On this page, you can find the Culminating Experience (CE) Projects for all graduate students from the Berklee College of Music master’s program Scoring for Film, Television and Video Games (SFTV) from 2015 – present. Click on any title for more information and access to the full paper and other deliverables (if available).
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Scoring based on the story: Black and White
Farnaz Tabatabaee
2023The pre-production, compositional process, recording at Air Studios, and post-production of an orchestral piece based on parallel universes are all covered in this project. I used the skills and knowledge I obtained this year in my master's programme in Scoring for Film, Television, and Video Games while doing this. In this process, I looked for two musical environments that were extremely diverse and strongly contrasted one another. In my master's thesis, I'll discuss the inspiration behind this entire composition, the musical themes I created for it, and the orchestral techniques I employed to reflect the piece's conflicting emotions.I aim to take you on a captivating journey to London, Where I had the incredible opportunity to record and conduct my own musical composition at the renowned Air Studios.
This unforgettable experience allowed me to translate my emotions into music. Additionally, I will provide insights into my meticulous post-production process, specifically focusing on mixing and mastering techniques employed in orchestral pieces. Through this project, I hope to encourage aspiring musicians to harness their creativity and transform their innermost feelings into the universal language of music.
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FULL CIRCLE: A CANARIAN ODYSSEY
Edwin Toh
2023Full Circle: A Canarian Odyssey, is a musical exploration of the complex connections between music and nature. Set amidst the lush landscapes of Spain’s Canary Islands, the viewer is drawn into a montage of sceneries, themed around the natural elements of earth, water, and air. More than being a mere travel chronicle, Full Circle explores humanity’s elusive, hidden urge to explore and discover our natural world, especially at a time when ‘virtual living’ and the conveniences afforded by the latest technology take up so much of our modern lives. It highlights the ironic paradox that technological progression toward the future needs to be balanced with regression toward nature – the core origin of humanity. The notion of “coming full circle” is a key feature of this work, with the proposal and subsequent reappearance of musical themes celebrating the very miracle of life itself. A humble homage to the knowledge of those who have come before us and an aspiration for those who will come after – Full Circle makes the bold assertion that even though change may be the only constant, the essence of music, nature, and humanity will not be so different after all.
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El Pescador: An orchestral piece based on Sorolla’s works
Julián Trujiillo Bonilla
2023This written work records a description and analysis of the most important aspects of the 50+ orchestral piece "El Pescador" based on three paintings by Joaquín Sorolla, one of the most representative artists in Spain, whose 100th anniversary of death is commemorated this year. The works represented are: Going Out to Sea (1909), The Breakwater of San Sebastian (1915), Arrival of the Fishing Boats (1899). These paintings are recreated and articulated in a script proposed by the composer, in order to generate a musical work according to industry standars with a clear narrative full of emotion that pays homage to the prolific valencian artist, but that also evidence the learning process, preparation and a sample of the author's compositional style.
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Perspective of You: Scoring to Transform a Traumatic Narrative
Ana Vázquez-Landeros
2023Perspective 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.
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Aesthetics Behind Alita’s Trial
Yida Wang
2023This thesis delves into the profound impact of film scoring on the author's aesthetic sensibilities and psychological disposition, unraveling the transformative influence of this artistic practice within the realm of cinematic expression. Through an introspective exploration of personal experiences and reflections, this paper illuminates the intricate interplay between the auditory and visual dimensions of film, underscoring the profound resonance that film scores evoke and their enduring imprint on the author's creative consciousness.Key words: film scoring, aesthetics
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Redemption: Self-reflection through composition and recording
Yang Weng
2023“Redemption” is a project that represents my culminating experience after a year of study at Berklee College of Music. The main focus of this project is to analyze an original three-minute composition, “Redemption”, which is based on a script and written by myself. Through this paper, I analyze the process of this project’s development: including its ideation, narration, composition, orchestration, preparation, recording, conducting, and post- production. With the use of text, tables, and musical figures, I explain my thought process regarding this composition in detail, all the way from its start to its end, focusing in particular on the aspects of preparation, composition/orchestration, recording, and mixing. Furthermore, I also reflect on the learning journey I experienced through the Master of Music Degree in Scoring for Film, Television and Video Games at Berklee College of Music (Valencia), with this final project as its grand conclusion.
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A Reflection on The Song of Achilles and Patroclus
Felicity G. Williams
2023The intent of this paper is to delve deeper into the narrative inspiration, analyze the musical choices of the composition, as well as reflect on the experience of recording at AIR Studios. My goal for the culminating experience was to compose a piece representative of myself as a composer and the moods for which I most enjoy composing: romance and melancholy. After months of searching for a video or story to compose my final piece to, I decided to score several passages from Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles. The overarching themes of the novel are love and grief which tie in beautifully with my original goal. Once I had settled on this text as my source of inspiration, I moved forward with developing themes and motifs that helped to reflect the depth of the characters’ emotions and the landscape of the scenes. Ultimately, I finished my experience by hearing the piece brought to life through the musicians at AIR Studios.
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Jade Bones: A Fantasy Score inspired by The Green Bone Saga
Mady Wood
2023My culminating experience, or my master’s thesis at Berklee College of Music, submitted in partial fulfillment of the master’s program in Scoring for Film, TV and Video Games, was to score an original 3-minute cue for orchestra set to an original script. The score, Jade Bones, was recorded in the final semester of the program, at AIR Studios in London.
The purpose of this paper is to chronicle the creative and technical process of my culminating experience from conceptualization to realization, explore my obstacles and inspiration, as well as reflect on my musical and personal growth throughout the duration of this project.
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Labyrinths
Nipun Bhatnagar
2022Labyrinths is a documentation of my process of writing music for the film Perspectives and all the events that took place and lessons I learnt that led up to it. Writing music for film is always challenging in a variety of ways. Composing the music is, of course a vital part of the process, but there are many others. Interpreting the film, communicating with the director, working around last minute changes and making hundreds of tiny decisions that will affect the whole outcome in convoluted ways are just a few of the other parts of the whole process – each as significant as the rest. The first half of this dissertation provides an insight into the challenges I faced during the process, starting from trying to find a film to score for my final project to the day of the recording sessions at AIR Studios and the ways I found to overcome them. The second half of this paper talks about the musical aspects of the cues I recorded – analyzing them from thematic, compositional, orchestrational and developmental lenses and how the two cues became what they are. It also describes some of the tools that were used to tell the story of the film musically.
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The Wolves of Jericho
Joshua Brazil
2022My Culminating Experience project, “The Wolves of Jericho” is a composition intended to be presented with a registered screenplay I wrote with my brother and my father. Both of them are also both professional journalists; my brother is a senior editor at the Los Angeles Times and my dad is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter. So, it was a good way to learn from them and share our interest in film, television and storytelling. The purpose of the composition is to provide a sound and tone for the screenplay when presenting the story to filmmakers. The script is registered with the Writers Guild of America and is currently undergoing revision based on feedback and notes from industry contacts, and thus, I felt that creating a trailer type composition that constructs a musical tone and feeling with the script could help when presenting the idea to producers and potential collaborators. The script is based on true events and tells the story of a woman who worked as a detective during the U.S. Civil War era. My culminating experience project describes the process of writing the script as well as the methodology used in conceptualizing and writing the music for the story, and how I envisioned the types of scenes and imagery that would be present for each section of my final project. The project concludes at its highest point of recording at Air studios, the preparation for recording day, and the process of mixing and mastering the final recording.
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Look To The East
Luke Celenza
2022Composition for visual media is a multifaceted practice. I have learned that it requires many different skill-sets spread across several parts of the process. Establishing oneself within these industries is the culmination of years of study, practice, and probably a bit of luck too. In addition to this, creating a professional film, television show, or game, requires teams of people, each an expert in their own respective field who have come together to produce something. It is the marriage of these different people; the musicians, conductors, engineers, editors, and many more, who bring our compositions to life, and eventually, onwards to the big screen. In roughly the first third of this thesis I have chosen to not so briefly highlight some of my musical past, leading up to arriving in Valencia at Berklee’s Campus. I feel that the journey that has led me here, like everyone else, is unique to me, and has helped to shape the kind of composer and person that I am. In the second two-thirds or so, I have explained my process for creating my Culminating Experience Project, from selecting a scene, analyzing the score of the original, and finding ways to best navigate it on my own through a combination of insight new and old. Mostly, the cue I wrote stems from intuition, drawing on harmonic and melodic ideas that could have come from any number of influences soaked up over the years. I like to think that everything can be an opportunity to learn, grow, and better oneself when approached with the right attitude. I do my utmost to take new things and add them to my ever-brewing stew of musical information. The key after that, is to figure out how to strain out the bits that go together best when pouring that stew into a bowl. Because the goal is certainly not to have a stew with every ingredient in the world, the goal is equally not to write something with every idea you’ve ever learned. I believe therein lies the kind of musical maturity that can only come with experience and intuition.
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LOST IN COSMOS: The Journey of the London Recording in AIR Studios
Pei Chin Lee
20222022 will undoubtedly be an important year for me, in which I have experienced recordings of film scoring that I will never have in my previous scoring career. In this reflective paper, I’ll talk about the whole process of my film scoring process for my CE collaboration project. Including finding the collaboration short film from the beginning, analyzing scripts and plots, composing, orchestrating, recording, conducting at AIR Studios, and post-production. I hope this reflective paper can completely register the whole process in detail and make a summary for this year.
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Yin and Yang - Reimagining Music Through Reading
Sara Fakhry
2022After a year filled with active learning, getting our hands dirty with DAWs1, orchestrating duets and many sleepless nights, this project finally came to fruition. This project aims to discuss a subject that I am very interested in; how music can redefine a whole story. Since music has that ability, it goes beyond saying that music has a very intimate relationship with films, hence the importance of music in movies is one that should never ever be understated. This project however takes a look at how music can redefine a written-based story and transform the reading experience. I have always been fond of reading and most often when I take up a book, there is some sort of music accompanying me while reading. This is because music can always transform the underlying emotion of the imagination the reader conjures up and because of that the reading experience is heightened. This is why for the Culminating Experience I decided to compose a piece based on a short story and apply all the things we have learned this year from understanding the narrative, creating a realistic mockup, orchestrating, creating the score and parts on Finale2 to finally preparing the Pro Tools3 session to record at one of the most renowned studios in the word with some of the best musicians in the world. It goes to say that the process of composing a piece based on a text was very different than that of composing a piece synced to film, but the purpose of this piece was to capture the true essence of the emotion of the story rather than syncing and spotting everything to perfection.
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La Historia de la Sima
Jose Benjamín Falces Vaquero
2022This paper shows the result of the Culminating Experience that I have carried out as a student of Berklee's Scoring for Film, Television and Video Games master's program. After a very intense year in which I have acquired an amazing variety of knowledge, I have been able to apply everything I learned to produce the animated short film La Historia de la Sima. This Culminating Experience requires knowledge of musical composition, as well as interpreting the narrative of a story, audio mixing and editing, and the ability to find and work with potential collaborators to make the production. That is, apply everything learned during a year in the same work. In this document I will explain the entire process that has led me to create this animated short film, from the search for an idea and the creation of a script to the contact with collaborators to record the voiceover and design the animation. I will also talk about technical aspects that have been a great motivation for me. I will mention the musical techniques used and the relationship of the themes with the characters. I will also talk about post production work, editing and audio mixing. Being able to carry out this work on "la Historia de la Sima" has been especially exciting, since it has a very personal background. For this reason I have tried to reflect in the final result the importance of this story for me, trying to capture my personality as a composer in the music.
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The Odyssey
Carolina Fontecha
2022This project describes the pre-production, composition process, recording at Air Studios, and post-production of an orchestral piece based on the narrative of some parts of the ancient Greek poem The Odyssey. In doing so, I applied the knowledge and techniques I learned this year in my master's program in Scoring for Film, Television and Video Games.In this process, I tried to find three different musical atmospheres to develop my compositional skills in three different musical genres. In this master thesis, I will talk about the technical steps I took to create a midi mockup, the analysis of the musical themes I composed for this piece, and the orchestral techniques I used in some passages. I will try to use my words to take you on my trip to London, where I had the wonderful experience of recording and conducting my piece at Air Studios. I will also show you the post-production process I follow when mixing and mastering an orchestral piece. Finally, I will show you how I worked with an illustrator to create images for a piece of music based on a story. I hope this project will inspire future students to pursue an idea that motivates them to make music and work to make it happen.
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The Dog and the Dragon
Jacob Hanna
2022The Culminating Experience (CE) is the final project for students enrolled in the Berklee Valencia Master of Music in Scoring for Film, Television, and Video Games. Students select a piece of audiovisual material or a script, and compose a musical cue of no more than 3 minutes, which they must then mock up, orchestrate, and provide completed, professional sheet music for. At the end of the process, students travel to London to record their cues in the world-famous AIR Studios Lyndhurst. The CE is less focused on the “getting it done” project-based aspect of the recording, and more focused on the experiential learning process it causes students to go through. This learning experience is invaluable as an opportunity to synthesize and apply the numerous skills learned over the course of the year-long master’s degree program. I found the experience to be enlightening, motivating, and extremely valuable. By pushing me well outside my comfort zone, the CE induced substantial personal and professional growth, and motivated me to begin setting goals that will eventually lead to similar recording experiences in the future.
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Finding Haku: A Rescore of Spirited Away
Mark Hendry
2022Finding Haku represents the culmination of what I have learned at Berklee. This paper aims to reflect and analyse how I approached my time here at Berklee and what I did to prepare for the final stage of the program that is recording at AIR studios with a world class orchestra. Although the pressure and responsibility felt immense at times, the process of creating a piece to record was incredibly enriching and exciting. From the early stages of looking for a project to score, to standing in front of the orchestra I will reflect upon each step taken over the previous months. Through the analysis of my piece you will see the musical and narrative decisions I made as well as the struggles and realisations I made along the way. There were many composers and artists that inspired me to compose Finding Haku, I’m sure much of it subconsciously. I’ve included some of the most important inspirations and how they informed my writing process.
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Timelapse Antigua': A little suite for timelapses and drone takes of Antigua Guatemala
Isaac Hernández Campos
2022This final project for the Scoring for Film, Television and Videogame’s Masters (SFTV) at Berklee Valencia, consists of a score for a 3 min. video of timelapses and drone takes by the Guatemalan astrophotographer Sergio Montúfar, which will be included in a documentary called “La Antigua Guatemala Suspendida en el Tiempo” (Antigua Guatemala, suspended in time), recorded at the lockdown, and produced and directed also by Montúfar. The video scored is a chronological collage of different footage of the Guatemalan town of Antigua Guatemala and its surroundings, from early morning to midnight; it’s worth mentioning that the nature of the video is temporary as the photographer is going to do a re-edit based on the final version of the cue. This paper describes my overall process, from the initial approach to the whole Culminating Experience (CE), the analysis of the video, the dissection of its thematic and musical construction and some brief details about the recording and the postproduction of the result, a 3-movement little suite, called “Timelapse Antigua”.
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Man Against Dream
Niccolo Hilgendorf
2022Man Against Dream is the score to a script, but it is also a deep exploration into the bridge between music and the written word, and my attempt to tell a story – or a portion of a story, more accurately – through music alone. I chose this project for my Culminating Experience because I wanted to explore the essence of storytelling and the language of music, and because I wanted to challenge myself to score to something more ethereal than picture: words. My approach was to use a combination of literal scoring, in chronological order and following a timecode, and a more conceptual, less linear approach, centered around creating specific moods and developing themes. I worked hard to find a balance between extremes, and my hope is that I have succeeded in creating a final product that is capable not only of telling a story but also of standing alone as simply a piece of music.
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Moon Jelly: A Journey to Find My Musical Color
Sue (Jinny) Lee
2022This project describes the process of creating music by MIDI, having a live recording session at AIR Studios, and the post-production of mixing. Moon Jelly is a project that I implied most of what I have learned in my past 10 months at Berklee Valencia as a master’s student. Every music that I write for new projects could always be done better and improved in any way after looking back to it, which I think is a natural thing that happens to a lot of composers including my peers. However, for this project I was able to reach the point where I was satisfied enough with the result considering the provided environment. The provided environment here meaning not only the unexpected external obstacles but also the internal struggles which will be described shortly. As a classically trained person for half of my life, there was not a limit or an end for learning which tremendously helped me as a starting composer. However, this had a snowball effect on me which at some point I was clearly overwhelmed while not noticing it. I have always had to spend more time trying to run away from the ‘predictable’, ‘obvious’, and ‘simple’ progression subjectively judged by myself in my own circle. After this short but long thesis project I am now realizing that I do not have to run away from it, but I honestly can’t say that I have figured out the solution for this yet. I am sure that it will take a while for me to find the exact answer if there is one, but I see myself at the end of that tunnel soon.
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Spring
Yuna Lee
2022This project used an animation video titled “Spring” and is composed, considering the organization of an orchestra of 51 players to be recorded in Air Studios in London. “Spring” is a result of a new creative work produced with the existing video and my music through analyzing the existing music for visual media scoring, finding my visual narrative scoring method that well matches various storylines, and using various musical genres and my musical background. This study includes my approach using musical elements and analysis of transformation techniques for musical forms and themes to support narrative storytelling. The effect created by audiovisual elements for visual media presents to us a stronger impact than listening to music or watching a video does. “How does film music operate?” “What are the processes in which the music is made?” “What makes one make musical attempts in the processes?” “What makes composers excited and move to make them?” This study is a course of a long journey to find the author’s answers.
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Paperman
Meiling Liu
2022Paperman is a final project representing the culmination of a year's worth of study at Berklee College of Music, Valencia Campus. The main focus of this project is to provide the making of the orchestral music cue for a short animation film from WALT DISNEY Animation Studios to establish a sense of who I am as a film composer, reflecting my challenges, desires, and dreams of being a storyteller through the music. This thesis explains my entire process from the beginning: how I found and searched for a video, how I prepared before creating music, and then the process of composing, orchestrating, and preparing the score and parts for the orchestra recording session. In addition, it pointed out how I prepared the conducting for the Air Studios recording session in London, the post-production about mixing, and the conclusion of the learning journey and this final project. In addition, this thesis mentions how the music reflects through the film by the composer herself. This project is designed to ensure fulfillment of the Degree of Master of Music in Scoring for Film, Television, and Video Games at Berklee College of Music, Valencia Campus.
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The tomb of Alexander the Great
Aleix Losa
2022After a year of trying to find myself as an artist and as an ever-growing person, I am now at the culmination of that experience. I finally have the chance to set my final piece of music, which will be recorded at Air Studios in London. The amount of grace I feel at this moment is incredible and overwhelming at the same time. I cannot put into words what is going on in this moment not only in my head, but also in my heart and emotions. Everything is a beautiful jumble of realisations, adventures and new bonds that will surely last for a long time. Since I graduated from university, I knew I wanted to go down the path of film scoring. Actually, I just thought I wanted to be a storyteller, whether it was through films, theatre, or just using music as a path to bring the audience together. I've studied music since I was a little kid, and it's been with me for a long time now. So I wanted to show the world how much good music has done for me, and how much better and greater it can do for future generations.
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Our Planet: The Search for Structure
Arun Mangrulkar
2022In this reflective paper, I address the philosophical quandaries that I have confronted this year as I learned to adapt to this industry of music for visual media. The Master of Music in Scoring for Film, Television, and Video Games program at Berklee culminates in a final project requiring the student to compose, orchestrate, conduct, and produce a three-minute score for a full symphony orchestra to be set either to picture or to a narrative. The cue was recorded at AIR Studios with some of the finest orchestral musicians in the world. I decided to dedicate my project to spreading the message about the importance of renewable energy. I re-scored a video from the World Wildlife Foundation about the melting of the ice caps in hopes that it will draw attention to the impact of our economy’s actions on the environment and the effective and ineffective methods of combatting this very real climate crisis. In tackling this cue, I was forced to draw on every single skill I worked to develop during these extremely intense nine months at Berklee. I've had struggles with mental health, with imposter syndrome, with work inefficiency, and with time management. During this year, I have worked to develop skills to combat all of these much more effectively than I ever could before. These skills were put to the test in this project, and I am quite satisfied by the findings.
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The Marriage of Music to Picture
Youssef Moustafa
2022This dissertation explores the techniques, skills and mindset required to be able to marry music to picture in the most fitting way possible. The mindset and way of thinking is just as important as the technical skills as it will show what is the appropriate way to mentally approach, to many, a daunting task that is film scoring. No matter how motivated or inspired a person can be, it is a tough industry to be part of and the program is not afraid to announce that to its students. The paper will also go through an in-depth look into the compositional process in relation to the London recordings at AIR studios, and my personal approach to having a successful project overall due to the habits that I have developed across the entire academic year.