Lesson video

Hi there, everyone.

Welcome to today's lesson on Film Music: Atmosphere.

This is from our Compose and Create unit where we're looking at nature documentary inspired film scores.

My name's Mr. Croughan and I'm looking forward to guiding you through today's lesson where we will listen to how music adds atmosphere to those nature documentary film scores and look to how we can use those ideas to create our own.

Are we ready?

Let's begin.

In today's lesson, you'll be creating an atmosphere as part of your film score, considering effective ways to build on the motifs you've been working on and to create feelings of tension and danger.

Looking carefully at today's keywords then we'll start with film score.

This is an original piece of music composed to accompany a film or a TV program that contributes to that narrative by adding perhaps emotion, tension, or drama.

Then scoring.

This is when we create original music for film or television that enhances that narrative, brings that story to life.

Then atmosphere, the one we're focusing on today.

This is using music to create that emotional mood or the tone of the narrative of the whole story.

And then a motif, a short recurring musical idea in a film score that represents perhaps a place, a character, an emotion, or an idea.

We know how important it is to warm up our minds, bodies, and voices so that we are ready to do really well in our music lessons.

If we have our minds focused and warm, we're gonna listen really well and concentrate on that new learning.

If our bodies are warmed up, we're gonna play our music together, well play our instruments more successfully, and if our voices are warmed up, it's gonna prevent them from injury as well as developing our musical singing skills.

So there are three warmups for us today.

The first one is where we're going to echo body percussion.

It's all very clear on the video.

The second one, Tambores, the O Ba Ba, if you did this in a previous lesson, this is now moving on to partner work.

So you can watch that video and if you need to, you can watch the others to see how it will work in your setting.

And then Nanuma a lovely song for us to sing either in unison or in parts.

First of all though, here comes the first video.

<v ->Let's do some body percussion.

</v> We are going to clap for ta.

We are going to stomp our feet for ta-di.

And we're going to pat our knees for ta-ka-ti-ki.

Okay, so I'll start and then you join with the echo.

Ready?

Steady.

Off we go.

Ta Ta-di-ta-ka-ti-ki-ta Ta Ta-di-ta-ka-ti-ki-ta Ta-di-ta-ka-ti-ki-ta Ta Ta-di-ta-ka-ti-ki-ta Ta Ta-di-ta-di Ta-ta-ka-ti-ki Ta-di-ta-di Ta-ta-ka-ti-ki Ta-di-ta-ta-ka-ti-ki-ta Ta-di-ta-ta-ka-ti-ki-ta <v ->Excellent.

</v> I'll now show you Tambores in pairs and you can pause after this and then have a go at that where you are here it gums.

<v ->Ready, steady.

</v> Of we go.

<v ->Very good.

</v> And now I'd like you to pause and listen to Nanuma and then there are tracks there either singing in unison once you can do it singing in two parts or even in four.

So pause here and have a go at that where you are.

Off you go.

Excellent stuff.

Hopefully now we're all feeling warmed up, focused and ready for music.

There are two learning cycles in today's lesson.

The first one is atmospheric film scores and the second creating atmosphere in a score.

So we're gonna start by listening to some atmospheric film scores.

Here they come.

We remember that a film score is original music composed to accompany a film or TV program.

And that it contributes to the narrative.

It might add some emotion, some tension, some drama, and we might remember the film scores used motifs to help us understand the story and recognize any changes in the atmosphere.

Has something shifted in the mood of the of the story.

Now a film score can contribute to the atmosphere, adding emotion or tension and it can make us feel nervous or excited or wary.

Ooh, something's up.

I'm not quite sure.

Don't trust that character or whatever.

Scared, this feels a very unsettling scene or emotional.

Maybe we're very emotionally invested.

It could be something very sad or happy or whatever, but the music really adds to the story to help us feel that more deeply.

Aisha says, often a compos will use motifs in their scoring and that motif can represent a character, place idea or emotion.

So we kind of hook into those when we hear them and recognize them.

So what's a film score?

Just this is just a quick check-in for you.

I'd like you if someone said to you out on the street, can you tell me what is a film score?

What's your dictionary definition of a film score?

And you happen not to have a dictionary to hand.

You could say, yes, I'd like you to use some of these words as many of them as you like that are on the screen there to help you write a definition of a film score.

Pause here and do that now.

Nice.

Well done.

You might have said something similar to Lucas who wrote a film score is music composed to accompany a film or television series.

It's in additional to the visual narrative and it helps enhance emotions, tension or drama contributing to how we feel.

It often uses a motif to develop ideas.

If you had something like that, super.

What we've done there is just really define the reason why we are now working together to create our film score because we want to create that atmosphere to add to the visual narrative.

We've been looking at the Planet Earth series, a famous BBC natural history documentary, and there are three series, we looked back at the first one in 2006, Planet Earth II 10 years later in 2016, and then the most recent Planet Earth III in 2023.

Now across the series, stories of many different animals are told, and these award-winning film scores help contribute to the atmosphere surrounding the story.

So we thought about the habitat where it's set, is it in the desert or the polar ice caps or wherever.

We've thought about the characters or animals who either live there or move there or need to find food there.

And then the atmosphere gives us that sense of how it might feel to be there.

How safe or unsafe does it feel for example.

I'd now like you to listen to this film score.

It's from Planet Earth II.

So you'll pause in a moment and your teacher will play that.

What I don't want to tell you is anything more about it.

So you'll do this without looking at any visuals because what I'd like to happen is for you to just decide and it'll be different slightly for each of you how the music makes you feel.

Do you feel calm and settled or on edge or worried or safe or happy or whatever it might be.

And each of you will have those different ideas because the film score is there to enhance, to make more of the visual picture that we see.

So we're stripping the visual picture away and you are just left with the music.

Okay, so it might be an idea to close your eyes.

You don't have to, but just see how the music makes you feel.

Pause and do that now.

So how did it make you feel?

Well, Sophia says she felt apprehensive at the beginning.

Amara says, well those racing drums kind of made my heart race as well and it made me feel nervous.

I wonder what might have been happening.

I wonder if you felt something similar.

I can tell you now the film score is called Racer Snakes vs Iguanas.

And this is quite dramatic.

It was scored for Planet Earth II in 2016 by Jacob Shea and Joshua Klebe.

And it's on the first episode on Islands and on the soundtrack album.

It's there to give us a sense of the danger that the young iguanas face moments after hatching.

So in the documentary we see marine iguana hatchlings.

They're born on Fernandina Island in the Galapagos and they have to journey from the sand to the adults and the adults who are by the sea.

And this journey that that they have to take is treacherous because there are racer snakes lying in wait.

and one by one the hatchlings, they're ambushed by the racer snakes chased along the sand.

And we can see in the documentary, one lucky hatchling makes it to safety, but many others don't.

So with all of that tension, I would like you to think how, listen again.

Now, how does that film score create a tense atmosphere during the chase?

What is it that's happening in the music?

So pause here, listen again.

Now you know that there's those two animals at play here, having a chase.

What is happening in the music to create that tense atmosphere?

Come back to me after you've listened.

Great stuff.

So you may have said something like, there's big contrast in dynamics from very quieter, suddenly louder and the tempo changes too.

Showing those moments of chase and stillness.

During the chase, the percussion is strong, the beat is powerful, makes us feel like our heart is racing too.

You might have said also during those quieter moments, the sliding notes where there's notes just slide from one into the next.

It's a bit like the snakes movement that can kind of feel unnerving too.

So if you said some things similar to that as well as all of your own wonderful ideas, really well done.

We're really starting to find out what it is that's helping to create that atmosphere.

And here is another film score this time from Planet Earth III.

Again, I won't tell you anything more about it.

I'd simply like you to think how the music makes you feel.

Same again, whether you close your eyes or keep them open.

How do you feel this time?

Have a pause and let me know when we come back.

Very good.

I wonder this time if you felt the same throughout listening to the music or if you are feeling sort of changed.

The reason I say that is because at the beginning Laura said she felt worried and then Lucas says in the middle, suddenly I started to feel this sense of determination and of hope as if something had shifted in the narrative.

The film score is called Seal vs Shark, and it was scored for Planet Earth III in 2023 by Jacob Shea and Sarah Barone.

And it's in episode one Coasts and it's on the soundtrack.

This piece of music gives us a sense of the danger that the seals face every time they enter the water.

Now in the documentary we see thousands of Cape fur seals rested on the Robberg Peninsula in South Africa, and these seals that enter the water become trapped against the rocks by a great white shark.

However, and perhaps this is where we noticed a shift in the music, something astonishing happens.

All of the seals work together turning on the shark, and then the seals confidence grows and they manage to alter the narrative.

They drive that shark away from the shores and back out to sea.

So now we understand that a bit more.

I'd like you to think about how the film score creates tension in the beginning.

What is it doing right at the start?

So you're going to pause here, listen and think just specifically how at that beginning point does it create tension?

What is happening?

Off you go.

Great stuff.

So now we're analyzing that music.

We're really thinking about how that tension is being put into the atmospheric sounds of the music.

You might have said something like this.

It begins strongly, the music is rushing from quiet to loud like a shark is thrashing through the water.

A strong beat begins and then layers of sound added.

It's like your heart is made to feel like it's beating faster and the string instruments they kind of quiver quietly in the background.

They're not smooth, they all quivery creating this feeling of nervousness.

So if you said any of those and some of your own ideas too, you are really starting to understand how tension is built into this music.

Well done.

Your first practice task, I'd like you to have two different color pencils ready and one for each film score because you're going to hear each one.

First of all, you're going to listen to Racer Snake vs Iguanas.

And as you listen on the next slide is a series of words.

You can either jot the words down or if you've got them printed out, you can join up lines or circle them.

Perhaps if you do have them printed out, you can join one to the next in the order that the music makes you feel all become clear.

Just bear with me, you're drawing lines connecting atmospheric words that it makes you think of.

And then you're gonna change color and do the same for Seal vs Shark.

Let me explain what I mean.

Here are all the words.

Now if you want to, you could start at the center where the image of the sound of the film clapperboard is and think, oh, I'm starting to feel tense or, and now I'm feeling a bit, oh it's got menacing or whatever.

That's one way that you can do it.

What you would notice is a couple of those words might be for both pieces of music and some of them you won't use at all and some might just be for one.

But however you do it, use two different color pencils.

One for each of the film scores so that you can then see, ah, that piece of music made me feel blah, blah and blah.

Okay so pause here and do that for both scores where you are.

Off you go.

Great, really well done.

I wonder if you had printed these out and it might look like something like this or perhaps some of the words you jotted down, let's have a look.

So with Izzy on snakes, she felt tense and restless and claustrophobic and on edge, kind of suspenseful and uneasy all of these things.

Now she may have felt those as she was listening, she'd gone from tense.

Now I'm feeling claustrophobic.

Oh, now I feel on edge.

It's up to you.

There's no right or wrong answer, it's just how you felt and how you interpreted it.

Her second time she looks at sharks and this time a feeling of foreboding.

And then that moves into hopeful.

Sometimes it felt ominous, haunting, unstable, on edge, menacing, tense.

You can sometimes feel a number of those words at the same time.

And sometimes it'll go from one feeling and it shifts as the music shifts.

So wherever you have is a sort of a representation of how that music made you feel.

Really well done.

It's time to create our atmosphere in a score.

And so we're going to add a threat now to our animal in its habitat, considering how we can create atmosphere thinking back to what we've just been listening to into your film score.

So think about your habitat and the animal that you chose in that habitat.

So your job now is to think, okay, I'll research what other animals live in that habitat and decide on what that threat's going to be.

What threatens your animal?

Or is your animal a threat to something else?

Are they a predator or prey?

And if so, who is it?

So once you know that, you'll be able to start to create this atmosphere.

If you haven't got a habitat or an animal, perhaps desert with a, a fennec fox, polar ice caps, maybe the orca whales, the woodlands and a stag beetle, and the city and a rat, four examples, okay.

Hopefully you've chosen your own habitat and an animal, but they're there if you need them.

When you are researching your animal threat, this is what you need to find out.

Who is it that threatens your animal or who's your animal a threat to?

So we've got this clear, two animals that we had, shark versus seal for example.

How does the capturing take place?

Is it successful?

Like in the case of the great white shark and the seals, it wasn't successful, but in the case of the racer snakes, the iguanas, there was a lot higher success rate there.

So how does that capturing take place?

Also, is it slow?

Is it fast?

Is it menacing?

We start to think of all those things.

When is it they're at risk?

And what this is gonna tell you is, oh, it's safe at the moment, but now I've gotta get past the sand or whatever.

Then they're at risk.

So the music might change at that point.

Okay, so that's why you need to know that.

And what do they do to stay safe?

Do they come together in a pack?

Do they move very quickly?

Do they move in a particular way?

Do they distract their predator?

What is it that they try and do to stay safe?

You're gonna take some notes as you research to help you remember your facts and you can share with a talk partner or a trio or whoever you work so that you can ask each other questions about what's happening in the story and how does this atmosphere start and then change.

And then you can think about some ideas of how it might be represented in a film score.

So I'm gonna go back to the previous slide.

I'd like you to look at those four points when researching your animal threat.

Pause here and do that now before sharing with a pal.

Off you go.

Wonderful, now you've got these ideas and we've talked through a bit.

We're gonna think of it in terms of the musical elements and I'd like you to find different ways that might change the mood and the feel of your film score.

So if you've seen this slide before in previous lesson, we start with pitch, rhythm and the duration of notes.

So we're thinking to create my atmosphere, am I gonna use very low and slow notes or high and fast notes or whatever.

Is it all up there?

Is it up and down and up and down.

Are my notes quite short and snappy?

Or are they long and slow?

Does that change to change the atmosphere?

Do I keep repeating a rhythm as if it's an animal, you know, racing across its habitat?

Or are they uneven rhythms to make us feel more uneasy?

Okay, when you think about the timbre instrumentation, what instruments might create the right atmosphere for your narrative?

Think about where it is, but importantly when we're thinking about this threat, what kind of sounds are going to help your listener or the person that's listening or watching this documentary, you are on the kind of their hairs on the back of their neck to stand up.

What's gonna create that?

Okay, what's gonna bring to life that story?

Same with the dynamics.

Is it loud or quiet all the way through or does it change from quiet to loud?

Is it suddenly loud and then drops back again?

You get to decide that that's really gonna help paint that picture.

And then when we think about the texture or structure, it's the idea of going, yeah, I just wanna hear this one instrument that's gonna be really menacing or I'm quickly gonna build up two and three different sounds because that's gonna be more dramatic and panicky.

Okay, up to you.

Think about that in terms of of those.

Drop some ideas down and then come back.

So you've got your original idea of your narrative and now we're thinking about it musically as well.

Okay, pause here and do that now.

Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.

I'm gonna play for you an example film score.

It's a narrative of there's an orca pod who are seeking krill.

So they eat in the Antarctic before traveling north and they spot seals on the ice and they begin something called wave washing, this huge thing which knocks the seals into the water.

So now you know a bit about the story, have a listen.

Here it comes.

So now you've heard that example.

I'm going to play for you a short clip which shows using a digital audio workstation, an orca hunt film score.

And then I'm going to play you how an orca hunt film score might sound if you are working in your classroom as part of an ensemble.

I appreciate some of you will be at computers, some of you might be using instruments.

So I'll show you both, okay?

First of all, here's the Orca Hunt film score on a digital audio workstation.

Lovely stuff and now let me play you the Orca Hunt film score idea and how that could work if you were playing on an ensemble in your classroom.

Here it comes.

Very good.

I'd like you to listen again because we're gonna think about how the music changes starts off one kind of atmosphere, but it shifts when the hunt begins.

It's about 11 seconds in.

So I'm gonna play it for you and I want you to jot down some ideas or think how the music changes to reflect the hunt beginning.

How do we know what's different in the music?

And we're gonna use some of these ideas when we create our own.

Have a listen, here it comes.

Okay, great.

I'd like to pause here, share those ideas, jot some stuff down, and then let's come back together to see if we got similar thoughts on that shift in atmosphere.

Okay, have a pause.

Off you go, great.

So now we've been thinking what happened in the music.

You may have said stuff like Sam who says the strings play a repeated note with a percussion and the original string motif then returns, but at a lower pitch.

Maybe that creates a sense of it being ominous.

Jacob says, towards the end the music gets louder and the motif pitch rises and the percussion sounds like a heartbeat.

Ah so we're starting to get some drama and that with that motif played it a different pitch used in a different way.

And the percussion giving us that heartbeat feel as well.

Quite dramatic.

Great stuff.

And now your practice task for this lesson, you are going to recap your film score.

So far you'll have two motifs.

One is describing the habitat and the second one is your animal.

So that's starting to build up.

Now, you might think of this in terms of when we do a writing, we might think of a story mountain where we might begin with a description of a setting, then we introduce our characters and then something happens, something goes wrong.

It's a bit similar musically.

So we're gonna consider that structure.

We introduced the first motif, that habitat there is our animal there.

That's all our characters.

And then at what point in the narrative does that threatening behavior happen?

When does the shark enter or the fox or whatever animal is your threat, okay?

And how are you going to show that musically?

Think about all of the ideas we've listened to so far and your ideas that you've jotted down earlier in the lesson.

And then you're going to score your animal threat.

So whether you are using the software or whether you are doing this with instruments in your classroom, think how you can adapt what you've already got.

Some of those motifs for your habitat, your character, your animal to make it sound more tense and dangerous.

Do you change the pitch?

Do you change the tempo?

Is it played on a different instrument?

Is there some percussion that happens that makes it feel more threatening?

How are you going to create the atmosphere?

Okay, so have an explore and I will see you when you've added in some atmosphere.

Off you go.

Really well done.

Loads of creative things happening here.

It's time to listen again to the Orca film score.

And I'd like to think about how effective this is at creating a tense atmosphere.

And then once you've heard it, you can pause if you'd like to and just think how does your film score compare?

What have you used any of those ideas that make it feel tense or dramatic or worrying or unsettling?

What is it?

How have they created tension and drama and how have you done it?

And you can play your piece that's created so far out loud to a friend and maybe get some feedback because it's not fixed in stone, it's just, it's developing.

It's evolving over time and you've got the opportunity to keep making it better.

Have a listen to the Orca film score first.

There you go and now have a pause to see and a chat with a friend to see how it compares with yours and maybe get some feedback from a friend too.

Off you go.

Fantastic work.

Well done.

You've really added some atmosphere into your film score pieces.

Absolutely wonderful, well done.

Just a recap on today's learning music can really effectively create a sense of atmosphere.

For example, it might create feelings of tension or danger or drama.

Repeating and adapting a motif throughout a film score can help us follow a narrative and we need to think about the structure of the music when we're scoring it so that the music enhances that visual narrative.

So the story that's happening on the screen is also happening in the music.

And if we don't have a screen and we're just using the music, how is it built so that we can imagine that and when that tension builds and when that atmosphere shifts.

Really well done for today and I look forward to seeing you next time.

All the best.

Bye for now.