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  • Orchestrating with open space for dialog

    M
    M
    I'm curious what your experiences are when it comes to orchestrating film music and some dialog is supposed to be heard over the music. 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. With clever orchestration one can go quite loud with the music without masking the dialog.

    My results so far:

    Violas in the higher range have really nasty masking formants. But in lower-mid range no problem. (maybe that's the reason why Zimmer stopped using them)
    Put them in unision with horns and the music is hardly mixable against the dialog.

    In all Brass divisi chords mask less than unisons.


    What are your findings?
  • M
    M

     Curious that nobody joins in. Is there nobody caring for this issue?

     I start thinking that it's essentially the same problem when writing an opera. There are operas in which you understand the singer and in others you don't. This is the result of proper orchestration. Still I don't find chapters about orchestration for opera in the classic books. Or did I not look close enough?
     
  • B
    B

     Funny actually, I've never had to do it, but I imagine i'd start by eq'ing up whatever register of voice the dialogue was in. I suppose the trick is in the melody, keeping it interesting without making the events on screen compete with it for the viewer's attention. Orchestration wise, hummm.. 

    This is my official pondering material for the day. 
  • S
    S

    Hey.

    I don´´t think that (in general) it is a question of proper orchestration if you understand the simgers or not. It´s more baout the thing, that some (if not to say many) singers are really weak in clear articulation.

    I did a lot of underscore work in the past and I didn´t thought too much about which istrument shold play which range. If you have to score a dialogue scene you see (and hear) what is happening and so you choose what music to write.

    I´m not a big fan of rules like: "Never use this and this instrument unisono under a dialogue". It always depends to what you are working on.

    Best regards,

     Stephan
  • R
    R

     I agree with Stephen.  This issue (VERY IMPORTANT) starts from bar one of the score. Fight the dialogue and even sound and you will fight the director.  Remember - he has spent what to him seems like a lifetime on all aspects of the production.  He listens to the first cue for 'approval' and you step all over his 'work' - expect major re-writes.[8o|]  There will be plenty of scenes / montages where you can let er rip[<:o)]

    I think many times spoken parts (and to the some degree sound) is like doing an arrangement for a vocal track - lots of 'questions and answers'  - fitting in an echo motif in just the right spot to heighten the emotional content of the scene.

    Rob
     
  • A
    A

    There are segment where the dialog is in the off, for example the soundtrack is masking a murmuring and nothing is understood.

    But normally the soundtrack is at least one dynamic degree below the dialog, is single channel (mono), and stable in the stereo field meaning the mono source doesn't wander.

    I also don't think that the spectrum of any instrument has anything to do with masking a dialog. Of course any instrument fiddling around 1000 Hz or 2000 Hz has the tendency to mask the human voice.

    If you run into that "masking" problem the soundtrack is just too loud. But simply taking the loudness back with the fader on the soundtrack doesn't help, but rather leads to the perception that the loud music is further away.

    .
  • P
    P

    You didn't look close enough, but to do that, you have to know where to look!

    There are only two books that deal with this subject. The first is the original Rimsky where in the book he covers orchestration for vocalists. Then Charles Koechlin does the same, but it's all in classical French.

    I think the question you posed is a good one, but not many here know how to answer it with the exception of Daryl (DG).

    If you wanted to look at an accessible opera score to try to answer this question, look at Bizet's Carmen with the complete score available from Dover.

    I'll check with some of my orchestrator friends to see if they know the answer. Most are really busy so it may take a while to get the answer.

    One way to spot check might be to get the Phantom Menace score and compare the orchestration to the movie dialog.

    Another consideration is getting Leonard Bernstein's score to West Side Story which omits the Violas altogether and compare from there.

    This is really a great question,Mathis. I'm sorry I don't have the wisdom to give you the right answer off the bat.

  • W
    W

    All these technical things mean nothing.  The artistic aspect is far more significant, and a good director will usually not ask for music during dialog. But if you have to compose it you should make certain that the music is not complex and contrapuntal. In other words, you must think of the dialog as one simple element, and the music as a second simple element, and not have many different things going on in the music. In other words keeping the music extremely simple is important for dialog underscoring. 

    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.
  • M
    M

    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.

    My idea about orchestration for film is that as soon as one has to touch the eq or fader to match its balance to the other elements dialog and sound fx, the composition and/or orchestration is wrong. Of course it's first a matter of composition, but there certainly are the situations in which you really need this strong musical impact and still there is dialog at the same time. And this is possible, one just needs to know how to orchestrate it. At least the great opera masters knew it (I think).

    So, thank you Alexander for actually understanding why this question is so relevant. I take your suggestions with great curiousity and will study everything you suggested. Would be great to hear if your orchestrator friends care about this question.
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    @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.
    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
  • D
    D

    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, Martin
     

    Do 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! 
  • M
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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, Martin
     

     

    Do 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
  • P
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  • P
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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.
  • W
    W

    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. 

  • M
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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.
  • W
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    BTW, I believe Mathis is a genius and I am just trying to goad him.  As I do anyone I respect.