Music Research

Our chosen piece of music for the opening is Kevin MacLeod's "The Escalation":

Kevin MacLeod is an American composer and music producer. He lives in New York City and is best known for his contribution to Royalty Free Music, through his website Incompetech.com. He creates film scores, production music and video game music. 

Process:

Whilst searching for music we had to bare in mind the copyright restrictions and appropriateness that come with all types of sound. Any copyright tracks containing explicit lyrics or produced by authorised bands or artists were strictly ruled out, as these songs would not be appropriate or permitted. 

At first we was unsure of what vibe we wanted our music to project - wether it was to be slow, suspenseful, tight with tension or fast paced. We looked at various tracks on Royalty Free Music (http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/) searching through the collections of moods and atmospheres: 

The Escalation is part of the Horror Soundscape collection, tempo Moderato, and fits into the categories Intense, Action, Dark, Driving and Horror. The build is long, but gets fuller and more exciting towards the end. 

Instruments used: Percussion, basses, strings.

We decided we wanted a fast paced track, but one that builds gradually too, with a drop before the tempo quickens. The Escalation was perfect for this, and it was one of the very first tracks I came across, whereby I instantly visioned our opening plan fitting with certain parts of the music. 

Because the second half of our opening consists of a chaotic, confusing, heart-racing montage, the quick beats of the track and ricocheting clacks of instruments used in the piece will give an effective non-diegetic enhancement, synchronous to the action that will be happening on screen. 

Another great aspect of the track is it's powerful simplicity at the beginning - large, low bellowing drum hits, followed by a gradual tinging sound that vibrates like an echo throughout the entire track. The drum beats speed up significantly and change in pattern. We intend to fit these pattern alterations with the visual video so that it plays parallel and in time to the rhythm for ultimate impact. It keeps the sound interesting, and because the sound to any film is hugely important, we wanted to make its effectiveness a priority, due to our actual idea being relatively simple - the score needs to emphasise our montage, not slow it down in any way or make it become disjointed. The main idea is to fit the rhythms with the jump cuts and special video effects we use (any reversed clips or manipulated durations) to create an overall continuous, fluid movement on screen, and we are doing this by making sure each cut or change of scene commences on a beat, in time, precisely with the different sounds.