A great lesson in film music

Tony Carnevale participates in the important initiative by ColonneSonore.net, curated by Massimo Privitera. It consists of interview lessons on Film Music in episodes, where composers worldwide answer six questions, providing anecdotes and professional insights for future colleagues. Today’s promising young talents, perhaps still students in film-music courses or self-taught without an academic background, all share a deep desire to become composers for music applied to images. It’s also a way to understand each composer’s approach to creating a film score better.

Here is the entire interview/lesson

1. What methodology do you use when approaching the creation of a film score?

Although it’s clear that every project presents a different situation, both creatively and in terms of execution, I’d like to share a comment from film critic Riccardo Tavani regarding the soundtrack of the film VAKHIM, directed by Francesca Pirani, which I composed. He summarized my approach “The music of this film is not a sound commentary, but the image spoken with sound; therefore, it is part of the film’s iconographic fabric”

My approach, thus, is not to work “for” the images but “with” the images. Let me explain. Having spent many years researching musical language, which explored various topics, including the relationship between expressive-representative languages, I try to propose a particular vision of the sound-image relationship. Without going into too much detail (perhaps I’ll refer you to my eighth book, Oltre le note (Beyond Notes) – an irrational approach to music), I’d like us to take a moment to reflect on the experience of dreaming: everyone, at least once in life, has dreamed of “hearing” music (or even voices, sounds, etc.), even though, almost always, there’s no sensory perception of sound.

Or think about when we imagine music “in our heads,” even remembering something we’ve listened to without any conscious perception. These two examples should suggest that the human mind is capable of “hearing” music mentally, even without the physical perception of vibration. Therefore, music, on a mental level, or better yet, on a psychic level, is an “image.” Clearly, we’re not talking about an image as a figure, as something outlined, but as an image as a psychic state, between memory and imagination, both conscious when we are aware of it and unconscious when it manifests as “sensation.” When we associate music with images, we’re, in my view, “adding” invisible images to visible ones. The viewer’s creativity then comes into play, generating these invisible images in their mind unconsciously: sensations, emotions, that is, images in a broad sense, that is, psychic states related to imagination

In this sense, I try to create a movement of sounds in harmony with the movements of the images, as if it were a symphony of sounds and images, a kind of “emotional orchestration” of the images proposed by the film, looking for “spaces” in which to insert sounds in relation to the rest. So the actors, the stage movements, the dialogues, are “instruments” that are already “playing” something: it is enough to know how to “listen” to find ways to add other sounds consistent with the scene, to create a kind of sound-image composition, not a background or a sound backdrop. This is because my goal is to reach the “sensibility,” the “feeling” of others, to make them immerse themselves in the atmosphere of the film, not to “wow” them with rhetorical “catchy” effects. Maybe then we can “let loose” a bit in the end credits. In case the film is already on view, of course I ask to have a copy in order to seek stimulation from an emotional point of view, that is, to understand my own reaction to the flow of the images, the narrative and the atmosphere that the images somehow suggest, before talking with the director about the soundtrack project.

In this sense, I aim to create a movement of sounds in harmony with the movements of the images, as if it were a symphony of sounds and images, a sort of “emotional orchestration” of the images presented in the film, looking for “spaces” in which to place sounds concerning the rest. So actors, stage movements, and dialogues are “instruments” already “playing” something: all it takes is knowing how to “listen” to find a way to add other sounds that are coherent with the scene, creating a sound-image composition, not just background music or a sound backdrop

Later this will result in a kind of Concept, a design guide for confrontation with the director. I prefer, if possible, to treat the music as a karst river, emerging at times and then disappearing, trying to give the flow of musical events, where possible and in very close relation to the narrative, a sense of continuity, to avoid those typical effects that we can see in several cinematic works in which the music seems to be disconnected from each other, as if they were all autonomous scenes. In other cases I read the script, especially if it is necessary to write music that is part of the script itself and is needed to shoot one or more scenes, perhaps where there is a concert or people playing something that is part of the narrative fabric. In this case, of course, the music will be made before shooting.

Then when there are more open spaces, that is, scenes where there is no dialogue or no sound at all, then there you can also move a little more freely with the music.

2. In the event that you do not have the ability, for budget reasons or simply your own creative ones, to use an orchestral ensemble, how do you go about it and what technologies are most helpful in bringing an entire soundtrack to fruition?

If necessary, I also move easily with sampled sounds, which often offer advantages, both in synchronizing the music with the images and because they sometimes provide a quality of pitch that an orchestra, if not of a certain level, might not even have…

For many years I have been making my own works independently, including mixing, so I have, fortunately for me, good experience in the use of technologies. Clearly, if I were offered, say, the London Symphony, I would certainly not say no! I have often recorded with musicians, when, precisely, the budget allowed: I certainly prefer it, but unfortunately it is not always possible.

However, there are situations in which the choice of instruments to be used becomes conditional: for example, if you want to use particular ethnic instruments, it is not so easy to find reliable performers as well. In those cases, it is probably better to use samples. Hybrid situations, that is, real instruments together with samples, also often work quite well.

3. Describe to us the process that takes you from the script to the final score, especially going through the direct relationship with the director and editor who sometimes use the infamous temp track on the pre-edit of their film, before listening to your original music?

In part I have already anticipated something earlier. I can add that the relationship with the director is not always easy: on the one hand it is necessary to “make oneself available” to the film, then to dialogue in order to find the meeting point of the respective creativities. On the other hand, I don’t want anyone to, it can happen that the director is not then so able to have a coherent vision of the music to be made, and it becomes complicated to get things understood that for us musicians are taken for granted, but for others are not; like, just to give an example, the cuts on the music that sometimes they would like to make, even the editors, because maybe they cut in editing something after we have already made the music. I think we will all agree-we musicians almost certainly-that the music should begin and end in a “natural” way, just as the composer intended it.

Then there is a serious problem, what I call the “DJ effect”: we often have to deal with it in the film mix, because maybe at a certain point the director or the editor decides to turn the music down. Help-you waste a lot of time composing and mixing in a certain way to prevent this drama from happening to the film mix. Almost always, fortunately, it works out for me. Another drama is the inordinate use of provisional music: it is common for the director–and the editor–to get used to that music and then be conditioned by it, to such an extent that they do not make the best use of the musician’s skills, trying to lead them toward those obviously less original choices that they like so much. However, I repeat, it is always necessary to keep in mind that the film is a collective work that should realize the “vision” of the director, albeit with the problems and limitations that this may, in some cases, entail.

4. Do you have a score of your own that has created particular compositional difficulties for you?

If so, what is it and how did you solve the glitch?

From a relational point of view, I had difficulties with a great Italian director, because in his vision, already well-known music had to be used for important scenes. This risked losing coherence with, or heavily conditioning, the original soundtrack.

But apart from this episode, the most complicated work I had to deal with was the soundtrack of Una bellezza che non lascia scampo.

The screenplay was built on the relationship between a man and a woman, both musicians: this obviously required a lot of incidental music, which had to be composed before shooting. Then came the problem of the extradiegetic music that, in my intentions, had to be in harmony with the others, which are very present in the film. The work was very interesting, even if difficult, because I worked on the two levels so that they would be in close relation, using elements that were part of the stage music for the soundtrack. I tried to make the protagonists ‘speak’ through the expression of their music, using it as if it were a speech without words between them, a non-rational way of being in relationship, then elaborating some cues from this music to build the actual soundtrack.

5. How did you become film music composers and why?

Although I am a member of the ACMF, I don’t know if I can call myself a film music composer in my own right, since I have not written as many film scores as other colleagues have. I have done several soundtracks in other fields, especially in dance or audiovisual, or for television and advertising. My main activity has probably been recording. In cinema I got into it almost by chance in 1986, with a film by Alessandro De Robilant(Anche lei fumava il sigaro). I would very much like to be able to do more soundtracks, because I am comfortable in this transition from one story to another, and I like to totally immerse myself in the atmosphere of the film, trying to work on it, possibly, without other professional distractions.

It is undoubtedly fascinating and rewarding work, since discography is a field more conditioned by the mainstream. In film, as in dance, I’ve always felt a bit freer.

6. How important is it for you to see one of your soundtracks released on a physical CD now that more and more people are thinking directly about digital downloads?

I confess to being a lover of media in general: I have also recently released one of my recordings, Tu Che Mi puoi Capire, on vinyl + CD, and there is another one coming out soon. As far as soundtracks are concerned, unfortunately they are not always projects that can be released on CD without further processing; often in films there are musical interventions even of a few seconds which, although they make sense with the images, cannot make sense listening to them without the support of the images with which they were composed, especially if you work in the way I have tried to describe in this interview.

I confess to being a lover of media in general: I have also recently released one of my recordings, Tu Che Mi puoi Capire, on vinyl + CD, and there is another one coming out soon. As far as soundtracks are concerned, unfortunately they are not always projects that can be released on CD without further processing; often in films there are musical interventions even of a few seconds which, although they make sense with the images, cannot make sense listening to them without the support of the images with which they were composed, especially if you work in the way I have tried to describe in this interview. Digital downloading is a reality to which we have all become somewhat accustomed by now, although I, still, like to hold in my hand an object that also has a cover, maybe a nice booklet, in short something “concrete” to touch, look at and read.

Maybe it’s just a silly “romance” that serves to make me recreate the feelings of adolescence…”