week 2

In todays second lesson focusing on composition for animation, we discussed the two techniques of ‘Mickey mousing’ and ‘leitmotifs’.

I was already familiar with the concept of a leitmotif, a certain melody or musical idea that symbolises or connects to a certain character, place, time or other story element. We discussed its use in lord of the rings, with locations such as the shire having a leitmotif, as well as groups such as the fellowship. Another example of a great leitmotif is within the album ‘the downward spiral’, with this melody showing up in many songs across the album, along with the often repeated lyric ‘nothing can stop me now’. The use of a leitmotif is a shorthand, to quickly show the listener that something from earlier is returning, such as the return of a villain.

The other technique ‘Mickey mousing’ was quite interesting too. Mickey mousing is the concept of hits in the score timing up perfectly with an action on screen, usually a chromatic run or cluster chord.

I attempted to utilise both of these techniques in my piece, starting with leitmotif. While I didn’t strictly stick to the concept of the leitmotif, I wanted their to be a recurring theme of whenever it cut to Hal taking control or being more assertive, the score would switch to a more safe and comfortable major key and play a very similar major melody over the chord each time. This would switch back to a more suspended minor-ish tonality whenever the focus returned to Sophie seeming uncertain. This created the same effect of the leitmotif, a musical shorthand showing the comfort and safety created by the character of Hal.

Similarly, I loosely implemented the ‘Mickey mousing’ technique around the 35 second mark. As Sophie looks over at the food, grabs it and places it into the pan, each note and chord lands on an action she takes, adding a light hearted pacing to the action. I think I certainly achieved the effect here, and similarly the effect of the leitmotif is noticeable, as Hals presence does feel safe when watched along with my score so far. I preferred these two techniques a lot more than last weeks, and plan to continue implementing them throughout my composition for media work.