MUSIC EDITING: PROCESS TO PRACTICE—BRIDGING THE VARIOUS PERSPECTIVES IN FILMMAKING AND STORY-TELLING

S Music and the Moving Image Conference May 27th 29th, 2016 1. Loewe Friday, May 27, 2016, 9:30AM – 11:00AM MUSIC EDITING: PROCESS TO PRACTICE—BRIDGING THE VARIOUS PERSPECTIVES IN FILMMAKING AND STORY-TELLING Nancy Allen, Film Music Editor While the technical aspects of music editing and film-making continue to evolve, the fundamental nature of story-telling remains the same. Ideally, the role of the music editor exists at an intersection between the Composer, Director, and Picture Editor, where important creative decisions are made. This privileged position allows the Music Editor to better explore how to tell the story through music and bring the evolving vision of the film into tighter focus. 2. Loewe Friday, May 27, 2016, 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM GREAT EXPECTATIONS? THE CHANGING ROLE OF AUDIOVISUAL INCONGRUENCE IN CONTEMPORARY MULTIMEDIA Dave Ireland, University of Leeds Film-music moments that are perceived to be incongruent, misfitting or inappropriate have often been described as highly memorable. These claims can in part be explained by the separate processing of sonic and visual information that can occur when incongruent combinations subvert expectations of an audiovisual pairing in which the constituent components share a greater number of properties. Drawing upon a sequence from the TV sitcom Modern Family in which images of violent destruction are juxtaposed with performance of tranquil classical music, this paper highlights the increasing prevalence of such uses of audiovisual difference in contemporary multimedia. Indeed, such principles even now underlie a form of Internet meme entitled ‘Whilst I play unfitting music’. Such examples serve to emphasize the evolving functions of incongruence, emphasizing the ways in which such types of audiovisual pairing now also serve as a marker of authorial style and a source of intertextual parody. Drawing upon psychological theories of expectation and ideas from semiotics that facilitate consideration of the potential disjunction between authorial intent and perceiver response, this paper contends that such forms of incongruence should be approached from a psycho-semiotic perspective. Through consideration of the aforementioned examples, it will be demonstrated that this approach allows for: more holistic understanding of evolving expectations and attitudes towards audiovisual incongruence that may shape perceiver response; and a more nuanced mode of analyzing factors that may influence judgments of film-music fit and appropriateness. MUSICAL META-MORPHOSIS: BREAKING THE FOURTH WALL THROUGH DIEGETIC-IZING AND METACAESURA Rebecca Eaton, Texas State University In “The Fantastical Gap,” Stilwell suggests that metadiegetic music—which puts the audience “inside a character’s head”— begets such a strong spectator bond that it becomes “a kind of musical ‘direct address,’ threatening to break the fourth wall that is the screen.” While Stillwell theorizes a breaking of the fourth wall through audience over-identification, in this paper I define two means of film music transgression that potentially unsuture an audience, exposing film qua film: “diegetic-izing” and “metacaesura.” While these postmodern techniques 1) reveal film as a constructed artifact, and 2) thus render the spectator a more, not less, “troublesome viewing subject,” my analyses demonstrate that these breaches of convention still further the narrative aims of their respective films. Both Buhler and Stilwell analyze music that gradually dissolves from non-diegetic to diegetic. “Diegeticizing” unexpectedly reveals what was assumed to be nondiegetic as diegetic, subverting Gorbman’s first principle of invisibility. In parodies including Blazing Saddles and Spaceballs, this reflexive uncloaking plays for laughs. The Truman Show and the Hunger Games franchise skewer live soundtrack musicians and timpani—ergo, film music itself—as tools of emotional manipulation or propaganda. “Metacaesura” serves as another means of breaking the fourth wall. Metacaesura arises when non-diegetic music cuts off in media res. While diegeticizing renders film music visible, metacaesura renders it audible (if only in hindsight). In Honda’s “Responsible You,” Pleasantville, and The Truman Show, the dramatic cessation of nondiegetic music compels the audience to acknowledge the constructedness of both film and their own worlds. Partial Bibliography Brown, Tom. Breaking the Fourth Wall: Direct Address in the Cinema. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012. Buhler, James. “Analytical and Interpretive Approaches to Film Music (II): Interpreting Interactions of Music and Film.” In Film Music: An Anthology of Critical Essays, edited by K.J. Donnelly, 39-61. Edinburgh University Press, 2001. Buhler, James, Anahid Kassabian, David Neumeyer, and Robynn Stillwell. “Roundtable on Film Music.” Velvet Light Trap 51 (Spring 2003): 73-91. Buhler, James, Caryl Flinn, and David Neumeyer, eds. Music and Cinema. Hanover: Wesleyan/University Press of New England, 2000. Eaton, Rebecca M. Doran. “Unheard Minimalisms: The Function of the Minimalist Technique in Film Scores.” PhD diss., The University of Texas at Austin, 2008. Gorbman, Claudia. Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music. Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1987. Harries, Dan. Film Parody. London: British Film Institute, 2000. Kassabian, Anahid. Hearing Film: Tracking Identifications in Contemporary Hollywood Film Music. New York: Routledge, 2001. Neumeyer, David. “Diegetic/nondiegetic: A Theoretical Model.” Music and the Moving Image 2.1 (2009): 26–39. Stilwell, Robynn J. “The Fantastical Gap Between Diegetic and Nondiegetic.” In Beyond the Soundtrack, edited by Daniel Goldmark, Lawrence Kramer, and Richard Leppert, 184202. Berkeley: The University of California Press, 2007. REDEFINING PERSPECTIVE IN ATONEMENT: HOW MUSIC SET THE STAGE FOR MODERN MEDIA CONSUMPTION Lillie McDonough, New York University One of the most striking narrative devices in Joe Wright’s film adaptation of Atonement (2007) is in the way Dario Marianelli’s original score dissolves the boundaries between diagetic and non-diagetic music at key moments in the drama. I argue that these moments carry us into a liminal state where the viewer is simultaneously in the shoes of a first person character in the world of the film and in the shoes of a third person viewer aware of the underscore as a hallmark of the fiction of a film in the first place. This reflects the experience of Briony recalling the story, both as participant and narrator, at the metalevel of the audience. The way the score renegotiates the customary musical playing space creates a meta-narrative that resembles one of the fastest growing forms of digital media of today: videogames. At their core, video games work by placing the player in a liminal state of both a viewer who watches the story unfold and an agent who actively takes part in the story’s creation. In fact, the growing trend towards hyperrealism and virtual reality intentionally progressively erodes the boundaries between the first person agent in real the world and agent on screen in the digital world. Viewed through this lens, the philosophy behind the experience of Atonement’s score and sound design appears to set the stage for way our consumption of media has developed since Atonement’s release in 2007. Mainly, it foreshadows and highlights a prevalent desire to progressively blur the lines between media and life. 3. Room 303, Friday, May 27, 2016, 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM HOLLYWOOD ORCHESTRATORS AND GHOSTWRITERS OF THE 1960s AND 1970s: THE CASE OF MOACIR SANTOS Lucas Bonetti, State University of Campinas In Hollywood in the 1960s and 1970s, freelance film composers trying to break into the market saw ghostwriting as opportunities to their professional networks. Meanwhile, more renowned composers saw freelancers as means of easing their work burdens. The phenomenon was so widespread that freelancers even sometimes found themselves ghostwriting for other ghostwriters. Ghostwriting had its limitations, though: because freelancers did not receive credit, they could not grow their resumes. Moreover, their music often had to follow such strict guidelines that they were not able to showcase their own compositional voices. Being an orchestrator raised fewer questions about authorship, and orchestrators usually did not receive credit for their work. Typically, composers provided orchestrators with detailed sketches, thereby limiting their creative possibilities. This story would suggest that orchestrators were barely more than copyists—though with more intense workloads. This kind of thankless work was especially common in scoring for episodic television series of the era, where the fast pace of the industry demanded more agility and productivity. Brazilian composer Moacir Santos worked as a Hollywood ghostwriter and orchestrator starting in 1968. His experiences exemplify the difficulties of these professions during this era. In this paper I draw on an interview-based research I conducted in the Los Angeles area to show how Santos’s experiences showcase the difficulties of being a Hollywood outsider at the time. In particular, I examine testimony about racial prejudice experienced by Santos, and how misinformation about his ghostwriting activity has led to misunderstandings among scholars about his contributions. SING A SONG!: CHARITY BAILEY AND INTERRACIAL MUSIC EDUCATION ON 1950s NYC TELEVISION Melinda Russell, Carleton College Rhode Island native Charity Bailey (1904-1978) helped to define a children’s music market in print and recordings; in each instance the contents and forms she developed are still central to American children’s musical culture and practice. After study at Juilliard and Dalcroze, Bailey taught music at the Little Red School House in Greenwich Village from 1943-1954, where her students included Mary Travers and Eric Weissberg. Bailey’s focus on African, African-American, and Car