I was at BAFTA on Monday night listening to Inon Zur (Prince Of Persia, Starfield, and countless other games) talk about his work. One of the bits of advice he gave out has stayed with me the last few days; "give the audience something they know, then give them something new".
What did he mean by that? He used the example of the start of Beethoven's first symphony- an orchestra, familiar, but starting on a dissonant chord. Or The Rite Of Spring- opening with a bassoon but in that never-before-used top register.
I thought that was great advice. It frees us as composers to try new things, but to connect them to the audience by including something, anything, they're able to relate to, so they still land emotionally.
What do you think? How could this advice impact your workflow?
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Thank you so much for sharing, Joanna Karselis! In my experience the concept applies already in the way we collaborate with Directors in connection with their vision and (if it is there) temp music and our personal musical "voice" and ideas. If the Director is not using temp music, I might ask them if there is any particular film music they like and feel touched by, so that I can get a general suggestion of their taste. I try and incorporate in my original composition both what the director knows ( their musical likings, what they envision for their story) and, based on how the story inspires me, what they don't know, the "new" coming from my creative input ( BTW, I love thinking "outside the box") so that the score will both be familiar and comfortable and effective and captivating and distinctive of that specific project. :
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"give the audience something they know, then give them something new" reminds me of song remixes, Joanna Karselis. And when a composer takes a song and changes it some so it fits a movie scene. Like the song "I Got 5 On It" in the movie "Us." The composer took a Hip-hop song and changed parts of it into a Horror song.