Hero - Short Film Score - Walkthrough Pt.11 - M3 (Part 2)

Welcome to the next part of this composition walkthrough. The previous parts of this series are available here.

In this part we will cover the next section of the Cue M3 - Car Chase.

As usual, we will work with score reductions. Today it is a little less "condensed" as usual as there is just so much going on in that section. The full score, Midi and Audio File of the entire cue are attached at the bottom of the post.

Here's today's sequence without music:

https://youtu.be/y1aVLZMtSRw?t=260

The only spotting note that I had for this sequence was:

• 05:20:15  start failing

Here's the orchestral recording of that sequence: 

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/hero-m3-bar-24-35/s-zcWib3WeftX

And the playback of the piano reduction: 

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/hero-m3-bar-24-35-piano/s-tG1OTW23k8d

As you might remember from the last part we are just coming out of the first part of the chase sequence. We start looking at today's sequence from the moment on where we first cut back to the "reality" with the golf carts. The downbeat of bar 24 fell very nicely on that cut and I felt that giving it a hightlight would work very well. Bar 24 is set up by a D7sus4b9 chord before that making it a rather definitive cadential movement.

As you can see from the spotting notes above, there is actually not much in the coming seconds that needs to be accented. It should just keep up that high energy chase sequence quality. The next hit point is quite far out about 12 seconds later (which in such a dense action cue is quite a distance).

Again, as with the last part, the chord symbols used here are only roughly representing the harmony. We remain in this territory of bitonality and switching back and forth between different keys. Again as in the part before, there is that tritone relationship between major triads of Eb and A.

If we keep an eye on the more broader harmonic pillars, we could say that 24-27 is a field of Gm (with that bitonal hue), 28 is roughly a Db tonality and 29 C major. Each of these harmonic fields employ several tonalities. As mentioned already, 24-27 switches back and forth between A, Eb and Gm (however maintaining the G in the bass), 28 also uses A and Eb triads but this time over a Db in the bass (which dictates the harmonic feeling this chord has) and 29 establishes a C and D triad over the C bass (which we could understand as C lydian).

There are few more things to mention here. From the rhythmical standpoint you can see that there is a constant engine of eighth notes going on in the Celli and Bass Clarinet. However as in the parts before, I use a rhythmical device of switching back and forth between the perceived subdivision of the 12/8 time signature into groups of three and groups of two eighth notes each. E.g. the 12 eighths of bar 24 are subdivided into groups of 3+3+2+2+2, as is bar 26. There is some motivic relation between the rhythms going on here with 24/25 being rather similar to 26/27. These elements are essential in such a sequence to maintain some musical structure that gives such a passage a musical sense beyond just supporting the action.

Also, I tried to not crowd the bass register with a constant pouding of the bass notes but kept it rather "pointillistic" with rhythmical accents being rather unpredictable and making this at least for me more exciting than a constant attack of bass notes in dotted quarters or any other predictable rhtyhmical pattern. It also avoids becoming too rhythmically static by that.

Harmonically speaking, bar 28 is the first change that we could consider as a "chord progression" to an Eb(and A)/Db. There is again that tritone relationship that has been playing a rather big role already with the bass note  going from G to Db. I tried to make that progression a bit smoother and plausible by establishing a descending line in horns/trombone that clearly targets towards that Db in 28. We could see that harmonic movement between 28/29 as some sort of tritone substituted dominant to that C chord or with a more classical theory view as a phrygian half cadence.

We're closing in on the next hit point which is the failing of the engine which also is less of a point but rather a section where the advantage of the "evil guy" who's in the lead changes. That passage of failure is coming up in bar 33. Bar 30 moves harmonically back to that Eb(A)/Db harmony, however in bar 31 this time we change to a Ebmaj7/A chord. If you want to make this chord a bit more understandable, you can look at it as some sort of dominant chord of A, namely A7sus4(b9#11) which makes its function more plausible. An ascending line spans over that chord building up towards 33. 

From a film scoring aspect, you might have noticed by now that I put a lot of thought into whether I anticipate a hit point by telegraphing it musically or not, depending on how predictable the hit is. In this case, I went for a "mixed" approach. The music telegraphs that something "is coming" by that dominant and ascending line but not exactly when through that switch to 6/8. From the bar structure you would expect a hit at earliest  two beats later (as this would fall in line with the 12/8) so the hit on 33 is a bit surprising. Another surprise is the harmonic resolution. That mentioned A dominant clearly targets towards something either D or Ab to fullfill the expectation that it sets up. I decided to go back to the original Gm as "resolution" to musically illustrated that it "didn't go according to the plan".

33-35 are a rather obvious musical illustration of the "engine failure" with rapidly descending lines in the entire orchestra. I drop out the bass register here to really focus on that descend. Harmonically, we still move mainly in that bitonal field of Eb and A. In every group of three eighths the first and third note are harmonized with either of these chords (or a related one) with the middle note always being harmonized with a passing chord. I would have loved to do another take for this passage as in the recording it is not really perfect and I would have loved for the trumpets to do enough takes to develop enough confidence to lead that section with a more "blaring" quality that would support the idea of "something is failing". But as I mentioned before, session time was incredibly short for that score.

In the next part we will look at the first grand scale appearance of the main theme which follows right after the section that we discussed today.