Perspective of You: Scoring to Transform a Traumatic Narrative
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Abstract
Perspective of You is a project based on true events and created with respect to a traumatic chapter in a Mexican immigrant couple’s life. Their continued success inspired me to create a script based on their personal experience in achieving an American dream. As a film composer, I aspire to work on projects that illuminate social injustice which, this family’s life story allowed me to do as a fellow Mexican American. The decision to base my culminating experience from a script was made as it is not uncommon for film composers in the industry to begin their work without a visual and are instead provided with a script or other supplemental materials. Scoring to a script challenged the storytelling skills within my compositional process and (to my belief provided a deeper understanding) into a specific element that pertains to the film scoring process: considering and imagining more emotional perspectives of the drama beyond what the action of the visual solely provides. My scoring process was initiated through a cyclical piano theme which was developed into the final score version through exploration of thematic development and the soundscape of a hybrid score, which, I felt was appropriate for the extent of the emotional turmoil the couple’s family endured. In addition to the wealth of detail, within the couple’s firsthand accounts that inspired the script, I had to imagine my own emotions within their narrative similar to how film composers carefully analyze characters and plan how to elevate moods at appropriate times. In the process of writing Perspective of You, my ultimate goal was to further develop narrative strengths in my approach to film scoring.
Publication Date
7-1-2023
Campus
Valencia (Spain) Campus
Keywords
hybrid score, scoring to script, adapting emotional narrative, illuminating social injustice
Recommended Citation
Vázquez-Landeros, Ana, "Perspective of You: Scoring to Transform a Traumatic Narrative" (2023). Scoring for Film, Television, and Video Games. 218.
https://remix.berklee.edu/graduate-studies-scoring/218