Garage Band Lesson

In our lesson on garage band I learnt about how music is used in films to add to the complete effect a film has on its viewer. I learnt that music is used to create an atmosphere or just add to compliment movement. For example music can create dramatic tension by the use of one instrument, a single drum beating as an example. In this lesson we drew some graphs to represent what is going on in the music in correlation with the film. Along the x axis would be the time of the film, and the y axis would be the volume of the music, in my idea of the graph, you could change the y axis to pitch but I will stick me volume. So the total graph length is the total time of the film including the highest peeks to be the loudest points in the music and the lower one the quieter parts.

One film I have looked at to discuss its music in relation to the film is: The Black Hole
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5_Msrdg3Hk

This short film would not have a very interesting music time graph however it can help us to understand how it works. When the noise of the photocopier is being used the graph would have a small raise in the it. This is continuous throughout the film so the graph would have little bumps for the beep all the way through. Although some people would not say this is music its continuous beat creates the effect of music however it is just one noise repeated. Another noise we hear often through this short film is the noise when the “black hole” is being used, the humming. This is then set in our minds when the hole is used, so we may not even have to see the hole being used but hear the sound and we will know what is happening. Toward the end move and more is happening so the noise level is raised, so our graph will start to look as if it is climaxing. And this is where it finishes, at the peek of the climax, the loudest point of this film is the point of which it ends.

Not many films do this, most short films will climax in the middle and then gradually fall back to a normal level to finish on. But I believe for this film the music is well suited and creates an atmosphere that I believe was meant to be portrayed in this piece.