0:00:03 > 0:00:05In 1981, a film arrived
0:00:05 > 0:00:09that changed the way we thought about soundtracks.
0:00:14 > 0:00:18The title sequence of Chariots Of Fire is set in 1920s England,
0:00:18 > 0:00:23but the theme music was created using the latest electronic technology.
0:00:24 > 0:00:26It shouldn't work, but it does
0:00:26 > 0:00:32because the score by Vangelis captures the rhythm and exhilaration of the runners.
0:00:38 > 0:00:42My interest in it was not to create a symphony orchestra, which I can,
0:00:42 > 0:00:46but to go further and do things that a symphony orchestra can't do.
0:00:47 > 0:00:50Chariots Of Fire proved once and for all
0:00:50 > 0:00:56that an electronic score could be as moving and uplifting as any performed by an orchestra.
0:01:00 > 0:01:05Vangelis is one of a series of pioneering composers and film-makers
0:01:05 > 0:01:10who have used new technology to expand the possibilities of the soundtrack...
0:01:12 > 0:01:16..giving us music that sounds like nothing we've ever heard before.
0:01:21 > 0:01:25Even showing how sound effects can be used like an orchestra.
0:01:26 > 0:01:31The sound of Formula One race cars is the main component.
0:01:31 > 0:01:33ROARING, WHINING SOUNDS
0:01:33 > 0:01:37How far can the boundaries be pushed when it comes to film music
0:01:37 > 0:01:42or indeed our very idea of how a film should sound?
0:01:54 > 0:01:57The moment Hollywood woke up to the fact
0:01:57 > 0:02:00that it didn't always need conventional instruments
0:02:00 > 0:02:04for a powerful film score came in 1945
0:02:04 > 0:02:10when the Hungarian composer Miklos Rozsa was invited for a meeting with Alfred Hitchcock.
0:02:11 > 0:02:16Hitchcock thought Rozsa would be ideal for his new project -
0:02:16 > 0:02:21Spellbound, a psychological thriller starring Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck.
0:02:21 > 0:02:26But Hitchcock told Rozsa he wanted something special,
0:02:26 > 0:02:30a new sound to reflect the disturbed mind of Peck's character.
0:02:32 > 0:02:37And Rozsa immediately knew what he needed to do the job.
0:02:37 > 0:02:39It was one of these - a theremin,
0:02:39 > 0:02:42an early electronic musical instrument,
0:02:42 > 0:02:44developed over 90 years ago
0:02:44 > 0:02:49as a by-product of research by Russia's fledgling Communist government,
0:02:49 > 0:02:52and named after its creator, Leon Theremin.
0:02:52 > 0:02:55You play it without touching it.
0:02:55 > 0:02:59This antenna here develops an electromagnetic field
0:02:59 > 0:03:03- which, when it's broken by the hand, changes pitch. - WHINING SOUND
0:03:03 > 0:03:07This one here, when it's changed, is the volume
0:03:07 > 0:03:10- and it goes up and down like that. - SOUND VOLUME VARIES
0:03:12 > 0:03:17You can get a scale by moving the hand further and further away like this.
0:03:17 > 0:03:19PLAYS DESCENDING SCALE
0:03:24 > 0:03:28You get the vibrato just with the finger movement.
0:03:28 > 0:03:30VIBRATO SOUND VARIES IN VOLUME
0:03:30 > 0:03:34Rozsa had wanted to use a theremin for years.
0:03:34 > 0:03:37Now, at last, he had the perfect opportunity.
0:03:38 > 0:03:41This is the scene from Spellbound
0:03:41 > 0:03:45that Rozsa used to demonstrate the theremin to Hitchcock.
0:03:45 > 0:03:50In the film, Gregory Peck's character is afflicted by mysterious mental attacks,
0:03:50 > 0:03:53triggered unpredictably by ordinary objects.
0:03:57 > 0:03:59DRAMATIC VIBRATO SOUND
0:04:01 > 0:04:04EERIE, HIGH-PITCHED SOUND
0:04:14 > 0:04:19Rozsa uses the theremin as a recurring musical symbol,
0:04:19 > 0:04:21a leitmotif for Peck's attacks.
0:04:21 > 0:04:26But he carefully integrates it with a traditional orchestral score,
0:04:26 > 0:04:31allowing the theremin's sound to catch us by surprise, disorientating us.
0:04:33 > 0:04:37Rozsa went straight on to feature the theremin in his next score.
0:04:37 > 0:04:43The Lost Weekend, directed by Billy Wilder, was a ground-breaking story about addiction,
0:04:43 > 0:04:46and Rozsa again used the theremin for psychological effect
0:04:46 > 0:04:49as the siren song of the alcohol
0:04:49 > 0:04:52that tempts Ray Milland's character.
0:04:55 > 0:04:59HIGH-PITCHED VIBRATO SOUND OVER DRAMATIC MUSIC
0:05:05 > 0:05:07The result is, I'd say,
0:05:07 > 0:05:11just a little too similar to Spellbound.
0:05:11 > 0:05:16And although both scores were nominated for Oscars and Spellbound won,
0:05:16 > 0:05:19Rozsa didn't hurry to use the theremin again.
0:05:19 > 0:05:24Perhaps he realised its distinctive sound could easily become a cliche,
0:05:24 > 0:05:28an inherent risk with all new technology.
0:05:29 > 0:05:35What can initially sound fresh and distinctive can very quickly become over-familiar,
0:05:35 > 0:05:39especially if the instrument's range is limited both by its own sound
0:05:39 > 0:05:43and by the willingness of composers to find new ways of using it.
0:05:43 > 0:05:45EERIE, HIGH-PITCHED SOUND
0:05:45 > 0:05:50And indeed, by the 1950s, the theremin had become a staple of science-fiction films,
0:05:50 > 0:05:55its eerie sound a predictable shorthand for the alien and unearthly.
0:05:58 > 0:06:03Institutions like the Griffith Observatory, overlooking Hollywood,
0:06:03 > 0:06:09might have been feeding the public's imagination about what other worlds might look like,
0:06:09 > 0:06:13but nobody seemed too bothered about what they might actually sound like
0:06:13 > 0:06:19until, in 1956, a film tried to give us a sense of just that.
0:06:19 > 0:06:24And to this day, it boasts one of the most radical soundtracks ever created.
0:06:26 > 0:06:31Our first glimpse of the alien world in MGM's Forbidden Planet
0:06:31 > 0:06:34showcases the film's imaginative production design
0:06:34 > 0:06:36and visual effects,
0:06:36 > 0:06:41but what we're listening to are sounds that really had never been heard before.
0:06:41 > 0:06:43WHIRRING SOUND
0:06:46 > 0:06:52Forbidden Planet was a B-movie dressed up for the MGM luxury goods market.
0:06:52 > 0:06:58There's no suggestion the studio wanted anything but a conventional music score for their movie,
0:06:58 > 0:07:01possibly including the ubiquitous theremin.
0:07:01 > 0:07:07But the sound effects were going to come from the other side of space as far as Hollywood was concerned -
0:07:07 > 0:07:11the New York avant-garde arts circuit.
0:07:12 > 0:07:16Employed to create the effects were Louis and Bebe Barron,
0:07:16 > 0:07:20a young married couple from the Greenwich Village arts scene.
0:07:20 > 0:07:26The Barrons didn't use musical instruments, but generated unique sounds using electronic circuits.
0:07:27 > 0:07:33Seen up close, their improvised equipment has a science-fiction quality all of its own.
0:07:34 > 0:07:36EERIE ELECTRONIC SOUNDS
0:07:38 > 0:07:42The Barrons had offered their services to the head of MGM.
0:07:42 > 0:07:48He gave them a print of Forbidden Planet and asked them to come up with some sound effects.
0:07:48 > 0:07:53And left to their own devices, Louis and Bebe got kind of carried away.
0:07:53 > 0:07:58Instead of the 20 minutes or so of quirky electronic sounds they were supposed to produce,
0:07:58 > 0:08:01they handed over an entire score for the film.
0:08:01 > 0:08:04And the studio loved it.
0:08:04 > 0:08:08The result was the first fully electronic score for a motion picture.
0:08:09 > 0:08:15What's so striking about the Barrons' achievement is that it's hard to tell where the score ends
0:08:15 > 0:08:18and the sound effects begin, as in this scene.
0:08:18 > 0:08:21ELECTRONIC CRACKLING SOUNDS
0:08:23 > 0:08:27It gives the film a remarkably fluid soundscape.
0:08:31 > 0:08:34Forbidden Planet was a hit
0:08:34 > 0:08:39which meant that the Barrons' soundtrack was perhaps the most innovative so far
0:08:39 > 0:08:41to reach a mass audience.
0:08:41 > 0:08:46No doubt the outer space setting made it more acceptable to the public.
0:08:48 > 0:08:50But within just a few years,
0:08:50 > 0:08:54Alfred Hitchcock would commission an even more daring score,
0:08:54 > 0:08:58set in an altogether more earthly location.
0:08:58 > 0:09:01BIRDS CRY
0:09:01 > 0:09:05This is Bodega Bay, just north of San Francisco.
0:09:05 > 0:09:09It's lived in our nightmares for the best part of half a century,
0:09:09 > 0:09:14largely because of a soundtrack that doesn't contain a single orchestral instrument.
0:09:18 > 0:09:22All we hear over the opening titles of The Birds
0:09:22 > 0:09:26are heightened, harsh caws and beating wings.
0:09:26 > 0:09:32Not music we can recognise or use to glean any information about the film.
0:09:32 > 0:09:35It puts us straight outside our comfort zone.
0:09:36 > 0:09:38HIGH-PITCHED CRIES AND BEATING WINGS
0:09:40 > 0:09:44None of those bird sounds are natural.
0:09:44 > 0:09:49They were created on this, an electronic instrument called the trautonium.
0:09:49 > 0:09:52Invented in Germany not long after the theremin,
0:09:52 > 0:09:59it had later been developed to the point where it could produce a wide range of artificial sounds.
0:09:59 > 0:10:05With Spellbound, Hitchcock had shown his readiness to work with unconventional instruments.
0:10:05 > 0:10:10He was promised that the trautonium offered a new dimension in film production,
0:10:10 > 0:10:14but what he wanted was a new dimension in terror.
0:10:16 > 0:10:22The film tells a story of ordinary birds suddenly, murderously turning on the inhabitants
0:10:22 > 0:10:24of an isolated community.
0:10:24 > 0:10:28Hitchcock cleverly realised that the sound of the birds was crucial
0:10:28 > 0:10:31to our sense of their presence and power
0:10:31 > 0:10:37and that a traditional musical score could clash with or undermine this, so he dispensed with one.
0:10:37 > 0:10:43Instead, Hitchcock and his regular composer Bernard Herrmann devoted their energies carefully
0:10:43 > 0:10:46to selecting and placing the sounds of the birds,
0:10:46 > 0:10:50created artificially on the trautonium.
0:10:51 > 0:10:56My favourite scene follows the film's heroine, played by Tippi Hedren,
0:10:56 > 0:11:00as she waits here outside the island's school.
0:11:00 > 0:11:05It's a masterly use of sound and its absence to build suspense.
0:11:05 > 0:11:07CHILDREN SINGING
0:11:11 > 0:11:17We know that the bird attack is imminent and Hitchcock, as always, plays with our expectations,
0:11:17 > 0:11:20indeed plays us, the audience, like an orchestra.
0:11:20 > 0:11:25He drops in some sound, that relentless song that the children are singing,
0:11:25 > 0:11:27their vulnerability all too exposed,
0:11:27 > 0:11:31but nothing compared to what we're going to get...
0:11:34 > 0:11:38..for from silence to the electronic onslaught of that attack,
0:11:38 > 0:11:42what we're about to hear is astonishing.
0:11:42 > 0:11:44ANGRY SQUAWKING
0:11:46 > 0:11:50Those birds aren't singing with their own voices.
0:11:50 > 0:11:53They've got behind them sounds from the pit of hell,
0:11:53 > 0:11:58their murderous shrieks indistinguishable from the children's terrified ones.
0:11:58 > 0:12:00SHRIEKING SOUNDS
0:12:08 > 0:12:13Don't for a moment think that just because there isn't a musical instrument on the soundtrack
0:12:13 > 0:12:16that The Birds doesn't have a score.
0:12:16 > 0:12:21It does. It's as engaging as the score for Vertigo, as immediate as the score for Psycho,
0:12:21 > 0:12:26because Hitchcock, genius that he was, knew that when you put these things together,
0:12:26 > 0:12:29they all basically came from the same place.
0:12:29 > 0:12:35As he said himself, "When you put music to a film, it's just another sound, really."
0:12:36 > 0:12:42On The Birds' release, the critics seemed more bothered by the story and acting than the soundtrack,
0:12:42 > 0:12:45but audiences didn't seem to mind.
0:12:47 > 0:12:52And for film-makers, Hitchcock had opened up two exciting possibilities.
0:12:52 > 0:12:58He'd proved that sound effects could be as powerful as music in telling a story
0:12:58 > 0:13:03and he'd showcased the potential of electronic instruments
0:13:03 > 0:13:08which were becoming increasingly sophisticated as the decade went on.
0:13:08 > 0:13:14Within just a few years, both these possibilities would be explored in very different films.
0:13:17 > 0:13:19PLAYS LOW NOTE
0:13:19 > 0:13:23This is an original Moog synthesiser from the mid-'60s.
0:13:23 > 0:13:26As you can see, the keyboard is pretty understandable...
0:13:27 > 0:13:29ELECTRONIC NOTES
0:13:32 > 0:13:34..albeit only one note at a time,
0:13:34 > 0:13:39but it's this huge set of modules here that gives you the sounds.
0:13:39 > 0:13:42RAPID, SUCCESSIVE NOTES
0:13:42 > 0:13:47And changes them. If you think of the variety of options you have with all these here,
0:13:47 > 0:13:53to understand this, you really have to have as much of a scientist's mind as a composer's.
0:13:53 > 0:13:57But in the mid-1960s in New York, a young man emerged who had both.
0:13:57 > 0:14:01I'll patch this up here into one of my output modules
0:14:01 > 0:14:05and try and show you how, with these primitive sounds,
0:14:05 > 0:14:07we start to get very musical-sounding things.
0:14:07 > 0:14:12Walter Carlos had been a musical prodigy who went on to study Physics and Music
0:14:12 > 0:14:18and was an early user of the Moog synthesiser, helping to advise on its development.
0:14:18 > 0:14:24By hitting a note on the keyboard now, I'm connected up, so I'll hear that one sound.
0:14:24 > 0:14:26It's a very low sound.
0:14:26 > 0:14:32And in 1968, Carlos used the Moog to create something rather extraordinary -
0:14:32 > 0:14:36Switched-On Bach, an electronic rendition of the composer's music,
0:14:36 > 0:14:39which went on to be a best-selling album.
0:14:39 > 0:14:43The second LP was one of the first records I ever bought.
0:14:43 > 0:14:48For me as a young musician interested in electronics, it was a game-changer.
0:14:48 > 0:14:51ELECTRONIC CLASSICAL MUSIC
0:14:57 > 0:15:03And Carlos' cutting-edge take on the classics was about to cross over into film.
0:15:04 > 0:15:07EERIE SOUNDTRACK
0:15:10 > 0:15:15Carlos heard that the director Stanley Kubrick was making a new picture,
0:15:15 > 0:15:19a grim, uncompromising, futuristic one,
0:15:19 > 0:15:23much of it shot here at Thamesmead in London,
0:15:23 > 0:15:29a picture that might be the ideal platform for Carlos' synthesised classical sound.
0:15:36 > 0:15:39Kubrick had never shied away from difficult material
0:15:39 > 0:15:42and this was to be his toughest film yet.
0:15:42 > 0:15:45And music had to be central to the story.
0:15:45 > 0:15:47After all, as it said on the poster,
0:15:47 > 0:15:51A Clockwork Orange deals with "the adventures of a young man
0:15:51 > 0:15:55"whose principal interests are rape, ultra-violence and Beethoven."
0:15:57 > 0:16:00ELECTRONIC CLASSICAL MUSIC
0:16:02 > 0:16:07Unsolicited, Carlos sent Kubrick an electronic interpretation of Beethoven,
0:16:07 > 0:16:10as well as an original composition.
0:16:10 > 0:16:15Kubrick saw their potential and alongside conventional orchestral recordings,
0:16:15 > 0:16:21the finished film would also feature Carlos' renditions of Purcell, Rossini and Beethoven.
0:16:27 > 0:16:30Here, Beethoven's Ode To Joy
0:16:30 > 0:16:32is given an almost comical swagger,
0:16:32 > 0:16:36matching the cockiness of the film's protagonist Alex.
0:16:36 > 0:16:40It's bright and cartoony, echoing the clothes and the set design.
0:16:40 > 0:16:43ELECTRONIC MUSIC: "Ode To Joy" - Beethoven
0:16:53 > 0:16:55The brilliance of Carlos' music
0:16:55 > 0:17:00is that it complements the orchestral sounds, but adds another layer.
0:17:00 > 0:17:05The electronics make it sound not only futuristic, but heightened and energised,
0:17:05 > 0:17:08as if we're listening to Beethoven on mescaline.
0:17:08 > 0:17:12In fact, it's hard to imagine what Kubrick would have done
0:17:12 > 0:17:16without the enhanced musical palette that Carlos' score provides.
0:17:16 > 0:17:19To cure Alex of his psychopathic violence,
0:17:19 > 0:17:24his beloved Beethoven music is co-opted into a form of aversion therapy,
0:17:24 > 0:17:28ultimately turning him suicidal whenever he hears it.
0:17:29 > 0:17:32At the climax of the film,
0:17:32 > 0:17:36a conventional recording of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony subtly morphs
0:17:36 > 0:17:41into a distorted rendition by Carlos, taking us inside Alex's head,
0:17:41 > 0:17:45giving us music we know in a new and terrifying way.
0:17:45 > 0:17:47Turn it off!
0:17:47 > 0:17:49DISTORTED MUSIC PLAYS
0:17:49 > 0:17:51HE COUGHS AND GASPS
0:17:57 > 0:18:03Like Forbidden Planet, A Clockwork Orange benefited hugely from an outsider,
0:18:03 > 0:18:06by their own initiative and unsolicited,
0:18:06 > 0:18:11sending what they understood in the way of electronic music to the film-maker
0:18:11 > 0:18:16and thereby, for all of us, greatly enhancing the possibilities of the soundtrack.
0:18:20 > 0:18:26But the early '70s would see the soundtrack being enhanced in another way,
0:18:26 > 0:18:31one that would draw on the same technology as A Clockwork Orange, but to different ends.
0:18:31 > 0:18:35It was the other sonic possibility opened up by The Birds -
0:18:35 > 0:18:39the use of sound effects as a story-telling device.
0:18:39 > 0:18:43Sound had become something of an American preoccupation.
0:18:43 > 0:18:48This was the era of Watergate, of eavesdropping, paranoia even.
0:18:48 > 0:18:52When you weren't afraid of being seen, you were afraid of being heard.
0:18:52 > 0:18:57In the early 1970s, a new generation of surveillance equipment was developed
0:18:57 > 0:19:03which meant that you could home in on a single conversation, even in a place like this.
0:19:03 > 0:19:07If you were listening on the other end, who knows what you might overhear?
0:19:09 > 0:19:13Like The Birds, the opening title sequence
0:19:13 > 0:19:17of Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation has no music.
0:19:17 > 0:19:21Instead, we're made to listen to the faint sounds of the environment,
0:19:21 > 0:19:23only gradually becoming louder
0:19:23 > 0:19:28as the shot slowly zooms in on San Francisco's Union Square.
0:19:30 > 0:19:32DISTANT VOICES, HORN TOOTS
0:19:32 > 0:19:34So far, so innocuous,
0:19:34 > 0:19:38then image and sound unexpectedly diverge.
0:19:38 > 0:19:41DISTORTED SOUNDS
0:19:44 > 0:19:49"What was that? Is that a mistake in projection? No, here it is again."
0:19:49 > 0:19:51DISTORTED SOUNDS
0:19:56 > 0:19:59So it must be intentional, but what is it?
0:19:59 > 0:20:05Then gradually, the audience can piece together the mystery of what this stuff is.
0:20:05 > 0:20:09A surprising shot change reveals a menacing figure on a rooftop.
0:20:09 > 0:20:14Only then do we realise that the sounds are really distortion
0:20:14 > 0:20:19on the rifle-like surveillance equipment being used to eavesdrop on one particular couple.
0:20:19 > 0:20:25Exactly what the couple are saying becomes an obsession for The Conversation's central character,
0:20:25 > 0:20:29surveillance expert Harry Caul, played by Gene Hackman.
0:20:29 > 0:20:33This isn't just a film that uses sound. It's about sound.
0:20:33 > 0:20:36And it was the ideal vehicle for Walter Murch
0:20:36 > 0:20:41who had made his name working on the sound and editing for Coppola's The Godfather
0:20:41 > 0:20:44and George Lucas' science-fiction film, THX 1138.
0:20:45 > 0:20:47SYNTHESISED SOUNDS
0:20:48 > 0:20:52Murch was also fascinated with the electronic technology of the time,
0:20:52 > 0:20:58including the instrument that was rapidly becoming ubiquitous, the Moog synthesiser.
0:20:58 > 0:21:01I had studied the Moog synthesiser.
0:21:01 > 0:21:04I used it on The Conversation.
0:21:04 > 0:21:10In my mind, I was thinking that Harry Caul in that film had invented digital recording,
0:21:10 > 0:21:17so the question was, "What does digital recording sound like when it's not going very well?"
0:21:17 > 0:21:21And so I came up with a use of the synthesiser
0:21:21 > 0:21:26to, um...crush the sound and abuse it.
0:21:26 > 0:21:33By the climax of The Conversation, the sound effects have become increasingly detached from reality.
0:21:33 > 0:21:36They and the music score seem to have become one,
0:21:36 > 0:21:40accentuating our sense of Harry Caul's paranoia.
0:21:44 > 0:21:46FAINT SYNTHESISED SOUNDTRACK
0:21:49 > 0:21:51DRAMATIC BOOMING SOUNDS
0:21:54 > 0:21:57HIGH-PITCHED ELECTRONIC SOUNDS
0:22:01 > 0:22:03SOUNDS GET LOUDER
0:22:04 > 0:22:07About halfway through the film,
0:22:07 > 0:22:09there's almost no dialogue.
0:22:09 > 0:22:15When dialogue stops, your mind which is looking for meaning... "Where's the meaning in this?
0:22:15 > 0:22:20"I'm not getting it from dialogue, so I have to get it from somewhere else."
0:22:20 > 0:22:26If we, the film-makers, have put meaning into the sound effects, you can pull meaning out of it.
0:22:26 > 0:22:32Do you think that The Conversation is a film where the sound ultimately is the main driver of the narrative?
0:22:32 > 0:22:36Because the main character is a sound recordist,
0:22:36 > 0:22:39it's told all from his point of view.
0:22:39 > 0:22:43He listens to the world, so we begin to listen to the world.
0:22:44 > 0:22:46LOW, THROBBING SOUNDS
0:22:46 > 0:22:52In their different ways, Walter Murch and Walter Carlos had exploited the novelty
0:22:52 > 0:22:56and unfamiliarity of synthesised sound.
0:22:58 > 0:23:02But as the '70s went on, the synthesiser really took off
0:23:02 > 0:23:05and not just in the movies.
0:23:07 > 0:23:11Its pulsating rhythms became synonymous with the disco boom,
0:23:11 > 0:23:17especially in the wake of Donna Summer's seminal 1977 hit, I Feel Love.
0:23:17 > 0:23:23# I feel lo-o-o-ove
0:23:23 > 0:23:26# I feel love... #
0:23:26 > 0:23:30The song was co-written and produced by Italian-born Giorgio Moroder
0:23:30 > 0:23:36and when the owners of Moroder's record label branched out into film production,
0:23:36 > 0:23:42they thought he might be ideal to score a gritty drama set in a Turkish prison - Midnight Express.
0:23:42 > 0:23:47They had a hunch audiences would be ready for a Moroder electronic soundtrack.
0:23:51 > 0:23:54In this scene, you can hear how Moroder
0:23:54 > 0:23:58brings key elements of the disco toolkit to his score.
0:23:58 > 0:24:03It's built on a rhythm, using the most primal beat of all - the heartbeat.
0:24:03 > 0:24:05RAPID, PULSATING BEAT
0:24:08 > 0:24:11He adds ambient washes of synthesiser sound,
0:24:11 > 0:24:15the kind that could never be created with a conventional orchestra.
0:24:16 > 0:24:18INCREASING SYNTHESISED SOUND
0:24:21 > 0:24:23SPEAKS IN TURKISH
0:24:23 > 0:24:26Finally, Moroder introduces the melody,
0:24:26 > 0:24:29a simple, repetitive cycle of notes.
0:24:29 > 0:24:32MELODY PLAYS
0:24:36 > 0:24:38With Midnight Express, Moroder showed
0:24:38 > 0:24:44that a fully electronic score could work perfectly for a contemporary drama.
0:24:44 > 0:24:50Hollywood was impressed and awarded the pop maestro an Oscar for his debut effort.
0:24:51 > 0:24:56Moroder gave this hard film the hard electronic edge it needed,
0:24:56 > 0:24:59but a questioned remained over electronics.
0:24:59 > 0:25:04Could they be warm, could they be moving or even inspirational,
0:25:04 > 0:25:07the way that an orchestral soundtrack could?
0:25:10 > 0:25:12In 1981, we found out.
0:25:12 > 0:25:17Chariots Of Fire was produced, like Midnight Express, by David Puttnam.
0:25:17 > 0:25:24And its score was created by another European who had made his name in pop music - Vangelis.
0:25:25 > 0:25:29I felt right from the start what you caught was a sense of effort.
0:25:29 > 0:25:33How did you imagine that into your music?
0:25:33 > 0:25:36I don't know. I can't really explain
0:25:36 > 0:25:39because it's instinctive
0:25:39 > 0:25:41and I felt...
0:25:41 > 0:25:46I mean, this first scene, you know, the runners on the beach...
0:25:47 > 0:25:52I felt that this needs some kind of enthusiasm,
0:25:52 > 0:25:56oxygen...you know, youth.
0:25:56 > 0:25:58THEME MUSIC: "Chariots Of Fire"
0:26:01 > 0:26:06Vangelis Papathanassiou emerged from the 1960s Greek prog rock scene...
0:26:06 > 0:26:08Yes, there was one.
0:26:08 > 0:26:12..where he was the keyboardist in a band with Demis Roussos.
0:26:12 > 0:26:17In the 1970s, he recorded a series of solo electronic albums and documentary soundtracks
0:26:17 > 0:26:21which brought him to the attention of director Hugh Hudson.
0:26:21 > 0:26:27I thought about it from the very beginning. Literally, as I read the script, I wanted to use Vangelis.
0:26:27 > 0:26:29I didn't want anybody else.
0:26:29 > 0:26:36The task was to persuade people to use such a contemporary form of music
0:26:36 > 0:26:39in such a period film.
0:26:39 > 0:26:42OK, so the first theme was this...
0:26:43 > 0:26:45PLAYS GENTLE MELODY
0:26:50 > 0:26:54The Chariots Of Fire theme was only composed at the 11th hour.
0:26:54 > 0:26:59Hugh Hudson originally wanted to use a track from one of Vangelis' albums.
0:26:59 > 0:27:04Hugh at the time told me, "Don't think about the opening. We have it.
0:27:04 > 0:27:07"But do the rest." And I did the rest.
0:27:07 > 0:27:09Then in my mind, it was not...
0:27:09 > 0:27:14I was not very happy. I said, "I have to do that. I have to try." I sat down and that's it.
0:27:14 > 0:27:17PLAYS MELODY
0:27:21 > 0:27:24And then that became this...
0:27:24 > 0:27:26PLAYS THEME: "Chariots Of Fire"
0:27:58 > 0:28:02I can't play the "dee-dee-dee" bit. I nearly missed the beat to do it.
0:28:02 > 0:28:04LAUGHTER
0:28:06 > 0:28:13Chariots Of Fire focuses on two rival British sprinters competing in the 1924 Olympics -
0:28:13 > 0:28:18the Scottish missionary Eric Liddell and the intensely driven Harold Abrahams.
0:28:18 > 0:28:23Vangelis' music captures their very different personalities.
0:28:26 > 0:28:31In this scene, Abrahams is recalling a race he has just lost to Liddell.
0:28:34 > 0:28:39The banging of the seats seems to be hammering in Abrahams' sense of defeat.
0:28:44 > 0:28:48But even that sound fades under Vangelis' sparse score
0:28:48 > 0:28:52as we share Abrahams' self-absorption.
0:28:52 > 0:28:54GENTLE, MEDITATIVE MUSIC
0:29:01 > 0:29:03He was a tormented character.
0:29:03 > 0:29:05He had his own reasons to run
0:29:05 > 0:29:09and he had to win and he did win.
0:29:10 > 0:29:13And I think he was much more concerned to win.
0:29:14 > 0:29:18Liddell was maybe, you know, more natural to win.
0:29:18 > 0:29:23The best line of the film to me is when he says,
0:29:23 > 0:29:28"God made me for a purpose and when I run, I feel his pleasure."
0:29:28 > 0:29:30That's a great line.
0:29:30 > 0:29:34I love the moment when you hear that again as he's running.
0:29:34 > 0:29:38And as his head goes back your music explodes.
0:29:40 > 0:29:42'Jenny...
0:29:42 > 0:29:44'I believe God made me for a purpose.
0:29:44 > 0:29:47'But He also made me fast.
0:29:48 > 0:29:53'And when I run I feel His pleasure.'
0:29:53 > 0:29:55MUSIC COMES IN
0:30:08 > 0:30:15To create his Chariots of Fire score, Vangelis used a costly bespoke set of equipment.
0:30:16 > 0:30:22But technical advances were already rendering banks of expensive kit obsolete.
0:30:24 > 0:30:28Soon a single instrument could do much of the heavy musical lifting.
0:30:29 > 0:30:34This is the Korg M1, one of the iconic keyboards of the 1980s.
0:30:34 > 0:30:37You'll understand when I do this.
0:30:37 > 0:30:39ELECTRONIC NOTES
0:30:39 > 0:30:45It's kicking off a whole series of other musical textures just by holding down one note,
0:30:45 > 0:30:48so if you do this...
0:30:48 > 0:30:50MORE SOUNDS OVERLAY
0:30:54 > 0:30:59..you get an enormous texture, enough for a film score.
0:30:59 > 0:31:04There is actually a program on here called Film Score.
0:31:04 > 0:31:06DRAMATIC CHORDS
0:31:10 > 0:31:12And that's my problem with it.
0:31:12 > 0:31:18Instead of being a tool towards creativity, it can become a replacement for it.
0:31:18 > 0:31:22Electronics works at its best when a composer takes it
0:31:22 > 0:31:26and creates something completely new that we haven't heard before.
0:31:26 > 0:31:30And that's just what Vangelis did with his next score.
0:31:30 > 0:31:34It was for a film set nearly 100 years after Chariots of Fire
0:31:34 > 0:31:37and in a very different world.
0:31:38 > 0:31:41Los Angeles, 2019.
0:31:46 > 0:31:51In Blade Runner, his soundtrack reflects and enhances our awe
0:31:51 > 0:31:55at a future realised in extraordinary, spectacular detail
0:31:55 > 0:32:02by director Ridley Scott and special effects wizard Doug Trumbull and his team.
0:32:02 > 0:32:04GENTLE ELECTRONIC NOTES
0:32:07 > 0:32:14Vangelis creates not just a music score, but an entire soundscape that heightens the visuals.
0:32:16 > 0:32:22Here the very twinkling of the city's lights seems captured in the music.
0:32:31 > 0:32:35With Blade Runner, you had to create a world in our ears
0:32:35 > 0:32:39that matched a world we'd never seen before on the screen.
0:32:39 > 0:32:43I was knocked out as well when I saw this big construction
0:32:43 > 0:32:49by Doug Trumbull and, of course, it's been done with no computers at the time.
0:32:49 > 0:32:54It impressed me and immediately I did this theme, like I did with Chariots.
0:32:54 > 0:32:57THEME FROM "Blade Runner"
0:32:58 > 0:33:00This is the one. OK.
0:33:05 > 0:33:07Absolutely.
0:33:17 > 0:33:19MUSIC SWEEPS
0:33:20 > 0:33:26You've always used electronics as orchestral instruments, or like orchestral instruments.
0:33:26 > 0:33:30Like you've created your own orchestra using these.
0:33:30 > 0:33:36My interest in it was not to create a symphony orchestra, which I can, it's very easy,
0:33:36 > 0:33:42but to go further than that and do things that the symphony orchestra can't do.
0:33:42 > 0:33:44And to open...
0:33:44 > 0:33:46to open other paths.
0:33:46 > 0:33:51And I think that I succeeded to create some things like this.
0:33:51 > 0:33:57But are there some things that can't be done by music of any kind?
0:33:58 > 0:34:04After The Conversation, Walter Murch had spent several of the following years exploring the potential
0:34:04 > 0:34:10of sound effects in another collaboration with director Francis Ford Coppola.
0:34:10 > 0:34:14It would set the benchmark for modern cinema sound.
0:34:14 > 0:34:20One of the most iconic pieces of soundtrack in cinema history isn't a sequence of notes,
0:34:20 > 0:34:24but it is a sound that, once you've heard it, it's very hard to forget.
0:34:24 > 0:34:29And it's so powerful, it's our first experience in the film,
0:34:29 > 0:34:34played out in darkness even before the first image has hit the screen.
0:34:34 > 0:34:36ECHOING WHOOSH OF ROTOR BLADES
0:34:43 > 0:34:47It's the sound of the helicopters that opens Apocalypse Now,
0:34:47 > 0:34:52echoing round the cinema before the music by The Doors fades in.
0:34:59 > 0:35:02For me, coming away from the cinema,
0:35:02 > 0:35:07all of my friends had been to see it at the same time and we all sat in the pub going...
0:35:07 > 0:35:09MAKES HELICOPTER NOISE
0:35:09 > 0:35:15Now how did that come about to go from a helicopter to something that had that potency to it?
0:35:15 > 0:35:16Francis,
0:35:16 > 0:35:22early on when we were talking about what were we going to do for this film,
0:35:22 > 0:35:26he said this is the first helicopter war,
0:35:26 > 0:35:33the first war where helicopters are really used like cavalry used to be used in the 19th century.
0:35:33 > 0:35:37And so he wanted to emphasise the helicopters
0:35:37 > 0:35:43and he wanted the helicopters to be able to fly all the way around the theatre,
0:35:43 > 0:35:47to envelop the audience in this world.
0:35:49 > 0:35:54The opening sequence builds into a strange montage of images,
0:35:54 > 0:35:58the noise of the helicopters merging with that of a ceiling fan.
0:35:58 > 0:36:02It's all utterly immersive, but it's not clear what's going on.
0:36:02 > 0:36:09The beginning of the film, it takes a while to discover that you are in a hotel room and this is a dream,
0:36:09 > 0:36:16but we wanted, right from the beginning, the sound to start pushing you in that direction.
0:36:16 > 0:36:23And so we couldn't really use a real helicopter because that would be too real.
0:36:23 > 0:36:30We just used the abstract sound of the blade, which was generated in a synthesiser,
0:36:30 > 0:36:35and we called it the ghost helicopter and flew it around the room,
0:36:35 > 0:36:41just to kind of demonstrate, "Here's the rules. This film is going to do these things.
0:36:41 > 0:36:45"It's capable of doing it and it's going to do it."
0:36:45 > 0:36:51The reason audiences of Apocalypse Now could enjoy such three-dimensional sound effects
0:36:51 > 0:36:55was that the film would be shown in a pioneering new sound format.
0:36:56 > 0:37:03Francis Ford Coppola had a singular ambition for how his movies should be seen and heard,
0:37:03 > 0:37:09a grandiose scheme worthy of the film's insane character Colonel Kurtz.
0:37:09 > 0:37:12For a number of months,
0:37:12 > 0:37:16Francis's goal was that the film would not play in normal theatres,
0:37:16 > 0:37:22but it would play in one theatre in the geographic centre of the United States
0:37:22 > 0:37:26and we would have this special sound system installed at this theatre
0:37:26 > 0:37:33and families would come from all over the country. It'd be a destination to go see Apocalypse Now
0:37:33 > 0:37:38and it would run there for 20 years, a cinematic Mount Rushmore.
0:37:38 > 0:37:41And...that did not happen,
0:37:41 > 0:37:48but this sound format, which was designed to work in that imagined space, did happen.
0:37:51 > 0:37:55That surround sound format with its multiple channels
0:37:55 > 0:37:59has now become the modern standard for what we hear in the cinema.
0:37:59 > 0:38:03And more channels mean more opportunities for sonic creativity.
0:38:03 > 0:38:09Murch became the godfather of a new cinematic discipline - sound design.
0:38:10 > 0:38:15I was being presented with a new landscape to work with
0:38:15 > 0:38:19and just as production designers take a space and then decorate it
0:38:19 > 0:38:25with things that look good and are revealing of the character of the film,
0:38:25 > 0:38:29that's what I was doing with the sound. I was figuring out,
0:38:29 > 0:38:33"How do we decorate? How do we furnish this space with sound?"
0:38:33 > 0:38:37And so production design became sound design.
0:38:40 > 0:38:45Murch's work on Apocalypse Now changed the way Hollywood thought about sound.
0:38:45 > 0:38:52Alongside music and dialogue, sound effects became a key element in the audio palette in their own right.
0:38:54 > 0:39:01I'm in a place in California where soundtracks of some of the biggest films have been put together.
0:39:01 > 0:39:06It may look like an upmarket winery, but this is Skywalker Sound,
0:39:06 > 0:39:13a state-of-the-art post-production facility built and owned by Star Wars creator George Lucas.
0:39:13 > 0:39:15SCREECHING SOUNDS
0:39:15 > 0:39:22A former protege of Walter Murch, Randy Thom recorded sound effects for Apocalypse Now.
0:39:22 > 0:39:26He's Skywalker's director of sound design.
0:39:26 > 0:39:32In 2005, he won an Oscar for his work on the Pixar movie The Incredibles.
0:39:32 > 0:39:36My first job, of course, is trying to work with the director
0:39:36 > 0:39:40to figure out what individual sounds should be,
0:39:40 > 0:39:44what works and doesn't work. In the case of these flying saucers,
0:39:44 > 0:39:51after listening to a wide variety of sounds, we decided that the sound of Formula 1 race cars might be there.
0:39:51 > 0:39:54SCREECHING LIKE A RACE CAR
0:40:00 > 0:40:04And there was this idea that the saucers were not only very fast,
0:40:04 > 0:40:08but they're spinning, almost like blades.
0:40:08 > 0:40:16And so it occurred to us that we might record saw blades rubbing and scraping against each other.
0:40:16 > 0:40:18METALLIC SCRAPES
0:40:18 > 0:40:25The audience get the feeling that this thing is spinning and could splice Dash right in half.
0:40:26 > 0:40:32- Can we now see finally the whole sequence with the music, sound effects, dialogue in place?- Sure.
0:40:43 > 0:40:46SAUCERS SCREECH AND SWIRL
0:40:50 > 0:40:55- It's wonderful and it is so playful. - Yeah.- I think that's part of it.
0:40:55 > 0:41:01This may be an impossible question, but how many hours of work is that, just what we've heard there?
0:41:01 > 0:41:04For me, it's about...
0:41:04 > 0:41:06..five months.
0:41:06 > 0:41:11And three months for four or five people. So it's a lot of work.
0:41:11 > 0:41:18'But with sound designers and composers individually giving their all to a film,
0:41:18 > 0:41:24'can this lead to sonic overload when effects, music and dialogue are finally mixed together?'
0:41:24 > 0:41:28Very often the first day of the final mix
0:41:28 > 0:41:31is an extremely frustrating day.
0:41:31 > 0:41:33You see lots of heads in hands
0:41:33 > 0:41:38and people leaving the room and disgruntled people
0:41:38 > 0:41:43because you're confronted with this incoherent wash of sound.
0:41:43 > 0:41:51It's an arduous task, working your way through this jungle of sound with your machete,
0:41:51 > 0:41:57slashing away at this bit of sound and that bit of sound to find the pieces that actually
0:41:57 > 0:41:59are doing the storytelling job.
0:42:01 > 0:42:04This is the Kurosawa mixing stage.
0:42:04 > 0:42:05Wow!
0:42:05 > 0:42:10'And here's where Randy wields his machete - the mixing theatre,
0:42:10 > 0:42:16'where music, effects and dialogue are put together under the watchful eye of the director.'
0:42:16 > 0:42:19Oh, look at the size of that desk!
0:42:21 > 0:42:27- And up here is the final arbiter, of course.- The director's likely to sit in one of these chairs.
0:42:27 > 0:42:33So do you find when you're dealing with composers, are they in the room here in these seats?
0:42:33 > 0:42:39For my money, composers are not in the final mix as often as I would like them to be.
0:42:39 > 0:42:45Very often the composer just isn't available and the music editor is the representative of the composer
0:42:45 > 0:42:47who's in the mix.
0:42:47 > 0:42:53The poor music editor is deathly afraid that he or she is going to offend the boss by saying,
0:42:53 > 0:42:56"Oh, sure, it's OK to drop that cue."
0:42:56 > 0:43:02I think you're more likely to make the change effectively and quickly if the composer is in the room.
0:43:02 > 0:43:06'Randy obviously has to tread a fine line,
0:43:06 > 0:43:12'but it would be wrong to imply that music and sound effects are always in competition.
0:43:13 > 0:43:19'One leading composer has long had a very close relationship with sound design.
0:43:19 > 0:43:23'I've travelled to New York to meet Carter Burwell.
0:43:25 > 0:43:31'His work includes scores for the hugely popular Twilight series. This is the love theme.'
0:43:31 > 0:43:34LILTING ROMANTIC SCORE
0:43:34 > 0:43:40But Burwell's biggest collaborators by far have been the Coen brothers, Joel and Ethan.
0:43:40 > 0:43:46He's scored more than a dozen films for them across a wide range of styles and genres.
0:43:51 > 0:43:54In this scene from True Grit,
0:43:54 > 0:43:58you can hear how he marries a melody inspired by 19th-century hymn tunes
0:43:58 > 0:44:05to a classic Hollywood Western orchestration that matches the widescreen action and setting.
0:44:18 > 0:44:23Burwell began working with the Coens on their debut picture Blood Simple.
0:44:24 > 0:44:28With a background as a computer scientist and New Wave musician,
0:44:28 > 0:44:32Burwell had never written a film score before.
0:44:32 > 0:44:36He took inspiration from an unconventional source.
0:44:36 > 0:44:42When Joel and Ethan first said, "Yes, you know, you should score our movie,"
0:44:42 > 0:44:46I thought, "Boy, I should learn something about film scoring!"
0:44:46 > 0:44:53And I came home and I looked at the TV scheduler for great movies. "Oh, The Birds!"
0:44:53 > 0:44:59So I set my VCR to record The Birds and I watched it, always listening for the music.
0:44:59 > 0:45:06And when it would come to the end of a dramatic scene, I'd say, "Oh! I forgot to listen to the music!"
0:45:06 > 0:45:12I got to the end of the entire film and thought, "I've got to rewind and study these scenes.
0:45:12 > 0:45:14"I don't remember the music at all."
0:45:14 > 0:45:19Of course, I found that there isn't any music in the traditional sense.
0:45:19 > 0:45:24It's tapes of bird sounds, synthesised bird sounds.
0:45:24 > 0:45:30That was just the best lesson I could have as my first film scoring lesson. Anything can be a film score.
0:45:31 > 0:45:36Working on this principle, Burwell has collaborated closely
0:45:36 > 0:45:41with sound designer Skip Lievsay, particularly on the Coens' Barton Fink,
0:45:41 > 0:45:45the story of a first-time screenwriter in 1940s Hollywood
0:45:45 > 0:45:50who finds himself trapped in a psychological nightmare.
0:45:50 > 0:45:56Director Joel Coen wanted much of that fear and claustrophobia to be carried by the sound effects.
0:45:56 > 0:46:00Joel originally felt that Barton Fink would have no score.
0:46:00 > 0:46:04When I saw the film, I felt there was something to be contributed still.
0:46:05 > 0:46:10The result is an often subtle interplay between effects and music,
0:46:10 > 0:46:17such as the recurring motif of the mosquito, which represents Barton's growing sense of torment.
0:46:19 > 0:46:21MOSQUITO BUZZ
0:46:30 > 0:46:36And I say, "I'm going to do something with a solo violin that will echo the idea of a mosquito.
0:46:36 > 0:46:39"It'll be this held violin note."
0:46:42 > 0:46:45FAN WHIRRS AND CLANKS
0:46:48 > 0:46:55So we literally, scene by scene, would divide the frequency spectrum. Skip would say, "I've got the highs."
0:46:57 > 0:47:01And then there would be scenes like this wonderful sound montage
0:47:01 > 0:47:05that begins with Barton making love on the bed.
0:47:05 > 0:47:10So it begins with music playing, Barton's theme.
0:47:15 > 0:47:19Camera pans into the bathroom and goes down into the sink
0:47:19 > 0:47:23and the piano mutates and becomes a prepared piano.
0:47:25 > 0:47:31I had all these metallic samples of my own that I've tuned to the pitch of the music.
0:47:33 > 0:47:39In the end, the final result, I can't tell where my stuff leaves off and Skip begins.
0:47:39 > 0:47:43In 2007, Burwell worked on a film with the Coens that forced him
0:47:43 > 0:47:46to distil his music down even more.
0:47:46 > 0:47:51The abiding sense of No Country For Old Men is one of menace,
0:47:51 > 0:47:56a violence which seems to emanate from the empty Texas landscape itself.
0:47:57 > 0:48:02One of the things that was really compelling about the edit of the film without music
0:48:02 > 0:48:09was that the dryness gave it just this tension that left you uncomfortable all the time.
0:48:09 > 0:48:15And that seemed to be the pleasure of that film, the discomfort.
0:48:15 > 0:48:17That's where the pleasure is.
0:48:17 > 0:48:23In the end, the ultimate withdrawal from scoring the movie
0:48:23 > 0:48:29was to hide whatever I did behind, again, Skip Lievsay's sound effects.
0:48:29 > 0:48:35Burwell's score may hide behind the effects, but he also enhances them,
0:48:35 > 0:48:38lending them a more musical quality.
0:48:38 > 0:48:42Here the villain is closing in on the protagonist
0:48:42 > 0:48:46and he increases the tension with a subtle, but disconcerting drone
0:48:47 > 0:48:51that could almost be the sound of the car itself.
0:48:51 > 0:48:54CONSTANT HUM
0:49:00 > 0:49:05And listen out for the bell-like sound that ends the scene.
0:49:05 > 0:49:10It could be an echo of the action, but it adds a richly ominous note.
0:49:12 > 0:49:14GUNSHOT AND METALLIC CLANG
0:49:19 > 0:49:24I can't imagine there's a more minimal way to score a film.
0:49:24 > 0:49:31I prefer films with less music. I prefer not being told how to feel or what's going on.
0:49:31 > 0:49:36I prefer to be a little bit more mystified or discomfited.
0:49:37 > 0:49:41Carter Burwell's approach seems remarkably self-effacing,
0:49:41 > 0:49:44though it's clearly appropriate in many instances,
0:49:44 > 0:49:50but I don't think a prominent score, one that declares itself, is anything to be ashamed of,
0:49:50 > 0:49:54given the right director, composer and subject.
0:49:56 > 0:49:59These are the opening titles of Pi,
0:49:59 > 0:50:05a psychological thriller that marked the debut of British composer Clint Mansell.
0:50:05 > 0:50:07URGENT TECHNO BEAT
0:50:09 > 0:50:12The music sets the tone perfectly -
0:50:12 > 0:50:16driving, utterly modern, yet unpredictable.
0:50:18 > 0:50:23Pi was also the first film by director Darren Aronofsky.
0:50:23 > 0:50:28Mansell's subsequent collaborations with him include Requiem For A Dream, The Fountain,
0:50:28 > 0:50:32and the Oscar-nominated Black Swan.
0:50:32 > 0:50:38We first bonded over the fact that we didn't like film music any more. It was very much wallpaper.
0:50:38 > 0:50:43Scores like Pi, had we done those within the studio system...
0:50:43 > 0:50:48I've had producers say to me, you know, "Can you make it more neutral?"
0:50:48 > 0:50:55You mean you want the music to do nothing?! And I'd always rather be bold and go, "OK.
0:50:55 > 0:50:58"Let's sort the men from the boys here."
0:50:58 > 0:51:05Some of Clint Mansell's own boldness must have come from his previous career.
0:51:05 > 0:51:12Here he is in the band Pop Will Eat Itself, whose forceful sound landed them hits in the '80s and '90s.
0:51:18 > 0:51:23When the band split, Mansell moved to the US. He'd never composed a film score.
0:51:23 > 0:51:29In fact, he'd had no formal musical training. Electronic technology made his new career possible.
0:51:29 > 0:51:32For me personally,
0:51:32 > 0:51:37there is no confusion that without computers and technology, I couldn't do what I do.
0:51:37 > 0:51:43Even when I was in my band, we never jammed. I didn't have the musical chops to do that,
0:51:43 > 0:51:48so for me the computer just opened up a whole world
0:51:48 > 0:51:52whereby a simple idea like this, that I did for Moon...
0:51:57 > 0:52:01It's really not that exciting at this stage.
0:52:02 > 0:52:08But when you put it to picture and you can add... DEEPER TONES
0:52:09 > 0:52:14Then I play them back and I've now got this.
0:52:14 > 0:52:16TRACKS PLAY TOGETHER
0:52:17 > 0:52:23And suddenly it's a... a much fuller experience, and I've done it on my own.
0:52:23 > 0:52:28It's just the computer has allowed me to sort of track my thoughts,
0:52:28 > 0:52:34put them together and suddenly we have a piece of music where nothing existed before.
0:52:34 > 0:52:41I could have... Maybe if I'd gone to a music school and learnt to write music
0:52:41 > 0:52:47with, you know, pen and manuscript, I could still do that because that's the way you do that,
0:52:47 > 0:52:53but I didn't do that. I played in bands, I know music by ear and whether it sounds good to me or not.
0:52:53 > 0:52:56The computer allows me to express it.
0:52:56 > 0:53:03To my mind, Clint Mansell's finest work is his score for Requiem For A Dream.
0:53:03 > 0:53:07Made in 2000 and starring Ellen Burstyn,
0:53:07 > 0:53:12the film interweaves the doomed lives of four drug addicts from Coney Island.
0:53:12 > 0:53:17Mansell's powerful music not only captures the oppressiveness of their predicament,
0:53:17 > 0:53:20but crucially its tragedy.
0:53:32 > 0:53:37That wonderful panning shot across Ellen Burstyn going at different speeds,
0:53:37 > 0:53:41as soon as you put your piece to that, in effect,
0:53:41 > 0:53:47was when it became a requiem. Until then it had been a story.
0:53:47 > 0:53:51Now it became a process of grieving for the audience.
0:53:52 > 0:53:58It brought such an emotional... weight to it, I suppose.
0:53:58 > 0:54:00Darren says it's a horror movie.
0:54:00 > 0:54:07Every time the addiction wins, that's the monster winning. That's the monster's music.
0:54:09 > 0:54:14I remember the first place we tried it was under the scene where Marion comes out
0:54:14 > 0:54:19having slept with her psychiatrist. She's coming down the hallway.
0:54:19 > 0:54:22We both were just gobsmacked.
0:54:24 > 0:54:26CRASH OF THUNDER
0:54:33 > 0:54:40It's a measure of the power of Mansell's score that it's gone on to have a life beyond the film.
0:54:40 > 0:54:46This is the trailer for The Two Towers, the second Lord of the Rings movie, released in 2002.
0:54:46 > 0:54:49Listen to the music.
0:54:49 > 0:54:51"Requiem For A Dream" SCORE
0:54:56 > 0:55:00That epic tune with these spectacular images
0:55:00 > 0:55:04is actually the theme from Requiem For A Dream,
0:55:04 > 0:55:10reworked with the kind of full orchestral treatment it would have been given by Max Steiner
0:55:10 > 0:55:14and Erich Wolfgang Korngold in Hollywood's Golden Age.
0:55:14 > 0:55:17When it was re-orchestrated for Lord of the Rings,
0:55:17 > 0:55:23it actually kind of blew my mind because it made me see the possibility of music.
0:55:23 > 0:55:29There's the way we'd done it and somebody else did this huge version that really... I don't know.
0:55:29 > 0:55:36People use it on YouTube all the time. You can put this on anything and it becomes epic!
0:55:36 > 0:55:39I don't know. It's just been amazing, really.
0:55:41 > 0:55:45Clint Mansell strikes me as a shining example
0:55:45 > 0:55:49of how technology has democratised film scoring,
0:55:49 > 0:55:53opening it up to talents without conventional composing backgrounds.
0:55:53 > 0:55:57But if the history of the film soundtrack tells us anything
0:55:57 > 0:56:04it is that cinema has always been open to new storytellers and new kinds of storytelling.
0:56:05 > 0:56:08"The Adventures of Robin Hood" THEME
0:56:08 > 0:56:14Throughout this series, we've seen how great leaps forward in film scoring have been made
0:56:14 > 0:56:21because studios and producers were remarkably willing to take risks and trust the judgment of composers.
0:56:23 > 0:56:27Hollywood welcomed migrants from Old Europe like Korngold and Steiner
0:56:27 > 0:56:32giving them the resources to build on the classical tradition
0:56:32 > 0:56:36and bring a new depth of expressiveness to cinema.
0:56:41 > 0:56:48It enabled a bold modern composer like Bernard Herrmann to create scores of unprecedented complexity
0:56:48 > 0:56:54and psychological depth for the greatest films by the 20th century's finest directors.
0:57:03 > 0:57:10Producers gambled that composers from jazz and pop backgrounds like Ennio Morricone and John Barry
0:57:10 > 0:57:14could win over a new generation of moviegoers, and they did,
0:57:14 > 0:57:19bringing fresh energy and excitement to the film soundtrack.
0:57:24 > 0:57:29Masters of technology like Walter Carlos and Vangelis were encouraged
0:57:29 > 0:57:33to touch our emotions in new ways with new sounds.
0:57:40 > 0:57:44That astonishing track record continues to this day
0:57:44 > 0:57:51and it leaves me more confident than ever that film composers will continue to innovate and thrive.
0:57:53 > 0:57:58Film composers don't just come up with a nice tune or memorable hook.
0:57:58 > 0:58:04What they do is they place their musical abilities entirely at the service of the story.
0:58:04 > 0:58:09It's the one thing that interests us most as an audience - what happens next.
0:58:15 > 0:58:20They understand about character, about narrative, about mood
0:58:20 > 0:58:26and when they bring their music to those elements of cinema, they create something almost unimaginable
0:58:26 > 0:58:28before the music was there.
0:58:28 > 0:58:30And here's the big miracle -
0:58:30 > 0:58:34no matter their background, their age or even the style of music,
0:58:34 > 0:58:41they find exactly the right notes at the right time to speak to every single one of us.
0:58:44 > 0:58:46There you go.
0:58:58 > 0:59:00PLAYS "Chariots of Fire" THEME
0:59:11 > 0:59:13Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd