|
Article - Slippage
By
Terry walstrom
07
December 2003
What
is the point of slippage? Slippage is a theory of how things are
actually "created". Nothing is ever truly original. But, by increments
an old way of doing things, or thinking things becomes entirely
novel and fresh. This is easily done with musical tunes.
Take
the tune GIVE ME THE SIMPLE LIFE and vary the last phrase and Presto!
You have the theme to Candid Camera. But, let us go deeper. What
if you take action music, for example, and apply slippage. What
are the rewards? Onscreen there are frantic images and tense situations,
lots of ambient sound, noise, effects, etc. The expectation is music
that mimics that activity. For the composer that means writing a
lot of notes. For the orchestra: playing fast. For the sound mixer:
one more group of sounds to be blended. For the audience? Maybe
just too much of everything. All that work the composer went through
and the details are blurred into a soup.
What
if the composer applies slippage? Instead of hundreds of fast notes
he slips in just a few slow notes? What if the tempo is broad and
brackets the beginning and end rather than changing lanes like a
racecar? What if there is an actual melody instead of riffs and
ostinati? After all, how many mood changes can be provoked in an
audience? How many emotions SHOULD they be experiencing to move
the plot along? Is the purpose of the action an emotionally significant
one? Can that be stated in a word? Can the music not stick to that
emotional tone and be successful?
Take
any recent action movie with music behind it and you'll hear a mammoth
wall of sonic assault. In effect, it is bursts of noise played by
instruments. The visceral effect is not unlike a large group of
people stomping their feet. Raw Energy is what it amounts to. But,
is it emotionally informative?
I've
stated all the above to make the following statement. Perhaps film
composers by using slippage make a huge and important discovery
about film music: Simple is better than complex in action music.
A broad theme is something the audience can hang on to and stay
with EMOTIONALLY. An exhilaration can stem from happiness or anger
or awe but it is one emotion. Why duplicate what is onscreen?
Let
us take an example: John Barry had many many opportunities to explore
the effect of action music in the Bond films. Bond films had in
the music a serious tone. My opinion is that the serious tone made
the cartoonish action onscreen work much better. With the advent
of Dolby sound recording the amount of sonic information delivered
to the audience's ears doubled, then tripled over time. A film composer
finds his music being drowned out. Melodic composers best efforts
were, in effect, destroyed. But, the declamatory composers' efforts
were not affected at all.
Not
the only problem. With the advent of digital recording and editing
the LOCKED DOWN print was a thing of the past for a composer. The
scene could be changed and changed and changed again by the editor
almost up until the week of release. A carefully timed score based
on melody and synchronized action moments would be immediately rendered
ineffective when edited. Not so a score with mere short cells of
rhythm and chords.
Consequently,
the truly gifted melodic composers began vanishing from action films.
Enter SLIPPAGE and innovation. John Barry figured out a way. Loooooong,
slooooow melody lines so broad it would fit over the entire scene
no matter what the quick cut changes because the general definitive
mood was in place. The music would "make sense" because it was now
a COMPLETE thought as melodies are. It was no longer a salad but
a meal. Our ears are accustomed to the usual approach, to be sure.
But, I for one like the melodic approach very much.
The
greatest tribute to Barry's method is in Dances with Wolves. The
melodies are very strong. There is energy and there is content emotionally.
The music tells you something as in a complete thought or sentence
with the melody as the subject and the tempo as the verb and the
emotional result the direct object. Slippage works.
Look
at the flight scene in OUT OF AFRICA. The music is very slow and
broad. There is no sense of matching the editing tempo to the music.
However, the enormity of the exhilaration in realizing the beauty
of Africa comes almost entirely from what the music accomplishes.
Busy busy busy music simply could never deliver such a wallop.
Producers
who are too scared of not being conventional with their music score
are missing out on a great deal by not trusting John Barry's journeyman
instincts. But, the biggest loss is on the part of the audience.
We find it more and more difficult to FEEL something no matter how
terrific the special effects onscreen.
I
ask you to compare any action scene in a recent James Bond movie
scored with wall to wall sonic assault by David Arnold with John
Barry's efforts a decade or so earlier. Which is more emotionally
satisfying? There is no ONE TRUE answer to this question. After
all, like so many things in life it is a matter of taste. But, I'd
rather slip out the current method and slip in the emotionally true
one.
Long
live SLIPPAGE.
Terry. |
