Like the Pied Piper, Fred Story came to town this weekend to enchant us with his music. Fred will be scoring Saying Goodbye, and his company Concentrix will be handling the sound design. Fred guest lectured in class yesterday and it was his idea to treat it like a spotting session, which is the meeting he has with clients when watching a movie for the first time. This way he could teach the students while they got to participate in a part of the post process they don’t normally see.
At the beginning of class, we all watched the latest version of the film together. Fred really seemed touched by it and said he was thrilled his team was going to be a part of it. Of course, we loved hearing that! Then he talked about some of his ideas for the score. He wants to make sure he keeps the music subtle, so it doesn’t distract from the emotion we’ve created on screen. He plans to pick an instrument to represent Gabriel the cat (he’s thinking either violin or oboe). Fred also said he can use music cues to help people recognize the time jumps and flashbacks. All of this sounds great to us, and we can’t wait to see the magic he works on our movie.
Then today the SC Film Commission hosted Fred presenting a workshop on sound design to filmmakers from around the state. First he showed us clips from films he had scored and talked through how he made his musical choices. From our interactions with Fred, we already knew he was good people, but after experiencing examples of his work, we are thrilled to ‘hear’ our film is in good hands. Later he showed us various scenes from other movies and talked about what the music did and did not do for the film. He also offered everyone pointers on how to find the right person to do your score and sound design, and how to communicate with them to make sure everyone has the same vision. The whole weekend was music to our ears.