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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Spring
Tomás Santibañez Bustos
2019SPRING is a project that represents my culminating experience after years of study and hard work; from beginning to end I will guide you through this journey of creating a piece that represents knowledge, technique, sentiment, and primarily, soul, concluding in an intense and self-rewarding experience. It is believed that a musical compositional process is a gift that only certain people possess, and it’s a mystery for the rest of the world how they can create dancing melodies and intricate rhythmic patterns. However, this reflective paper will demonstrate and demystify the development and creation of music according to my personal perspective. I believe that this reflection is not a conclusion to this stage; on the contrary, this is just the starting point of an extremely long, hard and particular path that I chose for my life.
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The Making of Fantasia
Hillel Teplitzki
2019Fantasia is a project which represents an entire year's worth of education at the Valencia Campus of Berklee College of Music. To a bystander, this project could look very similar to many others we were assigned throughout the year, since it is not the first time we were asked to (potentially) choose a scene ourselves and rescore the music for it. However, the added pressure of knowing that this piece will be recorded in one of the best studios in the world combined with the knowledge that this piece is meant to represent all of our growth has turned this project into a completely new experience. And it is without a doubt the hardest thing I ever had to experience this year, and in this intense course it is surely saying something. I will go into more detail about the effects of the added pressure, but I can honestly say now that the experience has made me grow in both confidence and in my professional attitude.
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Birth of the Nemesis
Rahulraj Thankappan
2019Birth of the Nemesis is my humble attempt at recreating the wondrous world of Action/Adventure/Fantasy genre of swashbuckling movie scores that our generation have loved through the past few decades. Acquiring the tools, ammunition and mental process to write such a piece was one of the main reasons behind me coming to Berklee. This project is a truthful culmination of all that I learned here at Berklee and all that I imbibed from the environmental exposure such a creatively conducive atmosphere offers. The music for this piece is inspired from and specifically written for selected scenes from the story of an original screenplay called "The Hellenic Saga" written by an upcoming young brilliant film maker from India, Kishore Prakash Menon. Coming from a composing career in India and already having a process that "works", up and running, unlearning and learning anew was initially tough, but a truly rewarding process. I can state with utmost conviction that I'm not just taking newly acquired knowledge and sharper technical skills back to my home base, buttruly great memories to cherish of a beautiful place called Valencia and its even more beautiful people.
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Journey of Jonathan Livingston: Process of creating an original composition and a musical narrative based on a written story
Simon Tomas
2019This paper is a reflection of a Culminating Experience created for a specific learning outcome as provided by Scoring for Film, TV and Video Games master program. In this experience an author was set with a task to create an original piece of music based on a visual media, script or any other available source material, that could serve as an inspiration for writing music. Once selected, an author was tasked to compose and orchestrate an original composition, to be recorded at Air Studios located in London, with a 51 piece orchestra, and mix and master the recording to its final release form. The complexity of the task is a test of the skills acquired through the academic year, which in theory a composer for the media should posses and be familiar with. The ability to take the process from the very first initial stage and successfully finalise the piece of music up to a high standard is a crucial test for any aspiring professional. Even more so if the composer is dealing with a great standard of expectations at such professional environment as was provided and expected by Air Studios. In this document an author will take the reader through all the major stages of a production, as part of which he’ll explain the process and reflect on the challenges that might have occurred. Lastly, an author will reflect on the overall outcome of the project and provide an evaluation of the achievements as well as failures.
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Going Forward: A Foundation for Future Career Endeavors
Edward Witt
2019The ‘Culminating Experience’ for all graduate programs at Berklee Valencia embodies an emphasis on real-world experience, which is what distinguishes it from a research-based Master’s Thesis. The following is an analysis and reflection on my process of creating and producing the final product that is associated with this Culminating Experience, which is a 3- minute musical cue that accompanies a work of visual media, recorded with a 51-piece orchestra at AIR Studios in London.
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Star Rock: Reflections About the Process of Scoring a Short Animation Movie
Luis Bernal
2018The purpose of this document is to reflect on the process of scoring a video with orchestral music as part of the culminating experience in the Master of Music in Scoring for Film, Television and Video Games in Berklee College of Music, Valencia Campus. The picture used for this project is called Star Rock, a short animation movie made by the students of the Centro oficial de estudios Barreira Arte + Diseño. During the process, it was a challenge to make all the process involved in scoring for a film, getting the concept, writing the music, presenting mockups to the director, conducting, recording, editing, mixing, and presenting it to pursue my master. I learned a lot about all the mentioned aspects related to this job and I also had the opportunity to interact with a real project, having feedback from a director and working together with a foley artist who will be responsible for the sound, sound effects, dialogues, and the final mix of the project. I hope my work could be useful and inspiring for upcoming students in Berklee Valencia.
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The Portal: Hybrid Scoring for Video Games
Octavio Bernal
2018This thesis is the description of steps for finding a project, the composing process of a hybrid score, mixing and some suggestions for producing an orchestral recording session. I used a cinematic from a triple A game and did a rescore for my CE. In this thesis, I’ll explain my musical background, some compositional and technical aspects of producing a hybrid score and finally I’ll explain some important steps for the mixing process. For this project, I used a lot of synthesizers and contemporary compositional techniques. Creating a hybrid score requires the expertise in orchestral and electronic music in order to merge the two worlds correctly. This thesis reflects all the experience that I obtained in the master program including the disciplines of composing, sound design, conducting, creating parts and preparing a Pro Tools session for the recording. I hope that this thesis helps future professionals to prepare an orchestral recording at any studio around the world.
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The Making of Rangi and Papa
Benjamin Burrell
2018This project represents the culmination of a years worth of study, the end of the most intense and rewarding learning experiences of my life. This paper is an account of how I came to conceive, research and write my final piece for my Masters in Scoring for Film, TV and Video Games and a reflection on the recording session and the year as a whole. For this project I had to source a piece of media to write for, research orchestration and form in classical music and film scoring and prepare to deliver parts to the recording session as well as conduct the session. the result of this project is that I now have the skills and confidence to write for large orchestra, I can conduct the session and communicate in a professional manner with the musicians, I have experience of potential common mistakes made and I am now prepared to undertake such a project should it arise in the future.
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Earth In Oblivion: A Musical Journey To The Unexpected
Clementine Charuel
2018Earth In Oblivion is an introspective project willing to represent my personality, my goals and my doubts. During the writing process, I have faced issues and troubles but in the end it happened to be one of my best works so far. My piece is a summary of all I learned at Berklee Valencia, mixed with my childhood memories and hopes for the future. It has been a fight against standards in music but also a fight for the survival of our beloved planet Earth. As I am trying to find my own style and push away all kinds of voluntary inspiration, my struggle to make our planet a better place to stay is stimulating myself in finding a natural inspiration coming from the heart and not from the books. Classically trained, it has been hard for me to get out of the classical harmony and orchestration. But I noticed that I didn’t necessarily have to run away from it. The important thing is that all these rules stay as a starting point to my creativity.
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3M16: The Face of Extinction
Thiago Cossi
2018I am writing about this project with the intent of explaining to and sharing with others that which means much to me and is the great adventure of writing music for media. From the first musical idea, through to being in front of a 50- piece orchestra; recording the fully developed musical piece that will be part of the film; there is a lot more to Film Scoring than meets the eye. It’s an exquisite adventure from beginning to end! So, dive in with me, as I go through my personal individual steps of creating the music, sound effects and dialogue for my final project for the Scoring for Films, TV, & Video Games Master’s program at Berklee College of Music: 3m16 – The Face of Extinction.
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The Perfect Soundtrack for a Revolution: Toussaint, Leads the Fight!
Karlyne Félix
2018Toussaint Leads the Fight is a documentary Series that is being created by Karlyne Félix and animated by Kendal Brouet. The idea came when I started to look for ideas for my CE project. This project starting from THE IDEA to and ending at THE CREDITS is a experience that takes you through each episodes of my creative journey. My first season which is my CE paper is accompanied with a three-minutes orchestral piece orchestrated for an animation visual. This visual trailer is a pitch to market my idea for an animated historical fictional television series about cultural history geared for young school children.
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Countdown: The Creation of “Battle For The Atlas”
Christopher J. Findlaytor
2018The purpose of this project is to offer a small inside look at my composition process when it comes to scoring a short film, as well as my experience with the final recording session at AIR Studios and my thoughts on the end results. This project has forced me to look inside myself in a way I am not normally used to doing, and has been highly beneficial in revealing things I never fully realized about myself. I hope you enjoy taking a look back with me at my musical process, and hopefully learning something new as I have!
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The Birth of Krogulous: Following a composition from beginning to end
Viktor Ingi Guðmundsson
2018The author takes a close look at the process around his final composition project tackling everything from how to acquire video material to how he composed each individual element. He tells of the journey to AIR studios in London to record, his expectations, shortcomings, and victories, his post process, mixing and the general feeling of his final weeks at the Berklee college of Music Masters’ program: Scoring for Film, Television & Video Games. This paper is best read with a copy of the original score of the composition "Krogulous" which is in the appendix of the paper.
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HOLYHAN
Sharang Han
2018This paper aims to describe the process of the last project of the SFTV program, the London recording, which I called ‘Holyhan’. It is a project that portrays the process of film scoring: from the recording at London Air Studio to the post production, after selecting the image I wanted to score. I have included detailed stories in the process addressing the video selection, the musical decisions, the ideas composed and the inspiration, and I tried to analyze my music. Additionally, I explain in detail the recording at the London Air Studio and compare it to previous recording experiences as a composer and conductor.
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Peter Fights Harry: Rescoring Of The Movie Spider-Man 3
Yoonho Kim
2018This project is about the session we recorded in London as our final project. We wrote music for films, trailers, or cinematic for video games, or scripts of a scenario, and in case of mine, movie clip from Spider-Man 3. We were allowed to use almost the whole orchestra, including two percussive instruments. Maximum of the length was 3 minutes, but we were strongly encouraged to write more than 2 minutes, at least. The recording date was June 3rd and 4th, and the time we were given to prepare the whole project was about a month, starting from May.
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Above the Mountains - Composition for Full Orchestra
Fabian Kratzer
2018This project describes the compositional process, the recording and the postproduction of a recording session at AIR Studios London. I looked for an appropriate video for a long time and finally decided to use a landscape- time-lapse movie about Bavaria, a region in the south of Germany, produced by David Palmen and Merit Golka. I composed the music for it and decided to use a strong melody, which I introduced in the high strings and later continued through the whole orchestra. After that, I created the score in Sibelius and printed and taped the parts on my own. During the recording at AIR, I conducted the orchestra. Here I experienced first-hand the difficulties of headphones and the communication with the orchestra. There was also a video recording of the performance. After the session, selected musicians gave feedback and I learned, that some parts of my score were too small to read and that the conducting is confusing for the players, if the conductor does not follow the click track. I learnt a lot about a professional recording with so many players and realised, that a good preparation decides about success or failure.
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Spellsouls - Duel of Legends Cinematic
Ana Krstajic
2018This paper describes the preparation for composing, conducting and recording my final project for my Master’s in Scoring for Film, Television and Video Games at Berklee College of Music. This project was important for me because it represents all of what I learned during the course of the year. It shows my progress as a composer of film music, orchestrator and conductor. I came to Berklee with my main area of expertise being contemporary music so it was important to me to try my hand at a new genre and to see whether or not film music would be a got fit for me. To achieve my goal I examined scores, studied orchestration from the masters, I analyzed music from movies and practiced conducting both my own music and that from famous films. The culmination of which was the delivery of video with music written to picture and recorded at Air studios in London. At the conclusion of the project I had gained a huge amount of technical knowledge in the field of film scoring. I am proficient in writing, sequencing, recording and mixing my music and am now prepared for a career as a composer in the Film Industry.
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The Last Wish
Luka Lebanidze
2018In the paper, I will talk about the pre-and post-production process of my Berklee culmination experience piece “The Last Wish” recorded in Air Studios, London as a part of my culmination experience at Berklee Valencia. My piece is based on a script which I arranged using excerpts from the book “The Last Wish” by a polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski. “The Last Wish” is a part of Witcher series books which were used as a setting for one of the most successful AAA video games ever released “The Witcher” 1, 2 and 3. This music piece is the culmination of a whole year of study in film scoring, and a combination of many related fields of study such as music composition, orchestration, orchestral conducting, recording, applied synthesis, and mixing.
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The world of Amai: Extracting the lessons of the creative process
Josué Parrilla
2018This paper is a reflection upon the process of creating a piece of music for visual media. In a narration format, I take the reader through the steps of the process, from conception to production, while hopefully shedding some light into this sometimes obscure and, for many, mythical process, which is the art of writing for visual media. On a personal level, through this document I reflect on my own process and, in doing so, new details of the creative process in general are revealed to me which I didn’t realize before. Ultimately, it is my desire that through this manuscript the reader will acquire a deeper appreciation of the process of creating and producing a piece of music for visual media. The project in which I will focus is one that occurs in an educational context, as opposed to a professional one, which makes it a very particular case study and provides for a specific approach to its analysis. I emphasize an educational approach to my experience and focus on the learning outcomes of the project as a starting point for the undertaking of later professional projects.
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Gentle Warrior
Kuan Pou Pun
2018For the Culminating Experience of Master in Scoring for Film, Television and Video Games, I wrote a 3 minutes piece of orchestral music with original script, for a 51-piece orchestra, which was recorded in AIR Studio London, one of the best possible options for sound production around the globe. Since the student has the freedom to choose to work with any visual element, I chose to work with an original animation storyboard. I want to showcase my orchestral sound in a fantasizing way.
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The Eldritch Truth: Lovecraft’s Legacy
Ignacio José Ramírez Larrosa
2018The whole purpose of this reflective paper was to break down every single aspect of what I did in the culminating experience of the Scoring for Film, Television and Video Games Master’s program in Berklee Valencia campus. I took in account several advices I had from my directed studies teacher and supervisor Lucio Godoy, and quoted them in order to show how the preparation of the project was. I analyzed and reviewed in detail all the references, inspirations and influences I used to bring this project to life, focusing specifically in the works of American horror fiction writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft and the story and universe of Sony’s PS4 2015 video game Bloodborne. The preparation of this project was vast and extense, where I reflected and analyzed my progress, all throughout its creation, a lot. I centralized this document mostly in the process of settling down all my ideas and explaining my personal investigation through Lovecraft horror stories and the video game’s plot in order to write an original horror story within the Bloodborne universe and, as well, the creation of the London piece. Finalizing with the description of my own personal experience assisting to Lyndhurst AIR Studios in London and conducting in front of a 51 musicians orchestra, mixing the whole piece with the help of teacher Pablo Schuller, and doing the final delivery. This paper also contains lots of contemplation of my own strengths and weakness, from the best moments of the process of composition, to the very worst and frustrating experiences I had to overcome in order to finish the last project.
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Allurement: A Retrograde Brush from Music to Picture
Kelsey Joanne Rogers
2018The purpose and intent of this project is to provide an analytical discussion about the creation of a musical piece; from beginning to end. As so often, most believe that the compositional and music process is: one of intrigue and mystery in which only few talented people possess and can forge. However, this project serves to demystify the development and creation of music; as it will lead you through the following stages: initial concept, the writing of musical notation, recording the music and finally assimilating the final audio that will be distributed for use. Additionally, the initial leg begins with the music, and so it is a reversed look at the relationship between music and media. This project was designed to ensure fulfilment of the Degree of Master of Music in Scoring for Film, Television and Video Games at Berklee College of Music. The implications of this project are written for the assiduity of both musician and non-musician to provide a wholesome approach in which all can partake and enjoy!
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Trip to Alps
Sojin Ryu
2018The main focus of this project is to provide a story of myself as a composer, creating an orchestral piece for a visual media and providing the full analysis of the big recording project. From the very beginning where I had to search and choose a video, how I started to compose and the process of making and orchestrating the whole piece, the process of preparing for fifty-one-piece orchestra recording session, the London recording experience at the Air Studios, the post-production, and to the reflections I had after the whole project. This project is designed to ensure fulfilment of Degree of Master of Music in Scoring for Film, Television and Video Games at Berklee College of Music.
