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When I watch Memory, the main thing I notice is that the characters do not move much. Most of the scenes involve one static person standing or sitting while having a conversation with another static person. There are a few scenes where you see an actor move, e.g. walking down stairs or through a tunnel, but these aren't the majority of the movie. 

Perspective

From a composer's point of view, that causes some issues since there's not as much space in the scenes to fit music into. Or rather, from a director or sound supervisor's point of view, because the speech is present with largely static character shootings, there's potentially not much need for music.

Theme

Watching the film with just dialogue and ambient sound and you can feel that something's missing. I decided to create a theme to fill in the background space. The idea is that it would be present and be mixed into the foreground when required. Throughout every episode, there was a consistent theme with different articulations, instruments and alterations to the melody as the episodes progressed.

Static

Although the music and associated effects add mood to the scenes, you still notice how static the characters are. That's not the fault of the actors (at one point I caught them rehearsing their lines together but I hadn't noticed that they were rehearsing; they portrayed their characters so naturally that I thought they were just having a conversation). If anything it highlights an element that was missing from the script. As I worked on the episodes, I found myself crying out for some space in which to let an instrument shine and carry a melody, even a short one.

It doesn't mean that all static characters are bad. I'm reminded of the face-to-face scenes in Smith And Jones. Simple and concise and it delivered the content in a format that suited the content. That was only for one setting in the series. Others had more movement. Compare that to another comedy series portraying down-to-earth characters. Only Fools and Horses have movement, characters entering and exiting the stage, brilliant dialogue, the dialogue is clear and well recorded and most importantly the characters act real. When people talk, especially when there's more than two people on the scene, the dynamics will change as they move around the room and do the things that people do.

Wrap-up

From my perspective: be nice to your composer, add some movement to your scenes. Better still, add some moving scenes with no speech. It may actually result in less music being required, but if that's what works, then so be it.

If we're being more pragmatic: when you're reading through the scripts, think about the movement of characters. Ensure that there are sufficient instructions or direction for the actors so that they know where and how they will move in character. If there isn't, then you'll have to create it.

An article in the Lessons Learnt series from Award Sounds

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