In this small article, we will cover briefly his composition for Harry Potter, (Hedwig’s Theme) as well as the approaches and methodology he used to bring the films to life through his soundtracks.

The primary ostinato (section A), which is the opening orchestration, is repeated frequently with numerous variations throughout all of the films and is the most renowned and identifiable component of the work.

The piece has a combination of real and electronic instruments, including a celeste and a metal bell, which may be the most obvious sounds, made using a keyboard synthesiser. John Williams chose a celeste in the Harry Potter sound score because, although not being an often featured instrument, it added an ethereal tone to the soundtrack; the dreamy sound corresponds to the film's magical themes.

Almost the whole work is filled with quick and complicated stringed instruments, with powerful brass, woodwind, and harps floating in and out, making it a full orchestral composition. Surprisingly, despite the enormous orchestration, there is very little to no percussion.

In comparison, certain characters in Williams' previous works, such as Star Wars, have an ostinato or sound to accompany them. The legendary Imperial March, for example, portrays Darth Vader and the Empire. This is a typical technique used throughout film history to emphasise a character, theme, concept, or even movement. Hedwig's Theme, on the other hand, is more of a generic theme tune to the world of wizards and magic in Harry Potter. Although undoubtedly, characters and moments throughout the movies do have different musical themes, Hedwig's Theme stands out as the most prominent and is an underlying theme for everything. Throughout the Harry Potter films, the song is sliced up, rearranged, and the instruments are swapped out. It's a pretty intriguing method that is sometimes used in film music but particularly in Harry Potter.

Harry Potter's sound editor was James Mather. He found the use of MIDI and sampling to be valuable in the creation. The first thing you hear in the Deathly Hallows is the Horcrux soundscape over the WB logo. Mather gathered a large number of drones, rings, sirens, and insect noises that were triggered at various pitches and timings and then modified with EQ and FX. This maintained consistency within the sound score while contrasting in pitch and tone.

http://www.filmsound.org/studiosound/The%20sound%20of%20magic%20Harry%20Potter.htm

https://www.biography.com/people/john-williams-9532526

http://www.filmmusicnotes.com/john-williams-themes-part-6-of-6-hedwigs-theme-from-harry-potter/

The proverb “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” might be expressing a few things, but the overall concept of travel and progress persists.

To begin, it might imply that you must take the first steps and proceed through the phases of life to grow as an adult and a person in general. People frequently state that the finest parts of life are the people and the experiences they have. This might be accomplished by making a "journey" maturing and growing up by taking small steps each day, learning and developing through new challenges.

This proverb might also mean something more literal, such as taking the first step to get from one location to another. To travel and experience the world or new places, one must first acquire the confidence and courage to take the first small steps toward planning their trip. Going to new locations and seeing new things may even be frightening, yet an exciting journey is had via new experiences and learning information from various nations and cultures. In a literal sense, this proverb might be quite meaningful as well.

Finally, the proverb might be suggesting that to achieve anything, you must first understand the fundamentals of that topic and then progress to acquire new skills. Some tasks, such as learning a new language, require a long time to perfect but may be accomplished with consistent effort and perseverance. Some may be anxious to become competent in a subject and quickly feel irritated when things appear difficult, but they may not consider that constantly working on them for a long time eventually leads to a high degree of practice, professionalism, and expertise.

The phrase "good things take time" springs to mind. To achieve a thousand-mile journey, one must be patient but tenacious in their goal. Many individuals may settle for less and let their lives pass them by without ever attempting to reach their goals because they are too hesitant to take the first steps. To embark on a long and fruitful journey, one must first take the initial steps toward a better life, beginning with baby steps and gradually becoming wiser through time. 

According to the Screen Sound Journal, ‘creating an environmental soundtrack for cinema is as much a technical craft as it is an aesthetic art form.’ It's not so much about making something realistic as it is about immersing the viewer in it through the use of emotive music, sound effects, foley, and wild tracks.

There is a lot that goes into creating a film's soundscape. Typically, there are five sections of sound score that contribute to the overall sound of a film:

1. Dialogue
2. Score
3. SFX
4. Foley
5. Wildtrack

This list is written in order of most importance. 

The Dialogue narration is either delivered on set or overdubbed in the studio for a more controlled tone.

The score is the music that plays in the background and it can range from orchestration to generic mood music to create a certain emotion and environment on screen.

SFX is an abbreviation for Sound Effects, which can range from booms and crashes in an action picture to bounces and bubbles in a cartoon, like shown as an example in our preious post about Finding Nemo and Finding Dory.

Foley is the process of making noises in a studio and matching the audio to the visuals. Horse hooves and gear, for example, are frequently overdubbed in a studio by using the bottoms of coconuts against whatever surface is on film and individuals physically moving about the horse's gear to recreate the horse's movements on screen.

A wild track serves as an underlying mood for a film. It produces a film's ambience and room environment while also ensuring that everything flows smoothly. It may be accomplished by the use of buzz sounds, drones, or even silence.

The three P's are also very crucial to consider while writing a cinematic score:

Placement + Proximity + Perspective

These three characteristics will entail how the audience sees the film. Where each sound is positioned in respect to the space, how far or near it is to the screen, and where the camera/audience is in relation to the sound are all important considerations.

A composer can manipulate the perception of a sound in several ways:

Compression: Compression is the process of increasing the loudness of the quieter sections of a sound while decreasing the level of the louder parts to make the audio sound fuller in a mix. This squashes a sound together and reduces its dynamic range.

EQ: An equaliser is a device used to modify the frequencies of an audio track. You may remove and add frequencies with an EQ plugin. You may reduce high and low-end frequencies from a recording to remove tinniness and muddiness, making it sound cleaner and more accurate.

Reverb: To create space, reverb is applied. When you apply reverb to an audio file, it adds distance depending on how much you use; the more reverb a piece of audio has, the further away it is perceived in the film.

Gain staging and volume: Gain staging and volume are used to order the distance of a sound in relation to the screen. For example, to bring a piece of audio to the forefront of the mix. This is usually the final stage in mixing a sound, and it depicts where the sound is in the mix. The louder the sound, the closer it seems, establishing cohesion between the audio and visual.

This is our very first blog entry! Now and then, we will offer various things on our blog, such as music analyses like this one, future news and events, and other music-related items that we would want to share with you!
 
Today's blog article delves into the history of the sound and music for two of the most spectacular Disney movies, Finding Nemo and Finding Dory! We adore these works, and the music and sound score plays a key role in that! The foley and sound score are fascinating, and we hope this brief essay offers you some insight into how remarkable the music's behind-the-scenes was!
 
The composer for these amazing, classic films is Thomas Newnam. The film's production began in January 2000, with a staff of 180 people only for the sound and music.
 
Newman has been recognized as the film's co-storyteller. His vision for the film's sound composition was to make it believable rather than realistic. The film's concepts and emotions are indeed genuine. It depicts the loss of family and anxiety about being a responsible parent, and these themes are revisited in Finding Dory. He musicalizes the film's many emotions by highlighting them. "They're real," he continues, “In terms of storytelling, they all need to be addressed in a certain way.”
 
Gary Rydstorm was in charge of the film's sounds rather than the composition, working alongside Al Nelson (supervising foley editor), Shannon Mills (sound effects editor), and Teresa Eckton (sound effects editor).
 
He spent a significant amount of time capturing noises to give the sensation of being underwater. "This was a movie with no feet, footsteps, and no traditional foley," Rydstrom explains.
 
Rydstorm, like Newnam, did not try for a genuine sounding soundtrack, but rather something that contributes to the picture to make it credible. One of his first thoughts was to go inside pet stores and record microphones being carried around in the water, but he quickly realized that this sounded too dull.
 
Typically, specific noises in films are linked to different characters. Each individual has their unique sound to create a believable movement track. Rydstorm preferred the sound generated with a paper towel for Nemo's damaged fin. It had a 'little flutter almost like a wing flap… almost a hummingbird quality to it’ he said.
 
Marlin's voice was borrowed from the Pixar short 'Knick Knack,' which was more manic in tone, but Dory's sound was smoother and more cutting. 'She's just going through life having a good time,' Rydstorm says. ‘We tried every trick in the book to differentiate the main characters with sound'.
 
Other noises, such as the foley for the jellyfish scene, were made by bouncing his finger on a hot water bottle, resulting in a watery, muffled ‘glug.’

References

https://www.ukessays.com/essays/film-studies/use-of-music-by-thomas-newman-film-studies-essay.php

http://variety.com/2016/artisans/production/finding-dory-composer-thomas-newman-1201785340/

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-thomasnewman/film-composer-thomas-newman-immersed-in-music-idUSTRE69Q0OY20101029

http://www.pixartalk.com/feature-films/nemo/finding-nemo-production-notes/