The Challenge October 2011

Renesongs

Highway Chile has managed to bag us a real world challenge I'm going to make the Deadline 23:59:59 Sun 30th October 2011 - so get cracking y'all.

Listing 4039

The film director for a major motion picture called The Violent Seed, now in post production is doing things a little differently. He, with the approval of the project's regular composer, has come up with the idea to have a competition open only to the general public, to try and find a song suitable for a single scene in the film. The winner get's to have his or her composition used in the film and be paid for it. Quality is not that important. Composition quality is critical. If your song is accepted and the quality is not up to standard, it will be re-recorded at the studio the composer is using. If your playing ability is up to standard, you may perform the parts and be paid Union scale. Otherwise studio players may be used. Decent home recordings are fine as demo's. In other words, do your best, but you will be judged entirely on the composition being the best one for the scene, not studio prowess or recording quality.

Here are the scene notes.

The Violent Seed: Scene 13: Take 2. Scene was shot MOS, voice over added . There is no foley.

Scene opens in a nondescript deserted and dimly lit alleyway. It is raining softly and what light there is is reflected on the cobblestones. The time is somewhere around 3am. The neon sign at a long closed bar flickers, adding pulsating color to the greenish-yellow hue of the single sodium vapor in the alley. Our hero, Private Investigator Mike Ruger is crouching next to the body of a young girl, his eyes hidden in the shadow cast off the brim of his Borsalino fedora hat. His square jaw clenched tight, he is motionless, silent and taught.....poised like a stalking cat, as he takes in all that is in front of him.

Cue the voiceover, Mike's voice, deep, soto voce............

Cue start 01:09:01:28

She had been so beautiful......innocent, only about 19, now with no chance at a future, her delicate body, broken and mutilated, half hidden under a pile of cardboard boxes and other trash. Discarded like a piece of worthless garbage. In all my years as a gumshoe, there have been some doozies...... but this...... the unchecked brutality......insane in it's viciousness. And for what? Some sicko's fleeting moment of selfish pleasure? A drug fueled rape gone bad? A robbery that escalated. No.......this was done methodically by an out of control ego with no respect for the living, a soul lost to the most evil of intentions. I knew it had to be the work of Jimmy the Dirk's evil offspring, his worthless loose cannon of a son Draven, and his murderous crew of skinhead devil worshippers. There was only one place for me to start. I had to stakeout the gang's hideout, down in the seedy and dilapidated East End of the waterfront. A very dangerous place. But for this.....many were about to die! Thinking about my own daughter had now made this almost personal. I was going to send them all straight back to hell!

Ending fades at 01:09:37:27

Submission rules and guidelines.

1.Instrumental tracks only.

2. Original compositions only....all the way. No use of any portion of anyone else's material at all.

3. Instruments are limited to guitars and basses only. *See notes (a).

4. Duration must be less than 2:00 no exceptions. This includes any fades, intro's and/or outro's. *See notes (b).

5. Unlimited overdubbing/track count is allowed. See notes (c)

6. The film's director wants a very organic sound using only guitars. However, the allowed instruments may be used in any manner you see fit. See notes (d)

7. We understand some would like to add a bass guitar and may not have one nor have access to to one or a bass player. For the purposes of this competition, we will allow the triggering of bass guitar samples as long as the instrument triggering is a guitar. No keyboards. For example a MIDI guitar is acceptable triggering a bass guitar type sample. However, since this will be replaced by a real instrument for the actual scoring session.....it MUST be something that can be easily performed by any session player. There can also be NO other pads or layers on the sample that are not specific to that instrument. ie It must be playable. Octave pedals are also allowed to allow a regular guitar to achieve the lower octaves.

8. Lastly, since all compositions will be judged on the feeling they impart to the described scene and instrumental or recording prowess is not a huge concern, all entrants are on level ground. No consideration will be given to skill level.

*SESSION NOTES* and guidelines:

a)You may use any guitar based instrument....acoustic and electric guitars, acoustic and electric bass, lap steel, dobro, any slide guitar, Gypsy Jazz guitar, jazz archtop, Spanish nylon etc. It may be fretted or un-fretted, have 4-12 strings, use any microphone or pickup, pass through any effect device or amplifier combination and the use of capo's or objects attached or not attached to the guitar body or strings to cause the guitar body or strings to behave in a certain manner....is fully permissible. (such as an E Bow, tremelo arm, drill machine etc.) Do not be restricted in your use, of your guitar.

b)While the actual cue duration is only :36s, we will allow a maximum of 2mins duration of submitted music- to accommodate intro's and outro's, time to develop a mood and mainly for the film editor to have enough material from which to choose the best segment of your composition to use in the film.

c) You may use unlimited tracks. This is a film scoring session and not the typical live band recording, so use as many tracks as you need to create the mood or get the effect you want..... and to have the level of control you want, for the final mix.

d) You may use these instruments to provide percussive sounds and sound effects, to create rhythmic patterns and/or effects to create tension etc. You could make plectrum sounds on strings or tap on the top of an acoustic guitar to make a drum like sound....you may tweak that mercilessly, run that through a flanger or a reverb soaked delay....in other words........ using only the source instruments allowed, you are free to use your creativity in an otherwise unlimited fashion, within the guidelines.

e) While the film period and "look" has not been described, nor will it, feel free to compose with anything in mind as.....not only have we have not decided on what kind of music we will have, this movie is a mix of styles and periods Almost sci-fi comic book, fantasy but with a cohesive nod to a previous time. So think modern and heavy with a metal sound, or think film noir....dark, jazzy, possibly even light rock or even just moody ethereal pad type stuff with clean guitars and no set time signature or even key signature. Do not let the rules and restrictions of music theory or typical composition get in your way and throw out preconceived ideas. Open your mind......this is what the director is looking for. The only thing to consider is that, internally....this place Mike Ruger is at is reflective, solemn and sad, pissed off, his next move frought with danger yet maybe not because all he is doing is placing them under surveillance, he is filled with vengeance but realizes he cannot just let loose, he is usually a law abiding investigator...but he has now been pushed so close to the edge, that he does not even know if he has crossed over. Think of the scene as being wide open to interpretation.

f) What is not allowed is: any drum kits or individual drums at all, no dedicated percussion instruments at all, no orchestral samples(woodwinds, brass, strings etc), no non-guitar or bass instruments or samples, no solo vocal or choir samples, no foley effects like slamming car doors, sirens, horns beeping, foghorns, footsteps etc etc and so on and so forth.

g) Lastly, using your guitars, think sound design as being an important part of your composition. Enjoy!

evolucian

niiiiiiiice!

Seventhson

I am so in this ? Going to work on this for a month.

dee

sjoe 8)

Jacquesg4j

Sjo! Niiice! Hope I find time... Which I doubt!

deefstes

Oh WOW! This is an absolute corker! I am so doing this one ?

mity88

seems like a challenge...
im in for sure... 8)

domhatch

vangelis meets satch. me likey...

PeteM

Finally got my computer sorted, so will be entering this one.

A great detailed brief there Highway Chile.... Just lacking a rough cut and the vital cue points. ?

Hammeron

See yas there!

Highway-Chile

LOL....I was stressing you guys wouldn't like it or that the scene was too heavy....a downer etc. My idea was to have us dig deep into our emotions and to have an almost open palette. As long as it's just guitars though ?...to level the playing field, so the cats with killer drum programs and soft synths, keyboards, orchestral libraries etc etc don't have an edge.

Tamla"Hammeron", and also mity88's last submissions being just guitar and theremin and guitar and e bow respectively, inspired this. There was so much depth their entries, in the sparseness. Less is often more.

I was also thinking how by removing elements such as drums, synths, etc it made it something that would appeal to more people, so they'd not be intimidated by the folks with more kit. Also.........a total novice could easily win this....it is all about the vibe.

Then, thinking about there being some real metalheads here, I was wondering how to accommodate them. I reckon you can do some really twisted stuff with this, with a huge metal tone and some gnarly single line stuff, feedback etc...all the while not having the rigidity of a drum track, and the pressure of programming/constructing the drum parts hanging around your neck like a manilla noose.

For the surf style dirty/clean players here.......a beach bum secret agent type sound could work perhaps. Quentin Tarantino teams up with a Japanese samurai flick director and does a sci fi gumshoe flick and the antihero is Mike Ruger. Kick that reverb tank baby!!!

For the jazzers........film noir........David Lynch does a PI movie........... a 7' tall, bowlegged, one eyed, 1/2 deaf and fully mute Russian jazz guitar player in top hat and tails..... and a Filipino midget double bass player, standing on a tea box with a pacifier in his mouth, are busking at the entry to the underground subway, when Mike Ruger enters to catch the 3:15 straight to the gang's hideout, in Hell. ( they are both packing heat though, and there is an RPG under the tea box.)

LOL!! ?

Thank you Rene for allowing the 2 mins, unlimited tracks and no ranking.

Just so everyone know's ...... I sent my PM to Rene but left it up to his discretion to allow these changes to the rules. I gave him carte blanche to edit any aspect of "my" rules, if he wanted to take it back to the original 1minute, 4 tracks/instruments.... and Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced competition rules.

However...... 8) just because it is 2 minutes and unlimited tracks-you don't have to use more than is necessary.

PeteM wrote: Just lacking a rough cut and the vital cue points. ?

Never mind the cue points......the editor will choose where and when to use your music if you get selected. ?

Good luck everyone and thanks again.

Seventhson

Chilli I have some stuff down already? sounds really nice and really suits the mood needs major tweaking but I can't wait to get it done to show you?

mity88

Highway Chile wrote: Tamla"Hammeron", and also mity88's last submissions being just guitar and theremin and guitar and e bow respectively, inspired this. There was so much depth their entries, in the sparseness. Less is often more.

I like you....lol...

upon giving this challenge some thought...a whole afternoon, not much i know,
but, any one know that movie "the number 23", i wont say more ?

Highway-Chile

Daniel "Seventhson" Stuart wrote: Chilli I have some stuff down already? sounds really nice and really suits the mood needs major tweaking but I can't wait to get it done to show you?

Seventh, I hope you got my reply to your PM....I was having some trouble sending it....it kept telling me there was no addressee selected. Later it looked like it sent 3 times.....once to Stuart. That's it, just Stuart.LOL!

So you are quite far along already? Did you have something just pop in your head or did you put some thought into it and formulate a sort of road map how you were going to get from A to B.....or intro to outro really? Or did you just plug in and see where it took you? I mean crikey.....the words were hardly out my mouth and you are whipping one up already! Sweetness!

Hammeron

I like that you've brought this one down to guitars only.

Squonk

I think writing soundtrack for film is quite an art, and HC is right that anyone can win this.

We had a previous challenge where we had to compose a piece of music for a hair shampoo Advert, and as much as I could picture one of those Swedish Blondes with perfect Hair in my piece of music, most others thought I was selling a Funeral Policy ?

Good challenge this

Seventhson

Highway Chile wrote:
Daniel "Seventhson" Stuart wrote: Chilli I have some stuff down already? sounds really nice and really suits the mood needs major tweaking but I can't wait to get it done to show you?
Seventh, I hope you got my reply to your PM....I was having some trouble sending it....it kept telling me there was no addressee selected. Later it looked like it sent 3 times.....once to Stuart. That's it, just Stuart.LOL!

So you are quite far along already? Did you have something just pop in your head or did you put some thought into it and formulate a sort of road map how you were going to get from A to B.....or intro to outro really? Or did you just plug in and see where it took you? I mean crikey.....the words were hardly out my mouth and you are whipping one up already! Sweetness!

Just a basic idea hey. Needs work but I know what I want to do ?
Just love making ambient tracks with guitar.

stu

This is too much for me

Hammeron

I dunno, altho at first glance it seems pretty complex I think he has made it rather simple.....the only thing you have to worry about is your guitar and recording it. Suits me just fine.

stu

I finally figured out why I lost so badly in the last round.
My bass was way too loud and I didnt pick it up on the cheap ass speakers I used to get it one last listen before entering.

With my GSP 2101 Artist I have all the cool sounds I need for this one ?