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London Film School

 London Film School
Summary:Film Music Course
Deadline: None
Date Posted: 21 January 2015
Details: Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2015 to Sun, 15 Feb 2015
Duration: 2 days
Times: 10.30am-5.30pm
Capacity: Max. 20-25 participants
Fee: £250 10% Early Bird discount available until 5th January

This weekend workshop is essential for those composers, musicians, directors, producers, editors, sound designers and screenwriters at all levels, who want to have a better understanding of the relationship between image and music and how to use it to best effect in their films.

Tutor Gustavo Costantini advocates soundtracks to be full of ideas rather than effects. Participants will learn key elements of music/image strategies and be introduced to all the possible uses of music that are used in contemporary filmmaking, including personalised advice on their own work, if submitted in advance.

COURSE OUTLINE
Referencing Michel Chion’s seminal work on film sound Audio-Vision, the workshop will provoke participants to think in terms of sound and music rather than image. Extensive use of film clips ranging from PSYCHO to LOST IN TRANSLATION will demonstrate how difficult it is to think in terms of sound and music and how neglected these fields still are. From the provocative use of music in Stanley Kubrick's influential films to sonic experiments in horror films, and from Hitchcock's classic scores to contemporary independent filmmaking - including shorts and documentaries- the workshop will cover most music strategies applied to the production of meaning, create moods, establishing tensions between what is seen and what is heard, and even provide information about spaces, characters and beyond.

Participants will be trained in strategies on how to use music in actual situations, and how music can be treated and edited in the context of the whole film. These situations may take the form of projects submitted by the participants themselves, from scripts to finished films. (Participant projects must be submitted in advance in order to be considered.) Music supervision strategies will be also considered and will be revealed through some key examples and actual cases.

The course will be of interest to directors for whom all these topics and case studies are relevant. Musicians, composers and film editors will be interested in the possible places that film music can occupy; and the connections between the film structure, the syntax of the film edit and the music syntax will provide an updated view about the way that all the elements are integrated.

COURSE CONTENT
• Film Music introduction: brief history. Why and when to apply music to a scene. Reasons for using music and the different possible results.
• Diegetic and Non-diegetic: music coming from the scene and music intended just for the audience. Passages between both levels and playing with ambiguities.
• The magic effect of music supervision: from giving clues of Time and Space to creating the character's universe.
• Empathetic effect: when music reinforces drama.
• Anempathetic effect: the indifference of music and the creation of tensions. Different types of tensions between music and the scene.
• Counterpoint: intellectual uses of music. Music and style.
• Music analysis: introduction to a graphic analysis of music and its correspondences with the film structure.
• Film music and film style: from Hitchcock to Godard, from Kubrick to the Coen brothers.
• Using classical music and popular music: Film music and the avant-garde; Ligeti, Penderecki, electronic music, musique concrète and beyond. All topics will be demonstrated and illustrated with actual cases from Film (feature films and shorts), TV, Sound Arts. We will also show some never seen before material provided by award winning sound designer and editor Walter Murch and Atom Egoyan.
Web Site:http://lfs.org.uk/workshops/lfs-workshops/269/sound-music-techniques-narrative-filmmaking