Popular music in film.docx

1、Popular music in filmPopular music in filmIntroductionThis study aims to look into pre-existing popular music in film, its use and place within modern film making, with express interest in determining whether or not it can fairly be compared and judged along side more traditional original scoring te

2、chniques as an artistically viable means by which to add depth and further weight to the image, or if it is simply a cheap and easy means by which to score a film. In Ronald Rodmans essay The use of popular music as leitmotif in 1990s film, he states that“within the hands of a skilled director and m

3、usic editor, the use of pre-existing popular music can be used to convey narrative events and characters in a way similar to classical Hollywood scoring. However, the two exist at opposite ends of a modernist/post modernist continuum. With the Hollywood score being valued for its original and film s

4、pecific uniqueness and the found score being valued for its ability to redefine and recycle its self when used well, it offers a “live again” feeling, that allows the music to transcend its original form, and find new merit within the context of the image“. (Rodman, from the compiled essay collectio

5、n Changing Tunes: The Use of Pre-existing Music in Film (2005: 135)This study does not refer to a specific question requiring a final answer, instead aims to explore whether or not the idea of recycled music truly can transcend its self in skilled hands, and if the use of popular music in film has b

6、ecome used more widely and in a more sophisticated fashion following its emergence in many films of the 1990s. I also intend on looking into the work produced when artists more established within the realms of popular music, try their hand writing original music for film, and if this combination of

7、film specific, more traditional scored music and the different approaches that popular music and those more schooled in its construction can bring to the table with regards to an original score, is truly the definitive way to create an interesting, exciting and truly brilliant piece of work that doe

8、s what all good scores should achieve, too not only enhance the image, but to stand strong on its own as piece of work in its own right. By exploring the research of others with original research and thoughts of my own, I intend to come to a personal conclusion regarding the matter.This investigatio

9、n is going to be based around the initial idea that popular music has a valuable and useful place within modern film making, however, due to it often being used in a lazy and not fully thought through manner, it has become some what looked down upon with in the medium, being seen simply as a means f

10、or cheap laughs, a pleasant way to pad out the background music of a scene and as a way to add more marketability to a film . In light of this generally accepted opinion of popular musics place in film, and its viewing in such a negative light, I wish to look into how and why this view exists, despi

11、te countless examples of it being used to great effect within a film and how in recent years, the trend for recruiting the skills of popular musicians to construct original material specifically for film is not only the next step in popular musics place in cinema, but its creative apex.This investig

12、ation, through the course of its three main chapters, intends to look closely at popular musics place within modern cinema, how it has arrived there, where it can go from here, and if it can be seen as important and useful as classical means of film scoring.I intend on looking into the following poi

13、nts through out the course of this investigation:Chapter 1 - Popular music and Modern CinemaHow the genesis of both popular music and cinema are inherently linked to one another and a cross-pollination between the mediums has always been inevitableHow popular music as score differs from traditional

14、scores in what it does within a film.The potential (both positive and negative) that pre-existing material brings to a film, from its ability to comment add extra levels to a film through its lyrical content and its already established place in the public subconscious through to the historical and s

15、ocial abilities it has in helping define eras and public attitudes when necessary. I shall look at the use of The Doors song The End in Apocalypse Now(Francis Ford Coppola, 1984) in order to explore thisThe powerful imprinting effect that the correct piece of popular music and the correct visuals ca

16、n have on one another, combining in such a way that they elevate both song and scene to a completely new level of meaning, operating on many more levels than they would have done separately. I Shall look at Roy Orbisons In Dreams within the movies Blue Velvet (David Lynch 1982)Chapter 2 - Popular mu

17、sic as LeitmotifLook into how popular music has adopted the traditional film scoring technique, leitmotif.Explore the manner in which popular musics use denotatively and connotatively through leitmotif differs from the classic score, how it is not relied upon the actual repetition of specific themes

18、 that connect characters and narrative, but rather the repetition of styles of music or their social context.Investigate two films that use popular music as leitmotif, Shaun of The Dead (Edgar Wright,2004) and Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1992) and how their employment of the technique differs t

19、o one another.Chapter 3 - The Popular Musician as ComposerInvestigate, through existing examples within movies, of popular musicians being either being used to write film specific music for cinema or actually constructing an original score tailor made for a film, and if these approaches herald diffe

20、rent results and opportunities to scores constructed by more traditional composition methods.ConclusionDiscuss an over view of my investigation, come to a personal evaluation of whether popular musics place within cinemas audio landscape is viable as artistically expressive and appropriate as a meth

21、od of scoring.Chapter 1 - Popular Music and Modern CinemaPopular music, since the late 1970s has come to hold a particularly interesting and powerful position amongst the many visual media forms that exist, and though a large majority of these forms that have mutated and cross pollinated as a result

22、 of the rise of various technologies and the prominence of popular music as a form of cultural expression, are mainly used as tools of marketing (music videos, television spots and advertisements), it possess a unique functioning purpose within the medium of film, “only in dramatic film and televisi

23、on are popular songs used in order to help tell a sustained narrative story - a role that has traditionally been played by commissioned musical score” (Wright, Popular music and Film, 2003:8)Its hardly surprising that popular music has come to be used as such within film, though at their most fundam

24、ental levels they operate as two quit different forms of expression, the trajectories both have moved along through the early twentieth century show striking similarities to one another, to quote Ian Inglis in his introduction to Popular Film and Music (2003)“The genesis of both came about as a dire

25、ct result of late nineteenth century technological developments, both predominantly rely on a new type of mass audience sharing a common interest, both started with humble beginnings as novelties to expand and become some of the largest industries in the world with colossal annual turnovers, both ha

26、ve been approached and consumed from perspectives that have allowed them to evolve from simple tools of popular and mass culture into examples of more high and elite culture“. (Inglis, 2003:1)It is no longer required in modern film making to contain a score written specifically with the images and n

27、arrative in mind, a movies musical landscape is now just as likely to be entirely filled with pre-existing songs (be they popular or more esoteric) as it is to feature a more traditional score, often a combination of the two will be employed by a director.In order to greater appreciate the role that

28、 using pre-existing popular music in a film can have on, not only the narrative implications, but the way an audience will respond to the movie going experience, one must lay out the inherent differences and opportunities that popular music can bring when compared to a traditional classical score.Mu

29、sic written and scored with a film in mind is specifically catered to the needs of the images on screen, often a film will be scored late in a films production schedule, there for it is necessary to bend and fit to the constraints of the image, the composer is almost a slave to the film at hand, tak

30、ing full responsibility for fleshing out every nuance and emotion that a scene requires. They must adapt and fit around what is (normally by the time a composer is brought on board) a fairly concrete structure of how the narrative events take place.On the other hand, when a director chooses to use p

31、re-existing material in a film, the scenes have usually been designed in such a way as to bend around the song. Pre-existing material can not be manipulated in the same manner of a piece tailored to fit a narrative, however, through the use of shooting and editing a sequence with music in mind, it a

32、llows a certain unity and rhythm to emerge from the combination of the two.Looking at whether or not one of these approaches to film scoring is more artistically viable is a more complex question that at first it would appear.“The most fundamental observation that can be made about music in any audi

33、o? Visual medium is that it enjoys a rather direct route to our subconscious. Humans are by nature more visually orientated, we digest visual information more consciously - and more critically - than we do aural information” (Wright 2003:10)Since its musics uncanny ability to override the logical fro