Mr. Humpfninkel - Update Music

We've been real busy lately with composing the score to "Mr. Humpfninkel's Sales Technique".

I've mentioned in an earlier posting how much more difficult it is to compose the music for a comedy as opposed to a drama or horror. Those other genre's are more forgiving when it comes to the soundtrack whereas a comedy requires much more thought and effort.
Think abut it - it's easier to play a bunch of random notes on a keyboard/synthesizer and come up with an acceptable horror score. You are more likely to hit minor keys and 'bum notes' that add to a creepy atmosphere.

But comedy needs mostly major keys with playoff minor notes at various intervals to break up and enrich the sound.

Over the weekend we were watching TV and the Leslie Nielsen "Mr. Magoo" live action movie was on. Terrible film but it features a fantastic comedy score. It really gave us a lot of inspiration. If a film that bad can manage to salvage the occasional (very occasional!) laugh purely through the use of clever musical interludes, it just goes to show how incredibly important having good music is.

I always say that a movie is 20% visuals and 80% sound!

Mr. Humpfninkel - Old Folks Home model Location

The Old Folks Home location from the Mr. Humpfninkel short film.
Creepy looking, aint it?!

Rendering out composited frames for the film takes time and isn't helped by the fact that each shot has to be checked a number of times for colour correction on different monitors to ensure everything looks exactly as it should.
You can't trust computer monitors - especially laptop screens. The colour difference can vary greatly from massively oversaturated to dull and lifeless!


More images to follow.

We've also been very busy composing and recording the soundtrack for the film. Mr. Humpfninkel's Sales Technique is gonna have an orchestral score as opposed to the dark and eerie music in To Shoot A Rurf.

By the Way, you cancathc To SHoot A Rurf at the Animation Bloc Party in New Tork this month (July). Visit Animation Bloc Party's website for more details.

Shane

SHIT TALKER

No, I'm not talking about myself! I'm instead talking about the voice synthesis software program Shit Talker. It basically speaks aloud whatever you type into it in a variety of voices. Ok, some of them sound "speak and spell" style robotic but some, like old woman, nerd and choir boy, are pretty good especially with a little bit of tweaking.
Shit Talker is aimed at making prank calls but if you get a little creative you can find lots of uses for it in music and filmmaking. If you want to record what is being said in Shit Talker you will need to record from your soundcard using something like Audacity (don't worry it's freeware too, and very good). And Shit Talker is free! Check out it's website and listen to some of the funny recordings done with Shit Talker.
Shit Talker: It does exactly what it says in it's title!

NB: Shit Talker (what a great name!) does not work well with Windows Vista. Also it sometimes will not speak after you have used another audio source (such as Audacity) to record from or after you have played a Wave/Mp3/Ogg format file on your computer. To get Shit Talker to speak again you must re-boot your computer. This is the crap side of the program.

Don't forget to check the Dwarfed Films essential freeware list

As usual leave a comment or email Dwarfed Films

Busy on new Album

We've been busy working on lots of music.
Are you curious?Well continue to read on...
We're in the process of putting together a number of tracks for an album of moody beat-based "ambient electronica".
Very catchy stuff that we can't get out of our heads and it all sounds damn good so far- if I do say so myself!
More details to follow and will posted on our music website under our bands name (which is not Dwarfed Films)

Office Hours: city location

Heres a low angle view of the deserted city street from the film Office Hours.
Obviously it's a work in progress undergoing constant revisions and improvements.

We've also started working on the music and in particular composing the theme music for the movie. Having the music in mind at this early stage helps with the animation/modelling/rigging processes as we can focus on creating a consistent mood throughout the film rather than waiting until the editing stage to piece everything together. Of course lots of the musical ideas will not make it into the final film but will certainly contribute to the final score.

Contact Dwarfed Films here