Bang. Hum. Scene.
Bang. Hum. Scene.
Bang. Hum. Scene.

It’s important that every show has a style and theme throughout it; otherwise it just feels random and not thought through. However this becomes difficult when the show you are working on is completely abstract and each scene is completely different from the last. A theme is difficult when the directors have specific requirements for each scene and they do not have many similarities with each other. So how can I develop some overriding style?

Music? No… that’s not right. It wouldn’t fit this production to have melody going through the performance. In a book about how to design sound, Deena wrote, “Music and effects can have similar attributes. You may be involved with a production where you find that music would be completely inappropriate. For whatever reason, adding even the most minimal of melodic themes to this production would make a dramatic moment melodramatic… remember that you can use sound effects to create a moment just as effectively as if you were underscoring with music.” (Deena, 2009, 44)

Sound effects! Brilliant. A simple cinematic boom to punctuate and a low hum to fill the empty space with sound. It’s simple, it’s clean and it’s abstract. A lot of thought went into when to place the cinematic bass boom’s, and at one point they were used to start and end every scene, yet this seemed too much and it was decided to only use it to finish a scene felt better. It let the audience know that that moment of history had ended and the next was about to be constructed.

Cinematic Bass Boom.

Low Bass Humming

As said, each scene had it’s own style and own music – however it would be impossible for me to talk about each of them, so I’ve picked out three to talk about most.

1 – Capturing Feminism.

One scene called for a long sound file that showed the history of feminism. Recently finishing a dissertation on feminism in musical theatre I was very much looking forward to pulling out the important women that have shaped it’s history and presenting them for this scene. A full transcript of the sound file I created with each name with the lines can be found here.
It was questioned whether or not Emma Watson should be included with the ranks of other feminists from history, yet I fought for her. She is incredibly important. Spending most of her time fighting for women’s rights, her videos and speeches have gone viral online proving themselves popular with the modern generation. She has a strong feminist message that is helping to define a generation who are willing to listen to her. She may not be someone who has shaped feminism past, but she is someone who is strongly carrying it forward. Given that most of our audience will be university students, having her inclusion is incredibly important, as she will be recognisable to the audience of today.

The feminist speeches mashup.

2 – What does 9/11 sound like?

What does it sound like? Like explosions and screams and people running? To me, it feels like it should be more personal. A lot of people forget that it caused a lot of death and the voices are the most heart-breaking moment. Given that 9/11 was to be explored at the end of the Wright Brothers scene briefly, I needed something quick and shocking to play. A phone call from CeeCee Lyles who was on board one of the planes of the day felt like the right thing to play. Surrounded with the robotic telephone voice, her words of love echo through the pain. After a calm scene with piano undertones, this harsh beep with clipped voice would give a stark contrast and sudden change to the feel, right for exploring how sudden the event of 9/11 actually was.

 

CeeCee Lyles phone call.

3 – Columbine the video game.

It was suggested heavily that the Columbine killers were inspired by violent video games into doing the massacre they did. This is why the scene we show is completely inspired by games. Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People is a song inspired by troubled youth and gun violence, and has connections to the Columbine massacre. I found an 8-bit version of the song to open the scene with a video provided by Hal, and then overlaid a phone call – for similar reasons to the 9/11 scene – over the song to play through headphones to simulate a modern call of duty style game set up. This became the theme tune for the scene and gave it an upbeat feeling which was right given that we were looking at the boys being just boys behind the killings.

8-bit Pumped Up Kicks Intro

Instrumental of Pumped Up Kicks overlaid with 9-11 call from teacher.

 

Works Cited.
Deena, K. (2009) Sound and music for the theatre: the art and technique of design. London: Oxford London Focal Press.