How music creates and developed the characters?
instrumental and electronic music are always Illustrative- Tarkovsky
Sound – building space with texture, tonality, different sound systems for FLAT screen.
Why do I use certain instruments / software / sounds in this particular project?
What do we want to communicate with the music?
The link with Micachu discussing her approach in making the soundtrack to “Under the skin” did not work, therefore I was trying to find it online. I ended up reading a few more interviews with Mica and listening to some of their soundtracks from different projects.
“Under the skin” is a movie directed by Jonathan Glazer and it was the first movie Mica made a score for. It was highly adored by the critics and audience, as it’s telling a story of its own and evokes so many feelings, oscillating between human and otherworldly emotions and desires. Mica’s approach here was first dividing movie into themes and the applying them into the footage. Some elements are representing multiple elements (i.e. cymbals represent the protagonist’s character and where she’s from, which in this case is an alien part of her. Those cymbals are appearing in the beginning and thorough the movie, representing an alien form.
In one of the interviews, she explains how she approached Jackie – a very strong, traumatised, but also delicate and sassy character in Pablo Larraín’s biopic about Jackie Kennedy. Choosing a limited pallet of instruments, she assign each of them to one of Jackie’s characteristics and played with them making the score. What’s interesting, she did not see the movie prior to composing the music. It got added to it later and apparently, some scores were placed differently than what Mica’s plan was initially.
I love how the musician stayed in the traditional character of the production, by using a supposedly classical way of scoring (orchestral music, mainly strings), but also managed to break out of the tradition with unconventional harmonies and mixing creating an original and distinctive character of the soundtrack.
https://www.thefader.com/2016/11/14/mica-levi-jackie-under-the-skin-soundtrack-interview
https://www.indiewire.com/2014/11/mica-levi-on-why-composing-under-the-skin-was-really-mental-190232/
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/mar/15/mica-levi-under-the-skin-soundtrack
