Proceedings of the URECA@NTU 2011-12
Fairly-a-Tale: A Musical Short Film
Koh Chong Wu Assistant Professor PerMagnus Lindborg School of Art, Design and Media Mr Lucas M F V Jodogne School of Art, Design and Media
Proceedings of the URECA@NTU 2011-12 intended, it was ultimately cut down to two to better film. I definitely had a whole new understanding of the control the duration of the film. However, that was not Musical genre and the process of creating one. After the only reason, as mentioned in the previous segment, this project, I am technically more adept; I have better we tried to introduce elements of pop music into it, the understanding on how to produce a bigger production; style was starkly on contrast to all other songs which stronger communication and directing skills; managing ultimately still had a more instrumental factor. The big cast ad crew; better understanding on the digital presence of thus sequence broke the harmony of the workflow and working proceeding of a film that film. Finally, not only was the Musical sequence involves computer graphics. I am grateful to my removed, but also the entire scene, and effectively, two devoted team, all the support and advise that my characters form the entire narrative. The entire film also supervisors and peers have given me. At the end, I am went through a few rounds editing and musical re- proud to say that for this project, I exhausted all the arrangement before final product was locked. skills I have picked up over my four years course in filmmaking. 6 DISCUSSION Working with a composer was an interesting and ACKNOWLEDGEMENT fruitful experience. As the Sound Supervisor of the On top acknowledging Prof PerMagnus and Mr project, we had to work closely with each other to Jodogne for their guidance and support through the ensure the balance between music and sound. Three project, I also wish to thank Assistant Professor Jaymz portions of the film that I remember strongly were the Wong, Assistant Professor Wong Chen-His, Assistant dream sequence, the dance sequence and the Fairy Professor Marijke Van Kets, Assistant Professor Song. For the dream sequence, it is the first scene where Kenneth Feinstein, Technical Staff Abdul Shukor bin the Fairies were introduced, One important sound motif Mohammed and Media Manager Tan Wee Liang for for the Fairies is the flapping of their wings, This scene their advice and assistance. I also wish to acknowledge could just had been ambient and Foley, however, Music the entire cast and crew who worked very hard to make could actually enhance emotion of this scene. this project a success. Nonetheless, I do not wish for the music to simply be for background support. Hence, for this scene, I worked We wish to acknowledge the funding support for this closely with the composer to design the song such that project from Nanyang Technological University under the ambience and the motif sounds becomes part of the the Undergraduate Research Experience on Campus music, the music itself not losing the strong (URECA) programme. instrumentation and Celtic style. Similarly for the dance REFERENCES scene, the Fairies were actually dancing to the music. Some of the fairies even playing custom designed [1] Cohen, A. (2011) ‘Music as a source of emotion in instruments. Hence, the challenge was this scene was Film’. In Juslin, P. & Sloboda, J. (ed.) Handbook not to just interweave he music and the sound design, of Music and Emotion. Oxford University Press. but also to find or create instrumental for the instruments. For the Fairy song, it is simply a vocal with a single flute accompaniment. The challenge for this scene is that the performer does not appear, but it is literally implied that the Fairy is singing it. Hence, creating the sense of the space such that the singing does not become background music becomes a challenge. However, for the previous two scenes, we created the sense of space by including audio elements from the scene itself onto the arrangement. But for this Fairy Song, the intention is to remove all excess sound such that focus is only the vocal and accompaniment. Without direct visual reference to the performer, merging the visual to audio becomes the challenge. I particularly like this scene also because at the very end as night turns to day, the song also beautifully fades into the songs of birds that is diegetic.
7 CONCLUSION Whilst Musical film is a popular genre for feature length film, it is not easy implementing the same protocols onto a short film due to the constraint of time. For a film to be labelled as a Musical film, Musical sequences have to hold a determining role to the whole