Long Student Film Story

by Roman Deppe

As I am an apprentice editor I had the opportunity to work with a fellow apprentice on a short movie: We just got all the shot material and were allowed to (or was told to) do all the post production the way we wanted to. That meant choosing the scenes, which we would use, edit the whole movie, re-record or change dialogue (though it was an almost silent movie), choosing the sound effects and putting them in and of course choosing the music. After this experience I understand a lot more what a composer has to go through and how the music that is in the final cut of a movie is maybe just a matter of taste. Here's a summary of the story:

A father comes home from work late in the evening, not noticing that his 14 year-old daughter quickly runs into the bathroom, obviously trying to hide something. His wife is watching TV and doesn't care about him coming home. Something seems to be wrong in this family. The father looks at his filofax and notices that his daughter's birthday is today--he has forgotten that! Meanwhile his daughter is sitting in the bathroom and eating up a whole bunch of food: Bananas, sausages, chocolate, cakes... finally she throws it all up. It becomes clear that she has bulimia.

Her father wants to give her some money as a present, but she locks herself in her room and doesn't want to talk to him. He leaves the money in an envelope before her door.

The father goes to his wife and tries to get her to stop drinking so much. The father can't really start a dispute, because his daughter leaves the house. For some reason he walks into her room, a place he hasn't been in for a long time and looks around. It's kind of dream-place: everywhere there are little lights and cloth hanging around as if it were heaven. She also seems to be in love with Leonardo Di Caprio‹his pictures, posters and Titanic artifacts are everywhere around.

The father finds her diary and a little teddy bear, which brings painful memories back to life: About 8 years ago when his daughter was very young, he had an even younger son. The kids were playing in the garden and the father and mother were happy. Suddenly the ball the kids were playing with jumped over the fence and the little boy ran after it, right into the street where he was hit by a car and died.

The father wants to read the diary first, but then decides not to do it. He looks around again and finds in a crate "tons" of food and realizes that there must be something wrong with his daughter, so he takes the diary again and reads it. His daughter still thinks it's her fault that her brother died and that's obviously the reason for her psychological disease. The father is shocked and wants to tell his wife, but she's fallen asleep and he just doesn't know what to do. When his daughter comes home and notices he read her diary she gets upset and throws the diary at him without saying a word, then runs back into her heaven.

After a while the father comes to her and says the only word in the movie: "Sorry" and begins to cry. The girl looks up, sees her father cry and begins to cry, too. Finally she walks to him, puts her arms around him.

The End.

Well... it is surely not a great movie, especially since the director seemed to have no idea what he was doing, but nevertheless it was good practice for me and my partner Stephen. I don't want to go in detail about how we cut the movie, because it ended the way I told you the story. First we wanted to cut the flashback in three pieces and make them look like old home movies, but the material was just not good and long enough to do that. We just had to decide where to put the flashback in‹it was intended to be put right in the beginning, but that seemed too ordinary to us. We decided to let the diary talk, in other words recorded some dialogue which presented what was written in the diary, because the movie was too quiet in a way.

I thought "scoring" the movie would be easy, but that appeared to be the hardest thing about the project‹not only to find the right music, but also to avoid killing each other! I often wanted to strangle Stephen I can tell you (and he me too, I guess). Of course, we hadn't the money to let somebody compose something so we had to go through all kinds of CDs.

We decided to use Operas a lot, because we thought they would perfectly fit to the big, empty house of some rich family, where all feelings are ice cold. So we said: "Okay, the mother watches an opera on television, that's where the operas come from." After listening to some operas we found two arias we wanted to use (we were considering using a Florence Foster Jenkins aria to make a strange, silly atmosphere... we were just caught by her incredible voice-talents (if you have never heard her, you have to listen to her CD The Glory Of The Human Voice... it's unbelievable. After hours of laughing we decided to take the serious way again and used something by Shostakovich and by incident the same aria which is used in THE FIFTH ELEMENT, which actually has lyrics that fit the story a bit. So almost everywhere in the house you can hear the operas and they really worked impressively. At some scenes we recut the picture to fit better to the singing. The way the music changes some scenes, like when the daughter eats all this stuff, is really remarkable.

Then the problems began: Stephen came up with the idea that we could put a song over the final "re-union" sequence. I agreed, that seemed like a good idea as in the daughter's room you can't hear the operas anymore and a film score would be too obviously manipulating.

First we wanted to use the song "That Would Be Good" by Alanis Morrissette, assuming that a girl like her would listen to Alanis. But the song made it really ridiculous, so it was back to the archives. Finally I thought the song "Return To Me" by October Project would be good, as its music worked very well with the camera movements and I thought the lyrics would fit the story, too. But Stephen thought it would say too much about the story. I said: "But isn't that the point? Shouldn't the song say something about the story? If we take something that says nothing about the story, then it's just a song used because we liked the song and it doesn't have any function." So we went on looking. This was too obvious, this was too loud, too quiet, too fast, too slow, too strange...

It became even harder with the film music: Where did we want to use music was the first question. Stephen wanted it when the father (and we) come into her room the first time and in the flashback. Both seemed to require music, I agreed. But as we had operas all around, we had to skip one, because if we scored both scenes, there wouldn't have been one second without music, which would be too much. So we decided to use music only in the flashback.

I have to say that Stephen has no knowledge of film music at all and in addition to that doesn't like film music in films. Now, can you imagine how it is to work with somebody who doesn't want film music although he admits that he needs film music? It's not nice, I can tell you.

As the girl loves Leonardo and Titanic a lot we shortly thought about using music from Titanic or Romeo & Juliet. But it was too big and too popular to use, and maybe stupid, too, though it would have characterized the girl a bit, I think. But we remembered that the movie wasn't about the girl. It was about the father: the music had to connect to him, not to the girl.

After listening to many CDs (some James Newton Howard and Horner-stuff), we thought that MAN WITHOUT A FACE might work. There is the solo-clarinet Stephen liked and the cue we wanted wasn't too orchestral.

Still we had two different ways the music could end the scene: First it is quiet, romantic and small, then when parents kiss each other and the boy runs to the street the whole orchestra comes in with a dark mood and ends in a loud crescendo. That worked, Stephen liked it. I liked it, too, but after the second time I watched it I thought it wasn't right, because it didn't tell the viewer anything. The music starts right at the beginning of the flashback and ends with it. The music itself just tells you what you already see and I thought "I don't need the music to tell me what's going on, I can already see that. The music has to tell me what I don't see." What was missing were the inner feelings of the father, what he goes through during his flashback.

I put the music on two scenes: 1) The father opens a box and sees the teddy bear. Here I just let two or three bars play, letting the audience know that the teddy is important to the father. Then he takes the teddy and looks at it, closes his eyes. Here I let the music start, shortly before the flashback begins. I thought (and still think) now the music would connect to him and his feelings, not to the pictures of the flashback. The music reflected Stephen's take on the beginning: quiet, simple, romantic, small When the parents are happy and kiss each other the orchestra comes in, but not in a dark way‹still beautiful (saying: "Man, was I happy" forgetting that because of that he didn't watch his son) and when the son runs to the street the music just slows down and gets sad, but quiet and small again and ends a little after the flashback, when we see the teddy in his hands again.

I thought that is the better way, that's what the music should do in this sequence, but Stephen hated it: "It's too emotional, it's too much... ". He again wanted music that is subtle, that you don't notice (though I thought the loud crescendo at the end is really loud), that just stays in the background... my cue stayed in the background, too, I think, but what he really meant was music that you don't hear, because he doesn't like film music. I became really aware of that when we test-watched the movie again. He turned the operas and the score so much down, that you could barely hear them. "You can't turn the operas down so much!" "But I don't like them to be so much in the foreground!" "But the mother watches the operas so loud that they are the only thing you hear in the empty house!" "They are just too loud!"

Finally, he even didn't like the operas anymore. With the score he went back to the archives, looking through a bunch of CDs again. He wanted glass harps ("Give it a more dreamy feel") or guitars... but in my opinion they added nothing to the flashback at all. Fortunately he couldn't find anything he liked.

The final mix was moved to end of March and that means we have still a long way to go. Right now, as I am the one who did the music track, it is the way I wanted it. Stephen is looking around for another song for the ending, and I could live with another song as long as it is not something that is in the charts right now. It should fit the mood of the movie. But with the flashback music I really don't want to change it. I don't say that I am the one who is right and he is a stupid idiot. He has a point in using that music at those moments, but for me the music just doesn't fulfill anything it should. Why do I want to use music in that scene? To show something the audience can't see. Isn't that why music is used in general?

I just have to say that I felt a bit like a composer, bringing all the music up, talking with the director (who in this case is my partner and really has no more power than I have) and having to find something to please him. I just realized how frustrating it must be to work with someone who 1) has no knowledge of film music, 2) can't tell you what he wants and 3) tells you: "I don't like film music in films, but I need some here, so go and do something".

I for my case would have probably left the project already... or fired Stephan if I could have. But as we are in the same position we have to talk that out. I wonder who wins?

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