MAKING RANDOM THINGS GO TOGETHER...
The writer's block that marked the end of my creative process that was based only on imagination was centered on something I no longer had: an emcee to move an arena audience through the discrete experiential steps required to redirect and build to a fully and surprising emotional moment from completely normal and fully expected beginnings. It's an experiential process that was to earn its ultimate destination and now I no longer had a guide in the room. The objective, then, the payoff would have to be achieved as a fully post-production creation start to finish.
Oof.
Fortunately for me, I had an example in mind of how it's done: December nights on Main Street USA at Disneyland. I actually experienced this in person so I know it works. I know it transforms people who're just standing around on the street... into people who're amazed at the snow falling all around them. Experiencing the wonder of children.
You do it in steps, of course. You work them into a particular frame of mind from which the leap to wonder isn't so much a leap as it is the emotionally logical next step of their experience.
And so the start of my arena experience isn’t something new. It isn't even something next. What it is is music that naturally feels tailored to the moment the arena audience is already experiencing.
Only it's not.
The music, once the director cues playback, is there to lead everyone into step 2 of my plan.
Now, I've focused a bunch on my writer's block between sections one and two without ever explaining its resolution. Last we talked, in fact, I said this:
"It seems I worked right through it before realizing what I'd done. As I thought about it later, though, I actually know the How and Why of it."
The How and Why of it actually come from my pre-music composer days when I was working with loops to create music for a show about ancient Egypt.
Loops?
Sure. Pre-recorded phrases of music that can be mapped onto a tempo of choice. Which means you can quickly conjure an arrangement of instrumental performances that instantly work together provided everyone's in the same key (and even when they're not there are still ways to pitch performances into the right key).
For my purposes, it was a fast, efficient way to conjure specific atmospheres which was ideal for the gods and monsters vibe of the stories we were telling about the Ancients.
Where I ran into challenges with this technique was anywhere the script's tone changed. A simple example of this might be the narrative detailing of a temple's construction that pivots to a story that takes place inside that temple. Two tones: historic and ghost story. This kind of thing happened a lot throughout the script: a balancing act of history and pure story. And, since I didn't actually have enough control of this looped music to craft elegant music transitions, I was faced with a lot of hard shifts in the music I was creating.
My solution?
Bandaids.
What?
Well, technically, I used cymbal swells to smoothly transition out of one piece and into the next. Even when the underlying pieces of music slammmed awkwardly into each other, the cymbal swell created the sonic equivalent of a dissolve. Later, I moved on from cymbal swells to more straightforward methods of sound design that I used to bridge music that often collided like cars flailing wildly in a demolition derby.
Later, I embraced the tools and techniques of music composition and was off to the races. I never forgot, though, how to make things go together that don't naturally go together. Even things that don't want to go together.
And so when I was in the edit suite faced with two sections of experience that didn't go together... I made them go together.
I'll tell you how tomorrow.