Introduction
The zenith project is the big culmination of our entire Freestyle Experience in one project. Where we embark on an art piece that will both challenge us as creatives and let us shine as experienced artists. Each student gets to choose what project they want to work on for the last couple months of Freestyle and then they get to present it to all the Juniors and Seniors of their block.
My project was a piece that combined the two things I like doing most, music composing and filmmaking. I wanted to create three different videos where I’d produce a video in a special genre that I enjoy. And then I’d compose a music score inspired by famous composers of that genre to compliment the film.
James Horner
The first score I did was in the style of James Horner. His scores are featured in iconic films like Titanic and Avatar, which allow his epic and warm instrumentals to really shine. So I wanted to create a warm and epic scene like this to match his style. I brought my friend Justin and his student Justin to a Horse’s field to do an emotional and epic routine.
For the music, I looked closely at the score for Karate Kid and A Perfect Storm to try and have the same feel as his score. And in the end I created something that wasn’t perfect, but based on audience response, had the right feel I was targeting. Above you can see some of the elements that I carefully implemented into the score.
CDrama
Since my presentation would drag a little bit, I wanted to add a film that would entertain people through humor, even though it isn’t too impressive. So the Cdrama was a perfect way of doing that. I filmed a very very cliche Chinese Drama scene that replicates the typical Chinese romance TV scenes. And then I listened to the music from the Cdrama’s to replicate their styles.
As you can see bellow, I implemented some special techniques like a slider in order to get a slow push in for the romantic scene. And I asked some professional Cdrama viewers to assist me with movement of characters, which you can see happening on the left side.
For the music I used a lot of tonal percussion instruments and silly sound effects. You can see all these different elements in different colors throughout the midi space above. And if you want to listen to it, you can keep scrolling through to find the entire presentation.
Alan Menken
For the last score, I decided to create one of my favorite styles of music that has inspired me since I was little. Alan Menken is the composer that shaped Disney’s style of music. Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, and many other Disney scores. So in this project, I found one of my favorite scenes from Tangled and I composed a music score to it.
For the Alan Menken style score, I had to figure out a really romantic melody that would be able to stand on it’s own. Because Alan Menken melodies have a very specific magical sound to them. So after I crafted the melody I used orchestration to embellish it with the string and woodwind section. And by the end of it, I had a short excerpt of music that fit the scene pretty well.
Bellow you will see the video of my Zenith presentation where I talked about each of the scores and videos. And below that you’ll see my reflection where I talk about it.