Everything, all the elements of a project, must be developed simultaneously, not one at a time. It’s almost like being the conductor of an orchestra. You have all these people doing many different things, crucial things, all at once. The violins don’t play their part and then stop so that the cellos can be heard; they engage, overlap, and inspire each other. The same is true of our community of artists: we begin together and hope it will all fit together and fulfill the initial impulse.
This can be difficult, sometimes, to explain to clients. We can’t necessarily always isolate one aspect of our work so that we can show small segments as we progress toward our destination. When they are separate, the pieces, the elements, may not look like much — yet. Think of Monet’s palette of various pigments. Who could imagine all those pools of primary color could blend to become his sublime water lily paintings? Only the artist.
The integration of music and storyboards is an excellent example of our “orchestral” process. Roberto Blandin, a master of world music stringed instruments, was asked to begin composing when our storyboards were at their early stages. It was mere coincidence that Roberto was born in Venezuela in the Year of the Snake.
“In the Chinese zodiac, I am a snake. Yet, like many people, I don’t like snakes. That’s part of what made this project challenging, as Regina said in her previous posts, Concept Creation 1 and 2.”
concept 1: http://reginarubino-imageglobalvision.blogspot.com/2013/02/concept-creation-1-chinese-new-year.html
concept 2: http://reginarubino-imageglobalvision.blogspot.com/2013/02/concept-creation-2-our-movie.html
concept 1: http://reginarubino-imageglobalvision.blogspot.com/2013/02/concept-creation-1-chinese-new-year.html
concept 2: http://reginarubino-imageglobalvision.blogspot.com/2013/02/concept-creation-2-our-movie.html
Roberto listened to our concept and knew that designer Alan Lawrence would view a slew of film clips to begin connecting the water snake with lanterns and the full moon of a new year. And I had much to say about tempo and mood.
“You evolve with the idea, and make something nice, something musical,” Roberto says.
Fortunately, Roberto collects traditional Chinese stringed instruments. He began composing for the zhong ruan, a lute with a fretted neck and circular body, and the yue quin, also a round instrument with a short neck that has earned the nickname Moon Guitar. Roberto played a tres and guitar, too.
By the time Roberto was ready to record his music, we studio artists were about 3/4 through our process. As I mentioned, I expressed strong opinions about how the music might enhance our imagery. I imagined the moon and lanterns would benefit from meditative, slow melodies. The snake movement, on the other hand, would want a fast melodic line. As we look carefully at mixing the images in a way to be visually stimulating and interesting throughout the movie, we also wanted the music to do the same.
Yet after we listened to Roberto’s sensitive work and viewed the movie draft, we found there were pieces of both the slow and faster segments that would work well with sections of clips. The slow, elegant melodies beautifully underscored the pinnacle of the full moon and especially the inspirational ascent of the water snake. Whereas, the faster, energetic bursts were used to keep time, emphasize the celebratory bounce of lantern lights and dramatically end the movie.
“Alan did a fantastic job editing the music to accompany the movie. He was sensitive to the energy and dynamics of my composition. He caught the essence,” says Roberto.
When we began making these short films, we were told to restrict our effort to 10- and 20-second motifs. This was the convention at the time. But we chose to create one- and two-minute films to allow a story to unfold in motion pictures in the same way we see our ideas slowly evolve on paper and in the environments where we install our identity designs. It was a risk, but our clients responded positively to the longer pieces. Bucking the trend with insight and vision can bring unexpected distinctions and rewards to our work.
Notice I say, “our work.”
Finding people with the right temperament is very important to this process. The ego can get in the way of communal creativity. In the end, all our efforts become one body of work, not singular achievements pasted together.
That’s why Monet comes to mind: If each of us could be condensed into pigment, we would gladly be brushed and blended into one magnificent water lily.
Coming soon! Concept Creation 4: Poetry in motion
