The Man With The Movie Camera - New Score

Last Sunday, April 27th, the Dudley House Big Band performed a brand new score to The Man With The Movie Camera. The first short feature was The Great Train Robbery, with a new score performed by the Dudley House Improvisation Workshop.

The concert took place in Paine Hall, Harvard Music Department. Nicolas Sidoroff - trumpeter, composer, and educator, was invited by Dudley House for this exciting project.

Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery (1903)

In 1993, I played clarinet in Nicolas's first version of this score (for 5 horns.) Last Sunday, we played a great updated version, with:

• Clarinet: Jean-François Charles
• Trumpet: Nicolas Sidoroff
• Tenor Sax: Michael Heller
• Baritone Sax: Alan Lenarcic
• Piano: Nathan Fosse
• Upright Bass: Nathan Haselby
• Drums: Ben Stanton

It was a real treat to play with such awesome musicians!

Dziga Vertov's The Man With The Movie Camera (1929)

Dziga Vertov's 1929 masterpiece pulses with a boundless energy, and the virtuoso performance of camera and editing techniques was only matched by the involvement of the musicians.

Musicians

• Voice: Mariam Nazarian
• Alto Sax: Kimberly August
• Alto Sax: Jillian DeMair
• Clarinet and Alto Sax: Lisa Rosenfeld
• Tenor Sax: Eric Diebold
• Flute, Clarinet and Tenor Sax: Marlene Cohen
• Baritone Sax: Aaron Silberstein
• Trumpet: Stephen Furqueron
• Trumpet: Gary smiley
• Trumpet: Evan Biela
• Trombone: Ethan Fenn
• Trombone: Rob Cautillo
• Sousaphone: Alan Lenarcic
• Guitar: Jonathan Buonocore
• Piano: Nathan Fosse
• Bass: Eric Leibensperger
• Drums: Sven Seuken

Tunes

The complete score consists in:

• The Eye-Opener (JF Charles / N Sidoroff)
• 29' Printemps '29 (N Sidoroff)
• Wake' N' Wash (N Sidoroff)
• The City Is Not Mine (JF Charles)
• Weddingorce (Kimberly August / Alan Lenarcic / JF Charles / N Sidoroff)
• Dark Lips (JF Charles)
• Dark Eyes (Traditional / JF Charles)
• Workegy (N Sidoroff)
• 1st KinoPlaiz (N Sidoroff)
• 2nd KinoPlaiz (N Sidoroff)
• re1st KinoPlaiz (N Sidoroff)
• re2nd KinoPlaiz (N Sidoroff)
• Bublitchki (Traditional / JF Charles)
• Take The "V" Train (JF Charles)

Thanks to Jim Hogle, Doreen M. Hogle, Susan Zawalich, Chad Conlan, the team of the Dudley Fellows, and Ean White, for their support. Above, Nicolas Sidoroff and half the screen during the set-up, Sunday morning around 11 a.m.

Film Score Recording Session at Berklee

At this time a week ago, I was playing contrabass clarinet at the Berklee College of Music. I was taking part in the recording session for this soundtrack, composed by David Gonzalez:

Contrabass clarinet

The music is very different than Carlina acaulis for contrabass clarinet and string quartet, or than Magma for contrabass clarinet, stones, and live electronics. Yes, the contrabass clarinet is a versatile instrument!

Professionalism

I appreciated Dave's professionalism. And I speak not only musical composition to fit the image, but also communication with the performers and the sound engineer, layout of the parts, schedule, preparation of the session in Digital Performer. He handled these tasks smoothly, and all the musicians enjoyed the session.
"Aptitude versus Attitude" says Robert Kraft.

I was also glad to play in Berklee's Film Scoring studio. The school has wonderful facilities. There are great studios, and I like how they are designed for both production and teaching.

Facebook

A month before the recording session, Dave used Facebook to find a contrabass clarinet player. Yet another example of how web-based social networks may translate into real experiences and more music.

9/60 - Plane Mix

Plane Mix is the 9th minute of the 60/60 interactive composition project.
Many thanks to Cécile Pécheux for her participation and her present: a great DVD set dedicated to Lon Chaney, The Man of a Thousand Faces.
Both Cécile and I have been struck by Tod Browing's The Unknown with an original soundtrack performed live by ARFI's Marmite Infernale. I discovered this ARFI show (called Tragédie au Cirque) during the festival Un Doua de Jazz 1994. That was an extraordinary experience, as well as my first contact with Maurice Merle. I strongly recommend to watch this movie, even if it will lack ARFI's powerful soundtrack!

My first video remix

I first remixed a public domain video: Spot News 1937 (using Apple Final Cut Express). Then, I composed the soundtrack. Enjoy!

   
9/60 - Plane Mix on youtube

Film Music 101 - Robert Kraft - Pharmacy Music

Listen while reading!

This fall, I have been proposed to produce the music for a very special movie: a commercial to be played in the waiting room of a pharmacy. I thought "Why not?" I would surely learn new things and improve my Logic Studio skills.

Coincidence, on October 26th, when I was drafting the music, Robert Kraft was invited at Harvard. Robert Kraft is the President of Fox Music Inc.

He gave me interesting comments on Dérives. But he was even more helpful on my pharmaceutical work in progress:

• Be more repetitive. The audience likes repetition. Don't waste all your ideas in a short amount of time. And the audience expects the theme to come back.
  Indeed, my first version was an accumulation of musical loops, very varied, because I was afraid of being too repetitive!
• It's good to use a clear structure. For instance, a 4 or 8-bar looping structure.
  As you can hear, the new version is very much 4-bar oriented. I synchronized the music with the picture through slight tempo changes throughout the piece.
• Why this minor harmony here? Is something getting suddenly emotional?
  I must admit there were too many minor chords in my first draft. Every change of harmony must fit the image!
• Write footballs. When there's a dialogue, write footballs. Do you know footballs?
  Footballs: whole notes.

Robert Kraft has been responsible for each note of music in all the following films! From choosing the composers to validating the final soundtracks.

Mariam Nazarian, pianist, singer, and very active Graduate student in Performance Practice, convinced the Music Department and the Office for the Arts to organize this "Film Music 101" master class. The other composers who shared their work were Elizabeth Lim, Edgar Barroso, and Russ Gershon.

Feel free to download the music on your iPod, and to listen to it next time you go to the pharmacy! And if you want to know more about the robots that prepare your medication, check out Script Pro web site.

Derives - Film music

During my studies at Strasbourg Conservatory, there was an important interaction between the Conservatory and Festival Musica (and I am sure it is still the case.) I performed in the festival in 2000, 2001 and 2002, to play the music of Pascal Dusapin, Thierry De Mey (a Maximalist! program,) and Javier Torres Maldonado.
In Fall 2003, Ivan Fedele proposed me to take part to an exciting project: a collaboration with film makers around the topic "the building of the new Conservatory." The Cité de la Musique was in construction, and Marie-Claude Ségard, director of the Conservatory, had the idea of this collaborative art work. The result has been "En Chantier", a collection of 16 short films produced by the Festival Musica, the Conservatoire National de Région de Strasbourg, and the École Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg.

Production

I worked on the short film Dérives, directed and realized by Sophie de Quatrebarbes, Élise Launay and Adeline Meilliez. Early in the process, I decided to avoid recording additional instruments, because of the schedule, and given the fact that there was no budget to pay performers. Finally, the actual steps of the production have been:

• Recording sounds from the construction site with a DAT recorder.
• Making sketches for the music.
• Recording instruments: Eb clarinet, percussion, and ballon scratching. I played all the instruments, and the recording session was one hour long. I used my sketches, and improvised over them.
• Sound design: I used personal spectral tools programmed in Max/MSP/Jitter.
• Editing and syncing to the film, using Apple Soundtrack on my laptop.

The first projection took place on October 29th, 2004 in Strasbourg, Palais des Fêtes.
I learnt a lot through this project, and I look forward to working on other works involving moving pictures. Today, the Cité de la Musique has been built: look at the map, and you may be able to recognize places from the film.

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