HAFH How it's made: Time to Score

My intension when scoring Home Away From Here was to combine natural and electronic instrumentation to create a subtly disturbing hybrid that could be at times both atmospheric and brooding, switching from mysterious to sinister as the scene required. I wanted to use natural instrumentation as a reflection of the simplistic lifestyle of the characters, and overtly electronic sounds would not befit the isolated rural setting. Drawing from the techniques and aesthetics of an amalgam of influences and composers; Cliff Martinez, Mica Levi and Johann Johannsson being chief among them this time around, I set about experimenting with the instruments at my disposal in the hopes of creating my own unique composite.


The first among my creations was written some time in February before the shoot, and is a simplistic tonal piece I made without any particular scene in mind.

'Shut in, Shut up'


Eventually used as the diagetic sound drops out when James desperately bangs on the door, this came about as the result of my desire to explore the ambient tones Logic had to offer, in my hopes to recreate the kind of reflective interludes I had recently been immersed in on the shows True Detective (HBO, 2014) and The Walking Dead (AMC, 2010), and I suppose also my lingering affection for Cliff Martinez' scores for Solaris (Soderbergh, 2002) and Drive (Winding Refn, 2011).

I found the tones I was looking for courtesy of the Hybrid Morph Synth, which I believe originated from Garageband. Starting with the 'Another World Preset, I altered the wave form to the Light Machine setting which yielded a satisfactory sound. It was when using the modulation wheel on my Midi Keyboard that I realised I was onto something, as the resonance shifts to a kind of metallic timbre.

I double tracked a sustained note, shifting the mod wheel on one of them to get the ominous metallic ring which also releases a kind of light feedback sound, Something I also found to be the case with Sculpture synth's 'curved air' preset, which I used for this exact reason as it gives the piece an edge of suspense and unease.

The bass notes were done again on Hybrid Morph, using the Bliss Preset, which has incredibly slow attack and releases notes as a kind of octave pairing. When dropping out the rest of the diagetic audio I wanted it to convey the characters sense of being trapped, without answer or explanation, and as it trails out and the character seems resigned to his situation, hopefully lull the audience into a slight sense of calm before the men suddenly burst through the door.

Although something of a cheap shot, I punctuated this surprise with a discordant stinger 'perhaps the single most distinctive effect associated with the horror film' (Hutchings, 2009, p.222), made from the sound of dry ice. It is a key genre component as many horrors traditionally hinge on the ability to make the audience jump, and although I wanted to distance myself somewhat from such conventions, I couldn't resist lacing it in with the prospect of a cinema audience to unleash it upon.

'This is inconvenient'

The second idea was a reworking of this piece i concocted last semester, but never put to any use.



I found the chord combination to be atmospheric and mysterious and definitely applicable to HAFH, even if the Vangelis-esque tremolo'd synthesizers were not. I reconfigured it using the same Hybrid Morph Synths from the previous idea to begin to build a consistent sound for the film. I had it in mind for the opening of the film straight away as the first two scenes contain no dialogue, and the audience are as clueless to the situation as the character is, so this helps to set a mood of isolation and helplessness.

I would also use this same 'Light machine' setting to create sub rumbling undertones by sustaining a note several octaves down, and bolstering the frequencies in the 100hz range by +13.5db

BOW EXPERIMENTS

Set Up:
Violin Bow > Fender Esquire GT Guitar > Behringer UCG102 Guitar USB interface > Guitar Rig 5 software Plug In (various amp and pedal presets tweaked for reverbs, delays and chorus')  > Logic 9

I'm a big fan of the use of the cello in music, whether for film or not. It can be both elegant and stark, and it's use in Johannsson's score for Prisoners (Villeneuve, D. 2013) was particularly effective in crafting a bleak outlook for the characters.

Lacking the budget to purchase a cello and not knowing anyone nearby who owned or could play one, I wanted to put my own spin on tense bowed drones, so I purchased a violin bow and some rosin online and put it to my guitar in the first of my live/digital crossbreeding sessions.

I had intended on filming more of my experiments however it was difficult enough to play at first with the strings not being raised like they are on a violin/cello and I wanted to focus on honing my skill rather than worrying about being in frame for the camera.

I eventually swapped my electric out for a nylon stringed classical guitar as the strings offered less resistance to sticky rosin and made for rich sound all in all. I detuned the top E string to a C in order to recreate the deeper sound of a cello, and recorded random lines and melodies to see what worked.

The first full composition would be used for the soap torture scene, as it is works well as an ominous herald for the first real act of torture.  Underpinned once again with some hybrid morph tones, the piece is built around the simple cello alternation of drawing out a note and abruptly ending a semi-tone down.

'You dropped the Soap'

The main theme is run through Guitar Rig's Arpeggio Delay Preset, however I reduced the wet signal of the psychedelay and quad delay racks in this instance so the root sound would still cut through and not get lost in the ambience of the effects.

On obvious comparison to make would be that it is a mirror of John Williams' iconic theme for Jaws (Spielberg, 1977), however it was never really my intension to emulate that, but it is also hard to progress between a semitone on a stringed instrument and not sound like you're ripping off/homaging/parodying that theme.

A second track grazes some higher strings to counterpoint the low tones, whilst a third was rand through a tape delay on the Pedal Board plugin, creating a kind of ring-shifter effect.

This would also be a starting point for my introduction of percussive elements, first finding sculpture modelling synth's metallic percussion, which allowed for alternation of pitch. I used panning and placed a disjointed build up of different notes, that became increasingly rapid in a small build up, which I also used the pitch bending wheel on to heighten the tension.

This element was inspired by the constant percussive elements that riddle Hannibal (NBC, 2013) with clanging metallic pipe like sounds often coming to prominence, and in keeping with that vein of instrument I also ran a bell type sound through the ESX-24 Sampler to get different pitches out of it, which is what opens the piece, while some Sculpture synth bells ring out at it's end.
Finally I incorporated the reversed sound of a wok strike I had created for Into the Woods as it complimented the disconnect between the other percussive elements.

After the piece draws to a close when the torture stops I reversed the entire track, minus the wok sounds which sound comically cheap when played linearly, which forms an eerie comedown from what as just transpired as the other characters exit the room. I would use excerpts of this reversed track in several other parts of the score.



In Your Dreams

The dream sequences are an early indicator of what awaits the protagonist, and I wanted build a steady crescendo that would carry through each progressive flashback.
I started with a sustained bass note played with a bow, which I then drew out for even longer using Logic's flex mode, setting it to polyphonic.

The crescendo is built through two sculpture ambient intrigue synths, one with a pitchbend straying a semi-tone down whilst the other steadily increases in pitch throughout.

It is rounded off with the signature wailing sound of Into the Woods' reversed Xiaoluo gong as this created the perfect impression of that transition from nightmare to being awake.

This all came off a little too strong at first, so in the Pro Tools timeline I opted to start quietly and have the volume gradually increase along with the pitch, which is more effective as it is less of a bombardment for the audience.

In the second instance of this playing there are also the sound effects of torture ricochetting across the stereo field.

Happy Family Happy Hour

The final dream sequence is named in honour of this surrealist piece of internet gold, which itself is somewhat macabre.

'The pizza is aggressive'

Having originally planned to have the gradual pitch shift continue through all three dreams/flash backs until the point of realisation, I instead opted to remove those elements, retaining only the bowed bass drone, flexed to an even longer duration, with a few other layers and cues used throughout the film added. This was primarily so that the disembodied bible passages could be audible.
Before the final shoot I looked up some bible passages pertaining to the films prevalent themes of family and/or punishment and recorded David reading several out loud. The excerpts he read are as follows:

Exodus 20:12
"Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the LORD your God is Giving you"

Deuteronomy 5:16
"Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you in the land the LORD your God is giving you."

Matthew 15:4
"For God Said, 'Honor your father and mother' and 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.'

Ezekiel 18:4
"Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die."

Ezekiel 18:20
"The Soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The Righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself."

If that last one sounds familiar, it's because it was adapted for Sammy L. Jacksons monologue in Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, Q. 1994). It took a great deal of self restraint not to have David quote that verbatim or even just use that audio.

I ultimately used the Ezekiel takes for consistency of the passage, and processed it through Logic's Sample Delay and echo Plug ins, which gave a delay to each word in the stereo field that i could adjust the severity of.  Once in pro-tools I automated the volume and panning to fluctuate even more.

'Oh no, My neck is Bleeding'



There is a marked difference in tone to the rest of film in this piece, as both myself and the director wanted the it to signal a release in death for the protagonist, though in hindsight with the rest of the score completely, it perhaps stands out a little too much.

During the early stages of production Jordan had expressed his envisioning of the final crane shot to be accompanied by Pinback's 'Loro'.

Though a fan of the song, especially the way the guitar and bass lines compliment one another, I knew it wouldn't quite fit with the rest of the film. Having lyrics and a drum kit would be even further removed from everything else I would have crafted over the previous ten minute duration, and also obtaining rights would be dubious at best. At first I did consider doing a thinly veiled emulation, playing a guitar riff in a similar manner using a variation of the chord pattern, I opted against this as I wanted to try and craft a more ambient post-rock soundscape, however I did homage this original idea by using the chord progression from the last bar of the main riff.


The minor chorded soundscapes crafted by the heavily delayed guitars of Hammock served as a big inspiration for the layering of instrumentation and harmonies of this closing piece. Their music is both soothing and evocative and that is something I wanted to relay as the character finally escapes the torment of his family. Hammock also have several excellent music videos directed by David Altobelli that tend to linger on a character in soft focus and I'd hope our final moments with the protagonist might utilise a similar method, however that's not really my department!

The other main inspiration came from this simplistic composition by Jon Hopkins that revolves a progression of piano minor chords around an ostinato, with a looped and partially reversed sample present throughout. Though extra elements are gradually added the gentle recurrence of the chords carries the song for its entirety.

As a nod to the looped sample [I don't know what it actually is of] in 'Immunity' and the religious themes in our film, the track starts with an ambient atmos taken in a church, which I flexed to drag it out and slow down, and applied reverb using space designer.

The piano chords and guitar harmonies soon follow. I was particularly happy with the reversed delay setting on the psychdelay pedal in guitar rig, which gave off that distinctive post-rock sound for the lead guitar I was after.

The nature of this tried and tested chord progression allowed me to layer several harmonies once the other guitars were introduced. One technique used by bands like hammock is the removal of any attack from the guitars through the use of a volume pedal. Lacking one of these I instead used digital automation to achieve the same effect, dipping out the volume as the note is first strummed.

I did this on all of the chords that were strummed and the resulting texture was satisfyingly ethereal.

Originally unsure of how long its duration needed to be with the full length of the credits unconfirmed, I incorporated the potential for some extra bars using the theme I made for the Scubz video game, as both were in the same key and revolve around an A to F chord transition. This however turned out to be unnecessary, but here is the extended cut anyway



'


For 'The Not So Great Escape' I wanted to ramp up the tension and maximise his dramatic flee, whilst not detracting from the stylistic cuts to black and accompanying sound drop outs as he runs.

This was one of the tracks that I created through assembling separate elements in the Pro Tools timeline rather than having a complete vision of the song and writing and exporting it all in Logic. I wanted the drums to be ominous but rhythmic enough to convey the urgency of the scene. I put the sound of a tom in the EXs24 Sampler to be played at a much lower octave, and boosted the low end EQ to create the bass drum sound, finally using delay designer to get the echoed beat.

For the snare I used EQ to dampen the sound by filtering out the higher frequencies around 10000 hz and similarly boosting the low end.

These drums were heavily influenced by Cliff Martinez' brooding opener for Only God Forgives (Winding Refn, 2013), though I don't think I quite managed to capture the level of dread he did.

I followed a similar template in Into the Woods, having drums to build up before revealing the ritual scene, which was then joined by a double tracked drone, with one pitch steadily increasing. I re-used the same drones, out of a mixture of intertextuality and laziness, as they did an adequate job, and I also layered in a section of the reversed 'you dropped the soap' track. The vibrato string build up at the beginning is was played on my guitar, and is excellent for quickly building suspense, and is also used during the final scene in the basement in grim anticipation of torture acts.

I also created a sub tone using a low octave of the morph synth and boosting the low frequencies to accompany the acts of torture, however I fear this will be missed by anyone watching the film without adequate speakers to relay this.

Another percussive element was the off beat drum that punctuates the families dialogue during the 'council' scene in the bedroom. This sets up an unsteady rhythmic pace that foreshadows the punishment with the soap, and I wish I had come up with it sooner in order to better craft the 'soap' song around it. The style of this, as well as the way I used strings were heavily inspired by Mica Levi's eerily seductive score for Under the Skin (Glazer, 2013).

The other sounds mixed in with the drumming come from the Cloud chamber bowls on the native instruments 'Glass Works' plug-in, and a kalimba, which has a nice resonation and a creepy element when de-tuned, however when trying to record it the sound of fingers plucking the bars is too prominent so it wasn't used that much. Slipping a radio mic into the sound hole would have perhaps been a better method of recording as opposed to the Rode NT4 I had on hand at the time.

'The Slightly Better Escape'
For the second escape I wanted to re-use the drums to tie the two attempts together, especially as they are each preceded by killing his aunt and uncle. I felt the piece should be initially ominous and become more hopeful as he gets away, only to filter out when his parents catch up to him. Again this uses a combination of previous score elements, such as the moaning bowed guitar note first heard over the exterior cutaway of the house,  to unify the film's soundtrack and retain consistency.

There are a few other musical elements scattered around the film, such as the mysterious sound that accompanies our introduction to Gideon as he skins a rabbit, which I decided to use as his motif, introducing it again just before his death.

I wrote down a timeline of all the actions and events of the film to better gauge how long a score needed to be, or where to build tension. This was based on an earlier cut and some adjustments had to be made once I received the fine cut. I should have corresponded more with the editor to make him aware of my intensions with certain scenes, as it is much more difficult and frustrating to alter the length of a piece of music than it is to trip the end off a clip.



Crafting this score was an enjoyable challenge for me, and allowed me to expand on skills I already had and also experiment with something completely new, such as using a bow. The genre is very fun to work within and allowed me the opportunity to try and mimic some of my favourite composers and soundtracks whilst injecting my own personal flavours. Early on I wrote down a tracklist before I had produced many of the songs, as I had a fairly sure idea of which scenes would feature music, with the only real deviation being that I never gave the mother a motif of her own.

One day, this will sell for thousands.

I hope to use my work on this film to promote my services as a freelance sound designer/composer, and will include these songs on my website one I have it up and running properly. 

Bibliography

Hutchings, P. 2009. ‘Music of the Night: Horror’s Soundtracks’, In Doughty, R., Eisentraut, J. & Harper, G. 2009, Sound and Music in Film and Visual Media: An Overview, New York: Continuum International Publishing Group  Ltd. p.222