Althyria

[William]

This is a feature film I did recently. It revolves around the same world my Metaphysician's Dream film was set in though it is live action. It originally had dialogue but I cut those scenes making it more "impressionistic" - somewhat of an experiment. That allowed the music to be more prominent. It is played by VI using the Pernegg Monastery MIR with the instrumentation of solo flute 1, celesta, musical glasses, vibes, gong, timpani, Appassionata violins, violas cellos, solo violin 1 & 2, solo viola, solo Cello 2, orchestral violins and basses.

Althyria

[tchampe]

Congratulations, Bill! This was an incredible undertaking. I'll have to wait a bit until I can take the time to watch it all the way through, but I watched some of the initial scenes to check out the score and see how the dialog-free story telling worked. Very cool. It kind of makes me think of those earliest sound movies as they were making the transition to talkies where you just had music and Foley stuff. The score fits right in with that time frame, too. But all that with modern audio and video effects. Can't wait to watch the whole thing.

[agitato]

Hi William,

I didn't know you make movies as well! I started watching and liked it a lot, including the sound score. Will need to come complete watching it later but wanted to send a quick note. This must have involved quite a lot of work to make an hour long film and score for it! 

I also checked out the metaphysical video you had made a few months ago and really enjoyed it, esp given all the scientific instruments and science themed images settings! Need to watch it again.

Hope all is well.

Best

Anand   

[William]

thanks Tom and Anand!  I was trying to have the music "narrating" the story instead of words, not sure if that works or not.  It is a project I've been too close to evaluate.  

[Jos Wylin]

Congratulations, William! Comment on YT.

Jos

 

 

[Errikos]

What a tour de force Bill, congratulations! I very much enjoyed getting lost in your musings and abstractions. The music was of course the main guide as to emotional content, even more so than the protagonist's panting or crying. I found the isolation and schizophrenia cogently depicted, and the juxtaposition of a B&W reality against the variegated spectral dimension beautifully realised. My favourite parts were the girl's peregrinations through the painting's deserted, quasi-classical town.

This must have taken a considerably long time to create, along with the extensive and impressive score, but I feel it was worth it, for us the audience at the very least. You even got the authorities to participate!

Very-very well done! Looking forward to the next one of course. When is it coming?

[William]

Thanks very much Errikos I appreciate it.

[Errikos]

x

[Macker]

William, so sorry for not commenting on this production before now. In all honesty the film (which I watched all through, twice) just had me completely foxed - I don't know what to make of it or what to say about it. I guess the full-on "is it real, hallucination or just over-active imagination?" type of movie has never floated my boat, probably because as a design engineer I've cultivated a mentality in which my visions and fantasies must above all be feasible. I can easily, however, get into and really enjoy good sci-fi and abstract art films - like your wonderful Metaphysician's Dream. But somehow Althyria as a film takes me completely out of my book, leaving me up the creek without a paddle. So, unhappily for me, this boringly straight-laced old engineer is the wrong person to appraise Althyria as a film, though I dearly wish I could.

Your score, on the other hand, speaks to me beautifully well without a moment of puzzlement, doubt or hesitation on my part. I love the delicacy, the nuances, the veiled charm, suspense and strangeness, the ethereal motion, connections and hints of connections. Your uses of vibes and harp are wonderfully delicate, intricate and highly effective. Your strings also are just so apposite and beautiful, sitting so perfectly in the music's evolutions. Also the flute does a lovely job of shedding another light on the theme.

Considering the production as a whole, organic entity, your spotting and your scoring to picture are top notch in my book. No doubt at all about that for me. Awesomely well done. Your adventure into film-making is bold and inspiring. I'm looking forward to more of your projects - though of course I appreciate it's huge effort and time (and probably substantial expense) for you. Good hunting, William.

[William]

Thanks Macker for those comments on the music - concerning the film I wanted to do it all on sets but didn't have the budget.  Also there  was dialogue but it was cut.  I am considering some other changes but still working on it.   

[Macker]

William, can I add an afterthought on your adventures into film-making? I've felt bad about not being able to put together a positive review on Althyria as a film. Let's see if I can make ammends for that now.

While watching and enjoying "Lapsis" (2020) * it occurred to me that the truly vibrant, creative, interesting and engaging sector of film-making these days and for the forseeable future includes people like yourself. The big-time end of the spectrum of film-making lately seems to have stalled somehow and all too often is just not cutting it like it used to.

Nowadays, instead of having to join, submit and pay tribute to the big-time studio system, it looks like the door has opened once more to talented independent startups (I recall an earlier indie new wave in the '60s). Moreover, indie film-makers can use storyines and real-life class-aware settings, roles and acting (such as in Lapsis, also Agonie 2016) that the big studios these days would be too afraid or too disdainful to touch with a ten foot sterilised bargepole because they're sticking dogmatically to their formulae which give audiences pitifully narrow choice.

In short, indie film-makers these days can once more do their own productions somehow, somewhere and with something, no matter what so long as it works within the constraints of little or no budget, and find audiences. But you already know that, William. Hope you carry on developing your film-making craft and art in your own way.

* What got me thinking again about your bold adventures was finding out that Noah Hutton wrote, directed, scored and edited the low-budget award-winning "Lapsis", plus the fact that its two main actors, Dean Imperial and Madeline Wise, aren't the usual wannabe Hollywood clones and had me fully engaged all through.

[William]

Well I'm not new to filmmaking - my first feature film was completed in 1984. A sic-fi story done in Super 8mm called "Warped." I wonder if that person you mentioned was even born then. My next film took 4 years to make in 16mm. "Remember Tomorrow" another time travel story. My only commercially distributed film is Disembodied - made the hard way, in a warehouse and on the streets of Reno Nevada in 16mm with almost no equipment, and yet - it still exists, in commercial distribution -

Disembodied

Also, scored with all VSL.

I am focusing now on animation because it allows more control than live action. That's all.

[Macker]

Sorry I didn't know about your earlier productions - I'll watch Disembodied when I get some time. Also sorry to read about (from your comments in IMDb) what that deadbeat distribution outfit did to you and other indie producers back then.

Interesting to hear of your focus on animations now.

[Louis C]

Just watched your production.

Great work. 

[William]

Thanks Louis for checking it out.  Thank you Macker for those comments, oddly enough today I finished the printed score to the music of ALthyria.  Why did I do that?  I can't explain.  Somehow I have to see any music I do in printed form on paper, otherwise it doesn't really exist.  A mental illness probably.  I want to see music printed with proper placement of beams within the staff (sit-straddle-hang) and correct spacing throughout, on beautiful parchment, ready for performance by powdered and bewigged virtuosi. 

Soon, here in my cell at the Institute, I will hear them playing Althyria, directly from my printed score.  The orderlies may not hear it, but I will urge them to listen more carefully, and perhaps then, they will hear.

[Macker]

Lolol, William. I know what it's like; habits of passion all too often drive and shape my music and engineering activities (sometimes driving me up the wall too). I'm wondering how long before the ultra-rationalist brigade demand that I should be put away for wastage of human resource or some such gobbledygook. Well damn them, my time is mine!

Thankfully unlike in the nebulous realm of art itself, even in highly elaborate craft there's usually a point when we can deem it done. Your scores that I've looked through certainly have that beautiful, exquisitely crafted look. Just seeing great work like that is life-affirming - never mind what economists would have us believe.

I've long believed that a man needs a passion in his life. Of course that usually means deep and strong love is involved somehow. In digital music creation and production, I'm very happy to be an amateur - the word itself comes from the Latin amator and Italian amatore: "lover". I certainly ain't doing it for money, lol; much kudos to those who manage to combine both!