I don't mean your favorite songs, but the songs that set the background mood, give information, and carry the story forward.
I've been thinking about this as I edit Orestes and the Fly. I've finally reached the stage where the clip-timing is set enough that I can add music.
I was worried about this stage because I'm not really a music person, so I'm surprised how [relatively] easy it's being. I guess I'm more of a music person than I think, because I find I have a sound in mind for each of the characters.
What surprised me the most, though, was the instant transformation music brings about. Of course I knew that sound is a huge, huge part of movies, but when I took my own silent footage and added songs, it still blew me away.
For instance, I've always wanted to make Orestes sympathetic, even though he killed his mother. I was hoping the music would help with that, and it does-- perfectly.
In fact, it feels like a cheat: Hey, I think, I did all this work creating these visuals and the thing that carries it away is the music! Damn.
I was talking to Kellie about this---how you can change the mood (in real-life-time or in film) by changing the music, and she told me there's a whole genre out there of recut and rescored film trailers that do that. She sent me one of the best and most famous: "The Shining (Happy Version)". I literally screamed with laughter.
In a different vein, I'd already seen and admired Gin's slash version of the Star Trek III: The Search for Spock trailer quite a while ago; but as she says herself, she took what was already there and upped the Kirk/Spock romance, she didn't turn it into a whole different genre or story.
And there's Broke Trek--A Star Trek Brokeback Mountain Parody too.
Watching this again inspired my Kirk of the Week, though I was thinking of the line from Four Weddings and a Funeral: "It's you, it's always been you, Charlie..." Hmm, looking around the nets for pix, I see I'm far from the only one who thought Charlie (Hugh Grant) should have ended up with Fiona (Kristin Scott Thomas), though she was probably better off without him.
This is the song that has been playing in the background of my life this summer:
Tim McGraw's "My Next Thirty Years" (not the video, just the song). You know, I wouldn't put this on my list of Top 100 Songs, it just fits my mood.
And here's the weirdest thing--I'm thinking I don't want to have to rely on other people's music all the time--couldn't I score some of my own stuff?
My computer comes with Garage Band, where you can create music, and I think I could probably create a few seconds of a dirge of some sort, for instance, couldn't I? Something slow, in a minor key...
