Producton// Sound Track for the film

I approached Devoted Friend about writing and recording the sound track for the film, being honestly that I couldn't afford to pay them and wanted to collaborate - which is something I still feel bad about, as I believe artists being paid an honest wage. They happily accepted, which I was very thankful for.

We met up, had a cup of tea and a few crisps and started talking about what sort of sounds I wanted. At first we really struggled, as I quickly realised I can't describe verbally as well as I can draw what I'm thinking. I hopped onto my laptop and quickly pulled up a few examples of soundtracks I loved the sound of, one of which was the 1974 Bagpuss theme song. The sound itself is very 'vintage' because of the limitations of recording technology at that time and I really loved that. I also loved the friendly-ness to the theme and the familiarity it carries, even for a first listener. I also found the HER soundtrack, which is something written and recorded so tenderly that it's wonderfully memorable. 

We decided on segmenting soundtracks over the animatic, for them to better understand how long certain tracks needed. I did this by simply putting coloured dots over the animatic in different shades, to identity with it's corresponding track then handing the animatic over to them to work with. At first I really loved the idea of the sound track just being a simple guitar, however quickly realised it wouldn't make the impact of the character playing acoustic guitar for the first time in the film - if the whole soundtrack sounded that way. Also they convinced me with a drum machine and a few angry/wonderful guitar pedals. I wanted a 'swelling' lovely sound to be accosted with the main character feeling hopeful or at home and made that quite clear from the begining of my workings with Devoted friend. So the first thing we settled on was what to make that sound with. After settling on a familiar sound, we moved onto working that sound into different soundtracks - some more obvious and others more hidden, or warped. 

All together there are 3 soundtracks recorded, the final being a re-worked slowed down version of the 2nd which is the montage sequence. I personally love the montage one and the drum machine beat to it. Before Devoted friend ‘proved me wrong’ about me thinking a drum machine didn’t belong in this sort of film, I was very nervous about hearing the finished track- however now that I have, I love it. I learnt a lot about the sort of work that goes into a finished sound track, both from a musicians and clients perspective. Also I’d never worked as a ‘client’ below and found the whole thing difficult at first. I wasn’t used to telling someone else what I wanted, I was just used to doing it myself over and over until I got it right.

Balancing out the soundtrack and sound effects will be out next challenge, doing it again in reaper then rendering the balanced audio and visuals in after effects. 

For the final soundtrack to be uploaded onto Devoted Friends Bandcamp page, I re-sized an illustration of the main character to use - in order to promote the film along side the soundtrack as it's own stand alone art piece.

Small illustration