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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MAIN STREET’S FILM SCORE: Trend fusion in search of a dissident cinema
Nerea Alberdi
2017This study has two main objectives. The first of these is intimately attached to the composer, Kosma, and lies in finding out the main features of his hungarian-french contribution to the typically casticist, folkloric and symphonist music of the Spanish 1950’s cinema, as well as locating and connecting his work to the context, establishing a comparative framework between Kosma’s work and his Spanish, American and European peers’s film scores, in order to set up parallels and differences between them, and study the first contribution of a "French"avant-garde composer to our cinema. For that purpose we will analyze the soundtrack of Main Street in depth, with the aim of identifying the most relevant features of the music itself and the relationship between music and picture. Previously, we will conduct a broad study on the context of the work: the culture situation, with special attention to cinema, during the first two decades of Francoism, and the different film music models that consolidated during the 1940s and 50s, which were mainly based on a dichotomy between the European authorial music, and the American industrialist one. The second objective of this work encompasses not only Kosma’s music, but also the movie’s diegetic preexisting music, selected probably by Bardem himself. It lies in discovering to what extent and by which procedures Main Street’s score contributes to the movie’s political detractor character and its realistic and testimonial purpose.
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In Search of Forgiveness: The Throne
Michael Wonyoung Choi
2017In this paper, I will analyze the compositions by Jun Seok Bang in the historical period drama movie The Throne (2015) because Bang brings together elements of Korean traditional music with western orchestration in strategic ways to strengthen the emotional narrative of the film for the contemporary Korean audiences and beyond. More specifically, I will analyze two songs that are central to portraying the key concept of the film: forgiveness. These two songs reflect the stages of forgiveness from anger to sadness. I will highlight how the composer achieved emotional effects through his musical choices in instrument use and orchestration.
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The Good the Bad and the Ugly: An Inside Look into one of Hollywood’s Greatest Scores
Jonathan Nathaniel Durham
2017How did "The Good the Bad and the Ugly" become what it is today?
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The sound of Thomas Newman: Planned or Accidental?
Iran Garcia
2017Analysis of Thomas Newman’s artistry, compositional approach and creative tendencies.
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Orchestral Emotions
Joaquín García
2017This paper will analyze the cue Test Drive from the movie How to Train your Dragon and it will demonstrate which elements the composer uses to represent the characters’ feelings. The study will examine which specific melodies and instruments are associated with each feeling. The proposal is to find the compositional technique that the composer employs to associate each emotion with a specific melody or instrument, and therefore be able to reproduce these techniques in future compositions.
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Dorian Mode: An Examination of Its Usage and Context In Film Music
Sean Goldman
2017It is the goal of the paper to identify the aspects of Dorian that allow for its frequent and effective use. Since the practice of music notation, the pitch set currently understood as Dorian has been used as a prominent scale with a wide range of usages. Ultimately, the underlying thesis indicates that the Dorian church mode’s large range of affective qualities and general versatility is the product of its underlying inherent neutrality.
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SCORING WITH SOUND: EVOKING THE DESOLATION OF THE AMERICAN FRONTIER IN THE HOMESMAN
Christopher Heckman
2017The shifting dynamic toward a more involved approach to film scoring is glaringly evident in Marco Beltrami’s work for the 2014 western drama, The Homesman. Beltrami’s involvement in the early stages of the project’s production and his propensity for adopting unorthodox, innovative approaches to sound work in symbiosis with the other aspects of the film to create a richer, fuller, and more meaningful piece of cinema. In the body of this paper, I will aim to analyze Marco Beltrami’s work on The Homesman to better understand the processes and logic he utilized to create this phenomenal score and the effect his increased involvement had on the overall narrative of the film.
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Minimalist compositions on maximum production: The interstellar score and its storytelling
Luis Ariel Juarez Guzman
2017On this paper, we will focus on this storytelling approach and how the production side of it gives more resources for effective storytelling. We will see how music was used in the film, the structure of the themes, the unconventional timbres of the score, the mix, and much more to see how all of the decisions are based on one premise: To help tell the story of the film.
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Narrative analysis and comparison of two scores by Jerry Goldsmith and Tangerine Dream for the movie LEGEND by Ridley Scott
Nikita Kamenskiy
2017There are a lot of movies for analysing, but I choose movie LEGEND by Ridley Scott. When you watching a movie sometimes you think: “I wish in this moment was another scene, or why director not showing more about this character?” Well, Ridley Scott gives a lot of opportunities to find out more and more about this movie because there was released several versions of it. I took two most popular versions that are European version (director’s cut) with Jerry Goldsmith score owned by 20 Century Fox and American Theatrical version with Tangerine Dream score owned by Universal. I will analyse how different music blends for the same picture and what feeling it brings for both versions. How small changes in picture making influence for the score, music approach and story line.
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Diversified ways of approaching distinct instrumentation and arrangements for The Witcher 3 and their predominant influence in the Video Game
Anish Emmanuel Kanti Mahanthi
2017Through detailed analysis, I will identify and compare various cue’s taken from all zones in the game with regard to use of slavic instrumentation and vocals, orchestration/arrangements, with melodic and harmonic structure. Furthermore, certain methods of implementation, use of diegetic score and song scoring will be touched upon in correlation to the analysis in order to identify how a sense of immersion is created in the video game.
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Themes of the Halo Trilogy: The application, significance and development of thematic material in Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2 and Halo 3
King Heng Leung
2017Is it worth it to investigate music from a video game? Unlike linear non- interactive music for visual media such as films and television, video game music is somewhat restrained by the essential interactivity, limiting its horizons of melody and harmony, probably leading some to criticize the simple and looped nature of video game music. One can argue that the Halo series/franchise has grown to massive popularity because of its unique combination of characters, plot, gameplay and art direction – one simply cannot resist being a super armored soldier shooting different aliens across the galaxy and on gigantic ring structures called Halo. But I strongly believe that Halo’s music also plays a huge part in its success; for the player conquers the galaxy and protects Earth with allies of orchestral rock and roll, choral and synth-y ambience etc... With this interest I would like to show the reader how themes are used in the Halo trilogy and how they help to connect the three episodes of the game and enhance various plot points for a game that tells a story a little more than shooting things.
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The use of Japanese instruments in western style music
Yurie Minakata
2017Analysis of Kobo and the Two Strings (2016).
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MUSIC COGNITION: EMOTIONS AND PSYCHOLOGY IN PASCAL GAIGNE’S SOUNDTRACK FOR THE BASQUE FILM “LOREAK”
Paula Olaz Moratinos
2017“Loreak” (2015) a Basque film by J.M. Goenaga and J. Garaño tells a human story about relationships and hidden emotions. Pascal Gaigne developed universal concepts that help the visual aspect and immerses the viewer, especially (audio wise) in a deep self-journey to his/her own emotions, that is, emotions and concepts that every human has experienced: “Flowers, bodies, souls, thoughts, secrets, vibrations, breaths, silents, shadows, presences”. Would the listener be able to recognize the different concepts that Pascal Gaigne has developed without knowing them beforehand? If so, what are the reasons that make the listener identify these concepts? How does he succeed to transmit these emotions through the music? Is it the use of different textures, and if so, what tools are determinant to achieve that The purpose of this thesis is to carry out a research into music cognition and work on Pascal Gaigne’s music in order to support the idea of universal common patterns shared among humans, musically speaking. Moreover, the effectiveness of Pascal’s music in relation to the concepts raised in the movie will be analysed. Therefore, the psychological aspect of the music will be analysed, and special attention will be paid to the arousal of different emotions of this soundtrack.
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Musical mutiny: Potemkin as a film scoring experimental stage in 21st century
Mauricio Ribeiro de Vasconcelos
2017This thesis aims to make a comparative analysis between different music scores written for Battleship Potemkin. The film, directed in 1925 by Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, is considered a landmark in film history by a large part of historians and researchers. Many of the techniques used today in filmmaking are due to experiments and innovations translated by Eisenstein in this film and in others produced by him by the time.
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Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime
Ricky Schweitzer
2017Understanding the foundational bonds between music and memory in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind."
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Slumdog Millionaire: A Score that Broke Boundaries
Samarth Srinivasan
2017In the Academy Award winning score for Slumdog Millionaire, A. R. Rahman combined electronic music, Indian classical music, orchestral music, and other styles into one unified score that takes these styles out of their context. Rahman also used a unique compositional process, which combined Bollywood and Hollywood styles of film scoring with a heavy empahsis on collaboration. In my thesis, I would like to explore how Rahman weaves these different ideas to create the score.