#temp track

[illusionnews-blog]

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The Tuesday Listen: A Theory of Film Music

Remember that episode of Every Frame a Painting I linked to the other day about the unmemorable scores of the Marvel universe movies? Dan Golding has responded with a video of his own, and it is amazing.

Hat tip.

[canyoupicitskento-blog]

What’s that freakin’ sound?!

Do you get emotional when you watch movies? Do you feel the joys of inspiration or the pain of sadness in those important scenes?

Unless you’re a robot, you will feel something when you watch a great film.

One big element that helps pull on your old hearts strings is the music. Don’t believe me? Try watching a film on mute. Something I learned years ago is that a great way to get inspired when cutting is to use cinematic scores. It can really help you to determine the editing style.

You are cutting with music from the most respected and highest paid composers and musicians in the world! It’s like a dream within a dream!

Now, before you run out and mortgage your house to get those sweet, sweet sounds, understand you can really only use scores for temp tracks.

“What the hell’s a temp track?”

I think Wikipedia explains it quite well:

A temp track is an existing piece of music or audio which is used in film production during the editing phase. It serves as a guideline for the mood or atmosphere the director is looking for in a scene.

We love the sounds of Big budget films, and it can really help drive our cutting to create a great story. But we don’t have copyright or licence to use them. So I like to use them to get the idea of what I want, and then once I have cut, I will go find a new or similar piece of music that fits my edit.

“But what’s the point if you can’t use it commercially?”.

Because it’s recognisable. It’s great to convey the feeling of what you are trying to achieve. It’s also another way to talk to people about the tone of your film. Can you think of the inception music. Ok, how about Starwars? Superman (The Christopher Reeve ones)? The Godfather?!

OH MY GOD, I want my movie to feel dark like The Dark Knight!”.

One important thing to note is to remind people that the music you are using is a temp track and will be replaced. Sometimes directors and client’s can fall in love with the temp music, which can make it hard to swap out (which can be frustrating for your Composers).

So next time you are cutting, why not try cutting with a temp track to get those creative juices flowing, and see how you go. Just remember to switch it out before your film goes into the public domain. Please don’t use music that you don’t have copyright for, in public domain. it could be very expensive for you!

One last thing. I have found that cinematic scores are also great music to do any work to. They are usually instrumentals so you don’t get distracted by lyrics. And you have an orchestra compelling you to keep working!

Trust me, Pirates of the Caribbean makes tax time or doing dishes a lot more tolerable!

If you use temp tracks, let me know what’s your favourite to cut to. Sayonara!

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[windowhorses]

The Internship: Part 1 Temp Track

This tale starts back in 2011. It was a rainy Vancouver Saturday morning, my dad calls me to the kitchen and asks if I wanted to go to his friends (Ann Marie Fleming’s) apartment downtown. He tells me that she was wondering if I would be interested in helping out at her *temp track recording that day for her next big film. I obviously agreed, so I threw on my clothes, gumboots and off we went. As soon as we entered her apartment a surge of excitement rushed in. The apartment was a heritage loft style, filled with art, instruments, many people who would be lending their voices that day, many chairs, microphones, scripts, recorders, pens and a baby grand piano as the main attraction. It felt like a set and I was giddy to no end. I was working along side my dad that day, and our job was marking the script with the takes and being in charge of all of the recording and audio. As the day progressed the takes increased, and I was starting to learn how different people interacted with one another on set, as well as how many takes you actually need to do. I started to learn about the story and the characters from Ann Marie’s direction, the actors portrayal and marking the script continuously. As the day came to close and the sky went from the grey hue of January day to bruised coloured clouds of the night I packed up all of the chairs, and I asked Ann Marie more about her project. This was the start of my involvement with Window Horses! 

*A temp track is temporary audio that is used in production, in this case it was voices. We used the temp track for the animatic; which is a rough cut version of the film just using the stills and shots from the story board.

[enpointeanimation-blog]

Hey some of you have been asking what the music was to my animatic. I used “Verbena Tea with Rebekah Raff” by Teebs for my temp track.

[p--a--g]

Alex North wrote an original score for Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). It was not until the premiere that North discovered, to his chagrin, that Kubrick opted for the temp track, which is what we hear today.