This article backtracks the scoring of the latest film by director Oskari Sipola:Production for this started shortly after we had finished scoring Oskari's previous film "Repeämä". He gave us a script with a Romeo & Juliet type of love story setting, neonazis, immigrants, broken friendships, hate and violence to read. I for one was intrigued and inspired from the get go.
From the first meetings it became clear that we were all going for a sublime, brooding type of score. It was clear it had to sound threatening and raw but not overpower the images on the screen. We set out to create a score that plays in low register and most of the time you feel the music rather than hear it.
We started off by doing a few short cues of what the score might sound like. The most dominant elements used in these cues were haunting atmospheric pads and primal beating drums. The cues did their trick as Oskari felt we had the right direction and we were able to start with a basic palette once the final cut of the film was ready.
The composing was done separately with me working in my own hole and Teemu in his. Though we worked individually we still managed to work as a team, since we bounced bits and pieces of the score back and forth between us as the work progressed. One can't really spot what piece is done by which composer. It always feels really weird to notice that on our own both of us compose really different kind of material and yet together our composing styles blend seamlessly (I personally am glad that it works that way). During the composing process we had two pit stops with Oskari to check the direction of the score. Both times we made some slight modifications to the details, but the general direction was clear all the time. The final editing and mixing was done on my setup with the score spanning over 60 different instrument tracks, it was so heavily layered.
The score is a haunting mix of layered pads that give an almost eerie feeling to most of the score, with an under current bass rumble and pumping to make it menacing. At times the score just swims elusively with the images, events and sounds, just out of reach but constantly present. We used melodies sparingly with most of them being played by a lonely echoing grand piano. It moves in and out of the score. Also a vital element were the large tom drums; primal and militaristic in nature. They were edited into a low rumble, that rises and falls as the events unfold and only during the final clash at the end they were given free reign to beat with force.
Other instruments used include industrial clangs and metal hits, which accompany the toms, orchestral strings, which appear in both clean and lush and heavily effected forms, percussions from Africa and Asia, which are used to give the toms more backing and give the score a more worldly feel, some very urban beats, ethnic flutes, Tibetan bells, glass harmonica, acoustic and distorted electric guitars, an Arabian female vocalist and a shaman throat singing. Most of these are layered into the synth work, so that they're not really discernible, but add flavor to the wall of sound that the score is.
In the end I feel the score leaves you uneasy since it is not a light listen with only a few points standing out as something to take hold of. And I for one love it for that. It has the feel of the movie, it pulses and grows as the story unfolds, it breaths a steady but unnerving heartbeat. It's not in your comfort zone and it's not meant to be.
Oh, this movie also incorporates a bonus from us: a rather generic heavy rock track that was needed when the director and producer noticed there wasn't enough left of the budget to get the rights for Rammstein's "Feuer frei", so I loaded up Ministry of Rock and played around with it for about 45 minutes and composed a little piece of bad heavy music. I then chugged it over to Teemu who did some vocals for it and presto! The end result plays filtered from a radio in one of the scenes.
The Score
- Bonus track "Disemboweled virgins on crack"
Gear I used for this project:
Hardware
- Ensoniq MR-61 Workstation Keyboard
- Cakewalk Sonar 7
- Sony SoundForge 7
- NI Kontakt 3
- NI Massive
- NI Kore Player
- EastWest PLAY
- Vienna Instruments Special Edition
- Yellow Tools Independence Free
- Homegrown Sounds Astralis Orgone
- Ummet Ozcan Genesis
- Ilio Origins
- EastWest Ministry of Rock
- EastWest Voices of Passion
- Vienna Horizon Series Glass & Stones
- Sonivox Flying Hand Percussion
