Project Two – Not Quite What We Thought

Today Jordan, Keely and I had a meeting with the director of the film we’re working on: From Swords to Checkouts. Long story short, his vision for the film is actually quite different to what we had originally been pitched from the producer, who we first met with. Therefore, within the meeting we got a lot of clarification in regards to the tone of the film and therefore the music, and some questions we already had were also answered.

First of all, Jonothan (the director) enlightened us to the fact that the film is actually in more of a dry documentary style, similar to What We Do In The Shadows (see trailer below).

So the film is still a comedy, but not quite in the way that we first thought. As the film is not an outright comedy, the sound needs to be less over the top with more of a slower tempo. My homework for tonight will be watching this film, to get a feel for the tone Jonothan wants.

From the meeting we also got that they want us to focus a lot more on the soundtrack then the Foley, as they have a guy on set getting most of the SoundFX while filming. Our deadline is also different, we have until week 12, rather than week 10, although we will still continue with our original schedule in case anything goes wrong and we need extra time.

Another thing we got clarification on was that rather than Western as in cowboys, they meant Western as in our modern music. So the soundtrack will be a mixture of East Asian and modern music, sort of similar to that of Naruto (seen below).

The last (and most exciting) thing we learnt today is that there will be first a screening at Uni, which we’ll be invited to. Also, one of the people who owns a location they’re filming at seems keen to have a screening at his Dojo, and they also want to enter the film into some film festivals if they can. So if all goes to plan, there’ll be lots of exhibition for the film and exposure for our work!

Jonothan is going to be sending us some references and also sending me back an edited Soundlist of the things he’d like us to focus on, which is more stuff like ninja stars being thrown etc, that you wouldn’t actually get on set. He’s also expressed to us that he’d like us to meet with their editor after they’ve filmed, and work collaboratively with him on the sound, which should be a great new experience.

As well as the meeting, today we also made a great start on the soundtrack, with Jordan making a few great little loops that we can use later. Also, Jonothan said that he wanted an elevator-music type excerpt for one of the scenes, which Keely was very keen to work on, so that has been allocated to her and she has started working on that tonight.

All in all, we’re very glad to have had the meeting with the director, as it cleared a lot of things up and gave us a much clearer idea of our tasks.That’s all the exciting stuff for today, thanks for reading!