Day 32: Main Titles

I went into the studio today. Mike had a flight later on so we had to move fast. We moved the photo op to tomorrow. We also only had time for half my review, but we got started anyway. Mike was very impressed. I'm starting to do the exact same things that he's doing, and he said at this point, the only reason he sounds better (other than his many years over me) are the fact that he has 2 other guys helping him out. I was so happy to hear all this positive feedback. We moved fast and he told me that any of these cues could go in an episode right away and work fine in it. Then he took me into his office to give me my main titles.

Mike sat me down and told me I was going to do 5 one minute main titles! The first thing he did was tell me how he does main titles. He said they should be different. They should be melodic so that people will hum them. They should sound familiar yet not cliched and to throw some curveballs. So I'll give you the first one.

It's Paris during the French Revolution. There is a doctor who was born into a wealthy and upperclass family. He hobnobs with the royals, kings and upper society. Secretly he's a revolutionary and tends to the poor for free. So he acts high class, but is a Robin Hood-like character. The main title should be adventurish. It should contain action, but have a heroic side for the doctor.

Most main titles are in A-B-A format. This means the A section is where you introduce your theme. The B section is a different sound segment than the first, and then you return to the main theme, but it's different; usually bigger sounding. So this is where I need to start. I talked to Brandon and Dave and asked if I should use my own equipment for writing. They said it'd be a good idea because I'm most familiar with my own stuff so I can write quickly and I have sounds they don't have so it will sound different from their stuff. Brandon did loan me his hard drive, so I could take some of the studio's virtual instruments to use on my rig and that was so nice of him. So I needed a little keyboard so I could write in my apartment. I went to the Guitar Center in town and picked up a little 49 key keyboard so now I can write day and night every day.

First thing I did was some research on the music that was happening during the French Revolution. One song in particular was so popular it turned into their national anthem. I decided to take part of that song, turn it from a major key to a minor key and use that as my 'A' theme. Another big musical thing during the French Revolution was opera. It was a way to communicate to the public that together they are strong against the government. A big part of that were these trumpet calls used in the operas, so that became a big part of the music. Of course I started right away I was so excited and I already have 40 seconds sketched out with 12 of those seconds completely orchestrated. If things go my way, I'll have the whole first main title done by tomorrow or saturday. Okay so I'm going back to work and I'll post my results when I'm done.