I'm not sure that's true. I was watching Vertigo the other day and music and dialogue overlap on numerous occasions. I remember reading an interview with John Williams where he spoke about underscoring dialogue - how he'd avoid using instruments that got in the way of the voice. He singled out the oboe as being particularly bad in this respect. Regards, Martin@William said:
You know one director who never used music during dialogue? Hitchcock. He knew that music is expression, and dialogue is expression and having the two of them competing is bad.
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Mathis, this is a very complex subject, which is why I have so far chosen not to answer. There are a lot of very good points mentioned by previous posters, but there are many things to consider. I'll try to find time later this week to give you my thoughts, and come up with some sort of rules that I adhere to, although all can be broken at times, I'm sure!
DG
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@mosso said:
I remember reading an interview with John Williams where he spoke about underscoring dialogue - how he'd avoid using instruments that got in the way of the voice. He singled out the oboe as being particularly bad in this respect. Regards, MartinDo you remember where you read this interview?
Yes, I think I can agree with the oboe being problematic. At least I find myself prefering the English horn for this situation.
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@DG said:
I'll try to find time later this week to give you my thoughts, and come up with some sort of rules that I adhere to, although all can be broken at times, I'm sure!
DG
It goes without saying that there is no rule which can't and shouldn't be broken. By the way, I was never asking for rules, I was asking for experiences.
I'm looking forward to your findings!
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@mosso said:
I remember reading an interview with John Williams where he spoke about underscoring dialogue - how he'd avoid using instruments that got in the way of the voice. He singled out the oboe as being particularly bad in this respect. Regards, MartinDo you remember where you read this interview?
Yes, I think I can agree with the oboe being problematic. At least I find myself prefering the English horn for this situation.
I'm afraid I can't remember at the mo and I'm moving at the moment so I don't have access to my books. I'll get back to you when I've unpacked!
Regards,
Martin
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@mathis said:
Interesting how few people are willing to actually think about technical musical questions. A usual phenomenon about music (especially film music) that people immediately start talking about their own general ideas of music (or film music) instead of trying to get into the challenges of a specific technical problem.
Well, maybe because this is not a question of technique in the first part. In my opinion it´s more a question of being able to listen to a specific scene and follow your instinct.
I mean, we are still talking about writing music, are we??
Best regards,
Stephan
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You don't want the music to be busy when there is dialogue. It would be best if it's wishy-washy pedal point stuff most of the time. There can be an emphasis at the end of dialogue - an old technique which John Williams was brilliant at doing. Watch a lot of Speilberg films and you'll see what I mean. Audiences don't want to be aware of music playing when they're trying to listen to actors talking. Rather, the music should be a subliminal way of reaffirming the mood of a given scene.
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Thanks for that dismissal Mathis. I do think of technical questions all the time and precisely this one often. What you do not think of is that artistic work can obliterate the significance of technicalities, and does so, on a regular basis. You can work all you want on your precious little technical problems and formants [*-)] but if you are dealing with a piece of crap artistically it doesn't matter. It is necessary not to have many things going on in the music that would distract from the dialogue, which is pretty obvious. I have heard scores by major composers that violated this. They are so concerned about their technicalities that they do not see the big picture which is that dialogue and music are already a two-part counterpoint. And so the music must be done with that in mind regardless of what register it is in. You could use a contrabassoon ensemble, or ten piccolos, and measure the frequencies, and their relative intensities blah-blah-blah Mr. Scientist and it still wouldn't matter because it all depends on what you do with the music artistically.
On Vertigo that is a good point, there is some use of underscoring. Though Hitchcock generally will pause the music for dialogue, I looked at Vertigo again with this question in mind, and notice two aspects of how the music is effectvely underscored, both of which are artistic, and not technical by the way -
1, the use of extremely simple chordal music, and 2, the continuation of a cue which has already been heard without dialogue, and continues underneath when dialogue starts. It is as if the audience hears it consciously at first, has "got it down" and so is not distracted as they are diverted into the dialogue.
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It's not that I don't agree with you, it's just that I asked a different question. And my response wasn't solely directed to you, by the way.
I'm very interested in discussing this technical question and what else should this forum be for?
And I describe it as technical because I want to avoid all to subjective points. Of course all these are artistic decision. My god, since when do you think I'm so stupid?
@William said:
the continuation of a cue which has already been heard without dialogue, and continues underneath when dialogue starts. It is as if the audience hears it consciously at first, has "got it down" and so is not distracted as they are diverted into the dialogue.
Yes, this is really a very good observation which I'm just recently figuring out conciously by myself. Great reassurance, thanks.
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"I think it really lies in the orchestration if the music is fighting against the dialog or actually leaving so much space that the dialog is easily comprehensable AND the music can be mixed louder."
Another applied technique is that the music has the same loudness but is reduced in level with ducking as soon the dialog is on, this via automation or with an the use of side chain compression.
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Another applied technique is that the music has the same loudness but is reduced in level with ducking as soon the dialog is on, this via automation or with an the use of side chain compression.
Which is of course the worst solution of all possible...
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And this is EXACTLY what I meant by an ARTISTIC as opposed to TECHNICAL solution.
This pisses me off. It is an idiotic solution. Is Angelo Clematide joking? A compressor? An instant suppression of level? that would sound great, yeah right Angelo. [:(]
For your information and education Angelo, watch the end of Vertigo. You know that one? The Hitchcock film? You tried to educate me, insultingly, in a previous thread about all the things I don't know, but perhaps you are not aware of that film. In fact I would assume you are not, as the stupidity of your suggestion suggests it. It contains a profound artistic solution for this problem so far beyond the moronic technical solution you suggest - which is suitable mainly for low-grade documentary film production or TV commercials - that basically they are not fit for comparison.
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You know one director who never used music during dialogue? Hitchcock. He knew that music is expression, and dialogue is expression and having the two of them competing is bad.
I wasted 5 minutes to check if there is no music behind the dialog in Hitchcock's movies, and after the third time where music was behind the dialog in the movie Vertigo, I stopped looking any further.
The last movie I saw who has a similar approach as Hitchcock to associative loudness was "Under Suspicion" by Simon Moore.
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Maybe so, but never the less the most applied technique today, and not only in tv production. You may watch from time to time a new release, not only the classics from the fifties. All of the ten international releases of the the last four weeks apply level reduction when dialog starts, not always, but very often.
But this EXACTLY why I come up with this question. That this mixing technique is spreading so wildly I consider a serious disease. It is a result of week spotting and composition but also a result of week orchestration.
I know from my mixing experience that there is music which flows around the dialog like a satin glove and music which fights against it. Of course it is first a matter of composition but also of orchestration. And I want to tackle the orchestration aspect since it is less obvious than the compositional one.
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As you mention here, though, it really is first about the composition. If a cue is stomping on the dialog all the orchestration finesse in the world isn't going to fix it. No matter what the orchestrator does, it will be ducked at the dub session.@mathis said:
But this EXACTLY why I come up with this question. That this mixing technique is spreading so wildly I consider a serious disease. It is a result of week spotting and composition but also a result of week orchestration.
I know from my mixing experience that there is music which flows around the dialog like a satin glove and music which fights against it. Of course it is first a matter of composition but also of orchestration. And I want to tackle the orchestration aspect since it is less obvious than the compositional one.
