Scoring to picture

The Lounge Mission Briefs
#1

There was this wee scoring to picture challenge in the spring but it might be interesting to discuss the topic in general also.

This is the first time I’m starting a challenge, so I’ll keep the rules to a minimum.

  1. Use this video as your footage.
  2. Score with whatever gear you want.
  3. To spice it up a little bit, think of the video as the opening montage of a film. What genre of film is it? Don’t tell, let us guess! Just write your score / cue accordingly. :slight_smile:
  4. Upload the video somewhere for others to see.
  5. Deadline? A month from now? (April the 12th?) Extended until the 19th now, then it’s time for a new challenge.
  6. Let’s have some fun! Who’s with me?

This is actually something that was started by @Hainbach in his recent video (below) on how music changes the narrative of a film. He shared the short 45-second video I linked above for people to have a go at scoring to picture.

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Make Noise Strega
Open Battle #02: "Buchlaed"
No more than 3 replies?!
#2

I think this could be a perfect improv multitrack workout for my new Strega (if it arrives soon!). Can just imagine starting with a drone that’s pulsing in time with the zebra crossing beacon…

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#3

Cue the romantic comedy starring Hugh Grant. Sounds excellent!

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#4

this is nice and with good timing :smile_cat: …just as Open Batlle #01 is approaching the deadline and thought it would have been nice to have another one

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#5

Well I’m still planning on doing this if I get time this week, but one thing I have learned is that Bitwig is not really ideal for scoring to picture as it doesn’t have any built-in features aimed at that use case, and working out where significant events (cuts, whatever) land on the video timeline and then manually adding track markers isn’t ideal. But Logic is actually pretty awesome, just drag the video onto the arrangement and you get a film strip up top for track markers and a window showing the video that’s linked to the playhead, plus if you drag a region it automatically scrubs the video forwards and backwards to show where the start of the region will land. This stuff might be well known but I’ve never tried making music to fit existing video, so it’s new to me. Fun!

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#6

If @guga as the winner of Open Battle #1 doesn’t mind, we could indeed take this as an appetiser for the next ACTUAL battle/challenge? :slightly_smiling_face:

I actually already made one version some weeks ago. Performed on the Moog Matriarch and Felt Instruments Lekko, Blisko strings and Helenko.

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#7

Good job!

Sorry but I found the video totally uninspiring!

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#8

Very nice!

Yeah. I think the idea from Hainbach originally is that the video is very neutral, so you can try to impart some meaning with any type of score you choose. But that means there’s not much to the video to grab onto.

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#9

I can understand that. But after watching quite a bit of Christian Henson in the past couple of years, I’ve come to understand that scoring to picture is actually mostly something like this, you know visually not very inspiring stuff (fairly low-budget documentaries, for example). In a recent video he flat out said that the music you make when scoring to picture doesn’t actually have to be good - it just has to be fitting. So I kinda took this as a challenge to create something with that assignment in mind.

5 Likes
#10

Ok, here’s my effort:

(edited to replace the video as I originally messed up the export from Logic)

I wanted to create something that could be used in a mysterious, unsettling sci-fi film like Under the Skin (sorry @korpinen, no rom com here!). Made with a combination of Strega, 0-coast, and 0-ctrl, with a bit of editing and processing in Logic.

It was a fun exercise and a good workout for my new Strega, and I learned a bunch of stuff about Logic that I never knew it could do.

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#11

I like this challenge - missed this one, but I’ll do the next

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#12

This! I think it’s very interesting how music can seemingly change not only the mood but also the pace of a video. Comparing your version to mine, for example, while the tempo as such isn’t that different, your video somehow feels slower in an unsettling and ominous way.

1 Like
#13

Feel free to contribute whenever you want, if you find the challenge interesting. I’m not sure if it makes a whole lot of sense to close this one on the 12th just after two participants. Maybe we’ll just leave this here.

But I’m hoping challenges will become more of a regular thing on Elektronauts, I’ve really enjoyed the recent ones (haven’t had time to take part in the Mars challenge yet, though). Always a nice way to approach making music from a slightly different angle.

#14

i do not mind at all @korpinen :smiley: should be able to hopefully upload my entry in the next couple of days for this challenge…still thinking about what the next OB one should be :thinking:

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#15

this one is nice @spikysimon, it does set the scene

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#16

enjoyed this one too @korpinen

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#17

Thanks @guga, looking forwards to seeing yours :slightly_smiling_face:

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#18

not super happy with the result, but here’s my video anyway :slightly_smiling_face:

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#19

Nice! I could see this being the opening of a gritty urban drama or something like that maybe. I like the timing with the cuts and action in the video, too.

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#20

There a good guide to scoring workflow with Ableton?

1 Like