so it fits.

. tomorrow i have to have a demo of the whole film ready to be sent to a famous festival. i hope they like it...
stay tuned, i'll be back soon...

something's going on...

2007-06-01T00:24:00.000+02:00

i've been working on the new version of the music for the credits lately...i keep sending philipp music via skype and so far he seems to like the new version better, which is cool with me. it's a little bit downtempo compared to the first version, but i don't want to talk about it too much to avoid giving anything away for those of you who haven't seen the film yet...

i still have no ending for some reason, yesterday some great ending came to my mind when i left the computer, but i forgot to write it down, naturally, since i was somewhere outside when it came to my mind. i had hoped to remember it, but alas...i didn't. so i will have to come up with something fresh which is ok too...i just didn't have the nerve today to sit down and concentrate for some reason...

apart from the ending of the very last music in the film and the walpurgisnacht (which still hasn't been finished by the animation department) the music for faust is done. wow. we'll see how many weeks it will take me to find an ending...i'm talking about 8 or 16 bars or so here...

more to come soon, i'll let you know when philipp says ok to the credit-music...

l8er...

cemetery scene revisited...

2007-05-24T03:55:00.000+02:00

hi there...! it's been some time...

well i had the opportunity to finish the cemetery scene meanwhile. fortunately the form was quite clear at that point up to the point where gretchen falls down on her knees. and fortunately i decided that my previous layout was good and i would stick to it. only thing i did was shorten the last part when she's wandering through the woods a bit and enter with a quite dramatic theme in the first trumpet when she falls down to her knees. there's also some accented string pattern coming in...it's quite dramatic. then everything kind of fades away as she stops crying and starts to pray...i had some fun introducing, well, programming the ritartando.

the cemetery scene is now pretty much what it has been in its last reincarnation, the counterpoint part is gone, of course, and there's a -hopefully- haunting flute theme that lingers on through the whole scene, interrupted only by a string part. the flute theme characterizes the situation at the cemetery and foreshadows the upcoming tragedy and grief that is within gretchen, while the string part describes her remembering her loved ones (mother and brother valentin). then the flute theme appears again and merges into a pretty dramatic theme with organ and choir as she strolls through the woods. after that there's the breakdown.

what can i say, philipp was happy when he heard it today, and he was completely happy after i removed a tambourine track that i liked but he didn't and that i had tried to smuggle in somehow...well, after all he's got ears in his head, so much about trying to smuggle something in, i just can't get away with it.

next thing will be completely rewriting the music for the credits. philipp wants a different kind of mood. let's see if i can nail it. oh, by the way: except for the credits the music is pretty much done now, except for the one big animation scene, the walpurgisnacht, which is due to be delivered to my by the animation department in about a month from now, if i recall it correctly. i should have the credits done by then. there will be an interesting guest musician in the walpurgisnacht scene that i will tell you, well, maybe, when i get there...

stay tuned...!

another listening session

2007-05-14T00:33:00.000+02:00

philipp was here today (in fact he just left some 30 minutes ago) and watched the whole shebang from the beginning of the finale to the end of the credits. we came to the agreement that i will write some different music for the credits since philipp wants to convey another mood than is projected by the music right now (it's too energetic at the moment), but we also agreed that, even if we end up not using the present music for the credits, i will produce the tune and it might end up as a bonus track on the soundtrack cd or something...it's a great tune, very well worked out now and an interesting arrangement.

philipp saw the whole finale plus credits once and was happy with my changes. i also had written some stuff for the last text part, where mephisto is speaking for the last time and all changes and transitions seemed to work beautifully.

what i changed:
i introduced a tiny decrescendo before gretchen pushes faust away, to emphasize the motion.
i inserted some horns and a snare roll and hit when gretchen sees the dagger first (before the audience).
i put some low note double bass and timpani rumble beneath mephisto's approach to faust.
and i cut off the whole chord progressen at the very end at the moment when faust realizes his dagger is gone. only the gran cassa keeps up his heartbeat before the whole orchestra enters again and peaks out at the dramatic ending.

if you haven't seen the film you should be curious what's happening in that last scene. at least i hope so. so go and see the film! (of course you can't see it at the time when i'm writing these lines because it's not even close to being finished, but it will be finished some day...)

next point on the agenda is the end of the cemetery scene. i will then write some new music for the credits and by then the walpurgisnacht scene will hopefully be done. this will be the last scene of the film that i'll write music for...

more news coming up (hopefully) next week...c u then...!

finale corrections...

2007-05-10T22:46:00.000+02:00

philipp was here and checked out the music for the finale. fortunately he liked it. however there were a few moments he wanted especially emphasized, that i either had chosen not to emphasize so much or that i couldn't recognize as key situations becaus the color correction is not final yet and the look is still a little bit too dark.

i readjusted the final scene in the last few days, so philipp and i will probably get together again on sunday or something like that...we'll see...

one of the moments is when valentin recognizes that his dagger is gone...philipp wanted me to really break everything down and make his heartbeat audible...it's a nice increase in tension from that moment until the moment when gretchen...we'll i don't want to give away the ending, you'll figure it out for yourself, or maybe you know the book...

another moment was when gretchen sees mephisto. i actually had that nailed down, philipp just wanted it more emphasized...

the music for the last text screen is also growing, i'll be done with everything but the 2nd part of the cemetary scene soon. and of course the walpurgisnacht is still missing, a lot of work is being put into it by stefan, the maya guy. i'm really curious to see some demos, i'll let you know what it looks like once philipp lets me see something...

stay tuned...!

finale part two...

2007-05-04T01:50:00.000+02:00

i just finished finale part two...a few corrections might be in order, but in general it sounds quite right...we'll see what the director thinks about it, we'll have a listening session on sat. it's been such a long time since i last worked on the film, but there is so much other stuff to do that it's hard to find time to work on it and not feel like i instantly want to go on vacation...;-)

at the end of the finale i introduced an additional instrument that i didn't use throughout the whole film, we'll see if it will stay this way...gretchen's death has to be kept apart from all the rest, though, and this way there's just an additional timbre that has not been around before. i think it works quite well.

i got as far as the whiteout last time...after this there's a harp arpeggio and a soft string part following with a slow melody played by the celli and some violin one accompaniment. the whole thing plays throughout a camera movement from far back until gretchen is closeup in the picture, she's sitting at the riverside with her baby in her arms. when she looks up the picture is cut to the young faust looking at her in the dungeon and the bassoon expresses his unspoken question: what has happened. we see what's happened a moment later when gretchen gets up (accompanied by a musical quote from the cemetery part) and throws her baby into the water, drowning it. obviously the music gets quit hectic and dramatic, there are a few chromatically progressing chords used that result in a nice harmonic clash and the timpani also add to the drama/tragedy as she drowns her baby.

after this somewhat shocking moment the camere follows the same path as before, from far behind her, the string part is similar, but not the same, and the strings are accompanied by flutes and clarinets as we get closer to her and she looks up. the woodwinds emphasize the chords. her distraught facial expression is supported by timpani and horns.

when gretchen sees the dagger hanging on faust's side she realizes that her brother valentin has been killed with this weapon and in the same moment the death theme appears again, played by horns and trombone and this time also emphasized by woodwinds. a few moments later mephisto enters the scene and as he does so the music progresses somewhat accelerated and with the addition of a new instrument that adds to the majesty, drama and panic of the whole situation. the emotions of the whole scene - gretchen realizing who entered the room, stepping back in panic, mephisto being angry with faust, faust gripping for his dagger and some more events that i don't want to write about right now because they would give away vital and possibly surprising parts of the film - are all expressed by one chord progression.

after the peak the music gradually subsides. there is a snare roll that characterizes mephistos motion, pulling faust away, and once they are gone there are just a few string chords. i noticed i can't make too much music there, apart from a few fading notes, because the whole scene would become too dense and hectic.

that's it for now, there's one part at the beginning of mephisto's entrance that i'll have to look into and there's the interplay following the scene, but apart from that i'm pretty much done with the finale, unless...philipp wants everything changed! we'll see...

stay tuned, there'll be more news soon...

finale part one reloaded

2007-02-22T00:31:00.001+01:00

philipp was here recently and listened and watched the first part of the finale. his remark was something like "perfect", he seemed to be thoroughly satisfied with the result. i haven't been able to continue working on the final scene, but i hope a will be soon...stay tuned...!

finale part one

2007-01-30T02:56:00.000+01:00

today i finished the first part of the finale, i stopped at the part where gretchen gets the vision of her past...the screen whites out and goes back into her memories and you see her with her newborn child...before that the scene is set in the dungeon and faust comes to visit gretchen and possibly take her with him out of the dungeon.

the scene starts showing gretchen dirty, mad and worn out in the dungeon, in chains (the chains are depicted quite meticulously). i chose to write a piece for low register strings, some basson and tubular bells (fate striking again). some cello pizzicato arpeggios are added at the end and gretchens writing in the sand is symbolized by high violins. then the music apruptly stops as gretchen turns her head. somebody enters the dungeon. BOOM! according to the music it must be the devil himself, the death theme that appeared earlier strikes again here, but in a much more violent fashion, horns and trumpets in fifths, with fortissimo strings and percussion. then a kind of marching string theme evolves that is fuelled by the timpani. gretchen gets caught in a corner while crawling back, away from the dark stranger. when she can't get back anymore she attacks him and throws him off his feet!

this is also emphasized by percussion and there is a horn transition that leads into a different, but also kind of marching string theme which slowly increases in intensity, volume and register (increasing the register not only to the top but also to the bottom - double basses enter). again low register horn emphasize the danger and are echoed by flutes and oboe. as the hands of the intruder are visible working on gretchens foot where it's locked to the chain the music stops and a few glockenspiel notes accentuate the mood shift, something's going on.

as the intruder opens the lock a tubular bell stroke starts a strings-and horns and trumpets sequence that evolves from pretty dark and sad when the intruder offers his open arms to gretchen, offering her to take her with him away from the dungeon, to very bright and optimistic when he finally unmasks himself and we see it's faust who is trying to take gretchen away. as she recognizes him the music peaks in optimism, then slowly fades away at a high note (trumpet and violins)...

gretchens theme enters and is interrupted twice before it is played to the - slightly modified - end. the end is kind of a question, we see gretchens face in a close up, then a white out which is emphasized by a gran cassa roll and single stroke as the screen turns completely white...

well, i hope you get something out of this description. i certainly do since it's a pretty useful way for me to reflect what i've actually written, not in musical terms but in terms of drama. what are the important points in the scene, which instruments did i use to emphasize them (or hide them). i just wrote the whole thing to philipp in a chat and it was totally funny. it's got nothing to do with music, but it's all about music. interesting.

so stay tuned until i write about the second part of the finale. i don't know if it's really such a good idea to get into detail so much since you might get bored with so many details...on the other hand that's what it's all about...anyway..talk to you later...

more finale...

2007-01-25T02:19:00.000+01:00

...started out to work on the finale a couple of days ago...obviously one has to avoid all higher registers of any instruments to get the right mood for that scene...i had to restrain myself to use only the low registers of the strings and some tubular bells to create the right mood for the beginning...any movement (short notes) also seem to be counter productive...

the timpani get some use to build up tension as the visitor (which at this point is not known by gretchen to be faust) approaches gretchen. before that, the appearance of the visitor is of course enhanced by some dark horn and trumpet accents. it's difficult to decide on my own whether i can finish a musical phrase and still surprise the listener/viewer with a forte accent, or whether i have to cut the phrase early and jump right in with the accent. i think i have to ask for other people's opinions (philipp will be first...)...

the whole finale is an interplay between random accents and sad, tragic, or dramatic mood music. i think i'll spend a lot of time to find the correct pacing of all of the music...so far it worked out pretty well but i'll keep you posted about any difficulties that might arise...

talking about the finale...

2007-01-22T00:42:00.000+01:00

...that's what philipp and i did yesterday...philipp explained to me how he wanted gretchen gone mad depicted musically. of course we are talking grand emotions here...extreme sadness, extreme fear, and a lot of other kinds of extremes...obviously she's gone mad and the music has to reflect this. today i started out with a little idea in the double basses and strings and bassoon, we'll see how this works out...

when i rolled through the scene and imagined how i'm probably going to write the music and then came to the last text page and subsequently to the end credits i noticed that the music for the credits really works! the funny little special feature we built into it does its thing and i think the audience might be surprised and maybe even shocked at the same time...i'm looking forward to seeing the movie at a test screening (which we are planning to do) and check out the reaction. for me it obsiously worked very well, the effect was what i desired...

btw: i also played the part of the cemetery scene for philipp that i already wrote and he liked it..well, at least after we took out some orchestral percussion, i probably overdid that a little bit...but now it's working...

i'll get back to you as soon as i finished the finale, or maybe some time inbetween to let you know what's going on...stay tuned...!

just a shorte note...

2007-01-11T20:29:00.001+01:00

i pretty much finished the credits, bounced the whole thing and sent it to philipp...he seemed pretty excited and happy when he called me back, i think i nailed it. bernhard (dop, camera and editing) got the mp3 from philipp and also responded enthusiastically. wow. now there are just two and a half scenes left: the rest of the cemetery scene, the walpurgisnacht and the final showdown in the dungeon. i think i have some ideas to refine the music for the credits a little bit, but it's pretty much done. the walpurgisnacht scene will be done last because it is still being worked on the animation/3d front, so i'll look into the cemetery scene and the final showdown first...stay tuned...!

new music in a new year...

2007-01-06T21:27:00.000+01:00

i just noticed that the last entry of the blog is from august, 1st 2006. wow. a 5 months break, now i'm continuing to work on the music for faust. it's not like i didn't work in the meantime, actually there was a lot of work, so i had no or almost no time for faust. the music for the cemetery scene that i described in the last posting has been scratched as i was not satisfied with it and i wrote some alternatives through the last months. i'm about halfway through the scene and i'll let you know when i finish it.

unfortunately one of the key members of the animation team left some time ago and philipp had a hard time to find somebody else to fill in. however he found someone who is able to combine all the drawings for the walpurgisnacht scene into one coherent piece of film in his computer. this guy (i don't even know his name yet) is currently working on the material in maya on the pc platform. i'm really curious and want to meet him at some point to see how his work is progressing.

philipp said there is still so much work to be done for the animation part that it will probably take until summer 2007 to finish the film (!). that's another reason why i took a break for so long since i have no pressure to finalize the film. i will take as much time as i need to deliver the best product i can.

while i stopped working on the cemetery scene i took on another task earlier than i thought: the music for the end credits. philipp and i agreed to have some unexpected music at least at the beginning of the end credits that i don't want to talk about at the moment...i just want to say so much: there will be some extraordinary vocals in it, and the style might be somewhat unexpected considering the style of the rest of the film. philipp's intention was to avoid cheering up the audience after the tragic end of the film and carry on in a somewhat pessimistic mood.

after gretchen's death and the subsequent monologue spoken by mephisto there is a fade to black and the music comes down to a quiet melody, like faust stroking the passed away gretchen's head or something. then it unexpectedly (now it's not so unexpected anymore) builds up again and - well, then comes the part that i won't give away yet, i want my readers to discover at least something unexpected, even though you read the blog. the mentioned part lasts about 2 to 3 minutes until the glockenspiel takes over and leads us into a repetitive little melody, that builds up rhythmically again until the entrance of an almost heroic, but still dark, theme that lingers on to the end...

i had a lot of fun doing the layout of the end credit's music, which will become clear as soon as you will hear the result, considering that i did the layout all on my own...if you already saw the film and are reading this as an afterthought you might be able to imagine that i had a lot of fun doing it...

i'm going to meet philipp on one of the next days since there have been some changes and modifications that he requested and i'm curious if the new version works out for him...that's it for now, stay tuned, i'm working on faust again and more news will follow...!

the cemetery

2006-08-01T03:23:00.000+02:00

today philipp and i had another listening session, this time the music was a little sketchy at some parts, mostly because of my harddrive desaster that kept me from working on it too much last week. anyway, there was enough music for philipp to get an impression where i was headed and obviously he liked what he heard.

i managed to slip some bachesque counterpoint into the film: during the long pan across the cemetary at the beginning of the scene a baroque theme is established by the oboe and the alto voices of the choir that is subsequently repeated by the other three voices and melded into a polyphonic web that strives for a climax with gretchens appearance on the screen. the polyphonic part ends apruptly and is replaced by a sad little melody in the first clarinet (accompanied by the harp) that constantly switches between three quarter and four quarter measures.

this little theme is then picked up by the choir and the rest of the orchestra until getchen leaves the screen. as soon as the viewer recognizes her in the next shot (we worked on the exact timing a bit) a big orchestra part takes place that has a sort of hopeless mood. this part gets really quiet when gretchen moves towards the viewer and comes to a halt as she stops in front of virgin mary's picture. when she kneels down in front of the icon, weeping, the orchestra enters again with a big cue until she gets up again. then the choir takes over, i think i will accompany it with a low orchestral drone. fade to black.

this is pretty much the scene that i worked on for the last week (and a few days), i still have to add some counter melodies and musical dialogue (the big orchestral part when gretchen is walking in the woods will feature the strings taking over the basson motif for example) and refine the orchestration a bit (this part also needs some horns to soften the sound of the trumpets a bit, for example). i think i will pass a current version of the film's soundtrack to philipp when i'm done with this scene. at this point there will be only two (long) scenes left: the walpurgisnacht scene, which will be scored last, and the final showdown in the prison, featuring retrospective views of gretchen's infanticide that she commits on her own child.

i enjoy writing the music for faust a lot, even though in some weeks i can hardly work, due to some money generating ventures that i have to take on now and then (and due to some crashing computers or hard drives). the cool thing is, since i don't work on it too much anyway i try to work on it only when i really feel like doing so. that's a lot more fun than to work against a tight deadline (although this has to be done now and then anyway).

i also just heard that the mid-august deadline for the animation of the walpurgisnacht scene will probably be impossible to be realized, so it might be september when i get to work on this scene. we want to record the music around october 15th, so there will be probably around a month for the preparation of the score (which is a tight schedule given the fact that it's a 86 minute piece and that i can't work on it fulltime since i'll be working on something else three full days a week). i still hope we'll be able to make it. stay tuned for more news...

faustderfilm.com - online soon!

2006-07-31T03:57:00.000+02:00

hi there! the faust homepage is scheduled to go online soon...philipp told me today that - if nothing goes wrong - the homepage will go online on august 1st, 2006. that's this tuesday. extensive double checking on all platforms has been going on to ensure that the page is viewable on all operating systems and on all major browsers...i tested it for the mac and everything seems to be allright. so check it out on tuesday!

talking about operating systems - mine seems to be ok after reinstalling everything and moving my data over from my ibook to the g5, in fact i was back up and running again within two or three hours after i got the new harddrive. unfortunately two applications wouldn't work as they should even after reinstalling them, so it took me another few hours to figure out that i needed to delete the preferences to make them work again. this is one of the reasons why i'm still working on that same cemetary scene. however the basic structure for the whole scene is clear so far, i'm just working out the orchestration. i'll tell you more when i talked to philipp about my concept tomorrow...see you later!

crash! boom! bang!

2006-07-25T19:33:00.000+02:00

exactly, yesterday my harddrive crashed. the external one that i was using to boot the g5. but not only the harddrive crashed, also the harddrive's enclosure died. now that was new. while i lost three harddrives during the last two years (and a couple of months maybe), i never killed an enclosure. very weird. so i got a new harddrive and a new enclosure today and within a couple of hours i was up and running again. the mac has a very nice utility that is called migration assistant. with this utility you can basically move all your data including programs and licenses from one computer to another. while it took approximately one hour to move the data everything, and i mean everything, was there when it was done. i started to work in my usual surroundings immediately. i have yet to check whether logic is working too, but i think it will work...

currently i'm working on the cemetery scene and i managed to introduce some counterpoint to the film...maybe it will stay that way, if philipp likes it...maybe not...i'll talk about it some more when i'm done with the scene...stay tuned!

even more dialogue...

2006-07-22T23:28:00.000+02:00

last week i didn't get to do any scoring at all. i was busy from sunrise to sunset every day, to some extent with earning some money, to some extent with attending some film workshops that i found interesting (i'm trying to put myself into a director or into a cutters shoes to get a better understanding of what these people are actually doing).

tonight i managed to do the next dialogue part. this time it's god who is speaking, giving mephisto the permission to mess around with faust's life while trying to get a hold of his soul. this is actually the big topic of philipp's faust interpretation: we're all subject to the influence of powers we can't control, in this case these powers are god and mephisto. if you need to know more about this read philipp's comment in the "content" section of the upcoming faustfilm homepage (it's not out yet, but it will be soon)

i put the dialogue melody in a very dark setting for the first part, using just horns and trombone for accompaniment and playing the melody with bassoon and flute 1, which is a quite interesting combination imo. the second part is a little lighter, with the clarinet playing the second melody, accompanied by string pizzicati. this is nice since the pizzicati reflect the mood of the pronounciation of the dialogue in a very unique way. again, it was my turn to do a rough version of the dialogue to give philipp an impression of what we're talking about.

i'll be working on the following scene, gretchen at the cemetary, tomorrow and tue and wed, so stay tuned...

another listening session with philipp

2006-07-17T03:37:00.000+02:00

more than two weeks have gone by and finally philipp and i got together to view and listen to the next, the latest scene that i scored. that speaks a lot about the current tempo that i have writing the music for faust, i think i'm REALLY slow. on the other hand i've got to earn some money, too, so there were several gigs at birdland in between that i mixed, it' not like i can work every day from nine to five (actually i prefer to work at night anyway). but with this project i have the luxury to only work on it when i feel like working on it, since benjamin and the folks at the animation department are still very busy workin on the walpurgisnacht scene (and it's some time until they'll be finished i was told today).

the latest scene is the one where gretchen's brother, the soldier valentin, appears for the first (and only) time and is murdered right away. murdered by faust, i should add, with a little help from mephistopheles.

the scene starts out in a pretty sentimental mood (and philipp wanted the whole scene to be sentimental and sad, mood-wise), so i wrote a theme for valentin that fit the mood when he is viewing the little amulet that contains photos of his sister, gretchen, and their mother. he then recognizes faust and mephisto coming out of the darkness, walking in his direction. the sentimental valentin-theme continues until after he draws his sword (it's more like a saber, actually), and thereby requests a duel. with faust, i think, that's not so clear. anyway, mephisto fights him and with a few saber strokes valentin loses his weapon (the music is somewhat agitated here, especially at the parts where the action, that is, the saber strokes are, but always idles with some pizzicato theme when there is no fighting and the protagonists are simply looking around to find out what's the situation now). after valentin has lost his weapon, mephisto urges faust to take his saber and gives him a kick in his butt which motions faust towards valentin. unfortunately faust's saber goes right through valentin's body and valentin falls down. this is where we hear a reprise of the death theme that appears the first time when gretchen's mother dies (it's a succession of a downward movement in thirds of minor triads), also, the tempo suddenly changes and becomes really slow to emphasize the lethal moment.

valentin falls to his knees, and faust's pulling the saber out of valentin's body is emphasized with a timpani roll-crescendo that leads into a moaning clarinet-motif. after recognizing what has happened mephisto urges faust to leave and they do so. this is accompanied by some pizzicato string motif that accelerates and illustrates their urgent movement. while they leave, gretchen comes out of her house (in front of which the whole scene is set) and the gretchen theme appears again, however it concludes with the same death theme that appeared before, only much softer and with woodwinds and flutes instead of horns and trombone. she kneels down above valentin who is in agony and her moaning is represented by a soft theme played by the oboe. valentin pusing her away and throwing his medal with her picture away is accentuated by short breaks. when valentin dies the clarinet takes over the melody in pianissimo, which is accompanied by the other woodwinds and alto flute and the melody goes from an upward movement to a downward movement. basically the music says here that everything is ok and it will be all good while he's dying. the music is consoling the two protagonists in their tragedy which puts the viewer in a little bit weird situation since a tragedy is happening, but the music sort of refers to a life after death without words. the scene ends with a total of gretchen and valentin, who's blood is all over the place and a reprise of the sentimental valentin-theme from the beginning.

philipp liked it a lot. the end was perfect, we changed a few minor things in the beginning like adding timpani to the saber strokes (i tried it without since i wanted to avoid doing the most obvious thing first, but it seems the timpani are needed here) and readjusting the timing a bit in one place. and we added some cymbal roll to the place where valentin draws his saber first, because i didn't have a sample of the reverse side of brushes being drawn over a cymbal (which is what we'll use when we'll record the whole show).

philipp was enhusiastic tonight since he also visited benjamin and his crew before he came to meet me and he was happy with their progress as well. it's nice to see a happy director...:-)

the next scene is gretchen at the cementary, in this scene you can see that she's pregnant and moaning about her losses. stay tuned!

photos

2006-07-11T18:07:00.000+02:00

ok, here we go...i promised to add some photos so my blog is not so boring...first there's a picture of the faust post-production team: we have benjamin on the left, animation director and author of the faust-animation blog (see link), then philipp, the director of the film in the middle and then bernhard, he's the cameraman and cutter, on the right hand side.

the photo was shot on the day of the orchestra-recording for the teaser-trailer, which i was talking about earlier on...

the next picture is showing my little workplace, you might want to call it studio...herewego:

on the left front you can see the keys of my roland rd150 digital piano, above it (not on the picture) is the yamaha an1x. the black thing on the left side of the table is a behringer faderbox, the monitor is showing some part of the faust score in logic. the studio monitors are yamaha ns10m's (with the white bass speakers) and the genelec 1031a (one of them can be seen on the right hand side).

right next to the rd 150 on the left hand side, beneath the behringer a tiny piece of a 2x2ghz g5 computer can be seen, which has been borrowed to me by flo schneider of mcshark, THE local apple dealer. i'm very grateful for that because my trusty old ibook was not strong enough to play back the score and output a full screen dv video at the same time. one frame of the video can be seen on the tv monitor on the right hand side, it's the scene i'm working on now featuring gretchen's brother valentin.

one more thing on the right hand side: above from the chair's armrest you can see the keys of my rhodes mk-80, the 90's digital, midi-fied roland version of the rhodes electric piano. and before i forget it...on the floor, right next to the g5 is a rack with my fireface 800, a very nice and reliable unit that i am using all the time.

ok, i'll try to find some photos i can do from time to time so the blog becomes a little...looser...we'll see...that's it for now, stay tuned!

more dialogue

2006-07-11T01:05:00.000+02:00

there's one more thing i like so much about the dialogue parts. maybe the fact that i like them has not only to do with the music - for the layouts, i get to speak the dialogue! that's a lot of fun! mephistopheles is me, speaking very clearly, pronouncing every (german) syllable very precisely, the voice if not high pitched then at least not too low and muddy. god is me, too, but speaking gravely, just as precisely pronounced, and pitched down a whole step or something like that afterwards. while nobody but me and philipp will probablyever hear these layouts (some rock singers are scheduled to speak mephisto and god later on when the music has been recorded by the orchestra, i think one of them doesn't know yet that he's been lucky enough to be chosen by philipp so i won't talk about it yet who it is), it's a tremendous amount of fun for me to generate them. somehow i seem to like to hear myself. at least as long as i'm not singing...:-)

of course the dialogue that is being created by me is not so much there for my own enjoyment, but for philipp to be able to hear a rough approximation of what the music plus dialogue will probably sound like. of course it's easier to judge that by hearing actual dialogue (even if it's merely close to what the final product will be) than to have to imagine the dialogue for yourself.

this time there was a little transitional part to the next scene after the dialogue theme was played. for two reasons: first there was some space left and second i like to have some kind of nice transition between two scenes if possible. we'll see if the director likes it...

ps: i saw that benjamin, the animation director, is adding a lot of drawings in his blog...i simply can't make a blog that is as nice to read and as entertaining as his...first i have no drawings and second: i refuse to put anything but the final product up here for you to listen to it! i don't want anybody to listen to my layouts or scratch recordings but philipp and maybe a few viewers of the test screening that we'll hold when the music is finished...

i'm afraid i have to refer you to the homepage for the trailer to get a first impression of what the soundtrack will be like...and even the homepage is still not online yet, so stay tuned (the link to the faust-homepage is on the right hand side in the link-area)...meanwhile i'm going to make a few pictures of my studio so you can see how i'm working...

dialogue

2006-07-07T04:16:00.000+02:00

faust is not a completely silent movie. there is some dialogue. it's the dialogue between god and mephistopheles and they are talking about faust and his possible downfall. this dialogue always appears inbetween scenes, and as the film progresses the viewer learns more and more about the relationship between god and mephistopheles and their ongoing bet - mephisto tries to seduce faust to give his soul to mephisto, the devil, and god obviously has no problem to let mephisto play with fausts life. i could go into detail what one could think about that kind of god, but i won't. the dialogue will be spoken, probably by two singers, one representing god, the other one mephisto.

musically these dialogue parts are among my favourite parts of the film. they are accompanied by a rather simple theme that morphs over time into some other theme which is always orchestrated and arranged in a different way. you'll never hear the same thing, but it's always the same simple theme, or a derivative of that theme. i just finished the dialogue part after the love/sex/death scene i was talking about previously. it's a cool thing to do - i think - and i'm trying to use the orchestra in a different way every time, trying to find new colors that i can use. in this case there will also be a short musical transition to the next scene, wich is the appearance and murder of gretchen's brother, valentin.

gretchen and faust in love

2006-07-06T03:26:00.000+02:00

that's the latest scene i was working on...it contiues with gretchen mixing her mother some medicine that faust gave her (and which was given to faust by mephisto before) and thereby killing her mother. gretchen's mothers death is preceded by the camera moving through her bedroom towards her. at this part philipp wanted a very scary yet dark timbre in the music. i ended up using only the frenchhorns, bassoon, timpani and basses. the timpani play some rolls throughout the whole scene which gives the viewer an uneasy feeling (at least that was my intention). the other instruments play really low notes.

while writing this i'm thinking that this blog might contain spoilers for future viewers of the film...on the other hand you get an idea what to look and listen for...i guess it might be a good idea to write "may contain spoilers" in front of passages like that, where i'm talking about the film in detail...i'll do that next time, promised! while we're talking: the following paragraphs may also contain spoilers...!

i played the scene today for philipp and he liked it. he urged me to remove a few timpani strokes that accentuated the end of some timpani rolls to make the sex-scene less....explicit. philipp was looking for tension rather than for mickey mousing. however he had asked me to accentuate the movements of the bodies acoustically. this was new.

i should add that the current scene starts as a love scene and then morphs to something between a sex scene and a death scene, or jumps back and forth between both. the love part has been dealt with in a previous episode of the blog. the rest is what i was working on this and last week.

i also would like to mention the blog of benjamin swicinsky (you can find the link on the right hand side), the animation director of the film, who got excited when he saw my blog and decided to write one dealing with his progress working on the animation part of the film. the official faustderfilm.com homepage is still not yet online (philipp is still collecting material), but will be online soon, probably by the end of the month.

when i got the final cut of the film (there is still some color correction that will be redone, but the cut is pretty much final) it contained some pretty sketchy rough animation in the places where the animation would be in the final product. that was sufficient for the smaller animation parts, but the bigger ones were finalized while i was working on the score. which was great, because it's much more inspiring to work when you have a final or near-final version of the animation. the erdgeist scene for example was pretty much finished when i got there, for the weinberg-walk i got a nice approximation with some final background paintings that looked really cool. i hope that they will be done with the walpurgisnacht scene when i get there, this will be almost impossible to do without some kind of closer scetch of what will be going on (right now this scene consists of some sketchy drawings that are barely animated at all). but philipp told me that benjamin and his fellow animation artists are progressing rapidly. i'm confident that i'll have something to watch when i get there...

talk to you later...