This is an example of some of the odd ways in which I come across inspiration for music when working on films:
Within that link is an interview with the composer for Game of Thrones – and I can tell what you’re thinking, Game of Thrones is a lot different to either Immort or Descent in scope, story, genre and importantly, musical style. Well, that is all true, but, in this interview he talks about composing music for the title sequence that Game of Thrones is famous for – and this where it starts to tie in slightly as Immort has a title sequence which I just recently received. One of the things he talks about is how he wants to represent the show within the music, so traveling is a large part of the show and as such that is represented, as is mystery and so on. This is something that I’ve attempted to do with Immort, however, this was a task made difficult by directorial decisions regarding the music. Originally, the music was all fairly dark tonally, in fitting with the atmosphere and story being portrayed in the film, however, the director didn’t want any kind of sense of threat during the chase scene…which has resulted in much cheesier and poppier music being written for that scene. Now, because the title scene comes in before that scene happens I needed to reference that style of music, while mixing it with the darker stuff later on in the film which the director liked. This proved to be quite the challenge, but something that this interview again helped with, though not through any kind of deliberation. It was mentioned how he changes key, which gave me the idea to change key briefly to help lift the tone a bit so to speak.
Another thing which is interesting to note is that again, for inspiration with this new direction some of the music has taken I looked at the score for Mass Effect, a game which doesn’t quite lie in the same kind of genre as this film, but nevertheless I felt could be helpful just in terms of instrumentation and how to keep something keep an action sort of feeling, but without playing to threat too much.