Musicalizing a movie scene: "The Bow" by Kim Ki-Duk

Hello Steemit!

Today I would like to share with you one of the most challenging and fun works that we can do as Composers and Musical Producers; musicalize a scene or a whole movie.

This time I'm going to show you a scene from a film called"The Bow" made in 2005 by the South Korean director Kim Ki-duk.

This film is a little different from what we may be used to seeing, especially if we are big Hollywood consumers, its fast rhythms and announced endings. On the other hand, this film has a slower and more poetic rhythm.
The film is about a girl who lives with a fisherman in the middle of the sea on a battered boat. The fisherman is dedicated to serving drinks to other fishermen, to reading the future and to protecting, with his bow and his life, the life of the young woman with whom he has a very special relationship and with whom he hopes to marry when she reaches the age of majority. For her part, she helps the old man in his work and attends to clients who are not always very respectful. However, the sudden arrival of a handsome college student will put in danger this relationship marked by age difference, social rules and feelings.

What challenge do the scenes present?

Well.....each scene and each film presents a different challenge, each one has a different need and it is our duty as musicians, composers and producers, to know how to identify where we can contribute to the image, or even to identify when the scene doesn't need us and move out of the way to let the scene develop fully.

Unlike many films, where the content of the scenes clearly indicates to us what it needs from the music, like emphasizing the rhythm of the scene, supporting the hits of a fight, a police pursuit (classic of the action cinema) or simply supporting the climaxes, like a kiss between the protagonists (classic of the romances); This Korean scene poses a completely different challenge.
First of all, this scene could work perfectly without music, in fact, that's how it originally appears in the film as you'll see below.

Here is the scene without music, with the original sound design:

The scene works perfectly without music, doesn't it? so...why add music to something that already works? the truth is that it wouldn't be necessary to add music to the scene, but in many productions the one who makes the decisions is the film director, and in most cases the director has excellent judgment to direct as to the shots, angles and colors, but not so good judgment as to the music is concerned hahaha; so you have to know how to deal with the requests of the director. That's why I decided to work with this scene as a challenge because as much freedom we have, it's more difficult to find the place for the music.

Here's the scene with music:

As you can see, the music in this type of scenes plays a completely different role compared to what we usually see, in this case it is about "coloring" and not to take protagonism with our music; otherwise, we could end up generating confusion in the audience by giving the music an impression that does not coincide with what the scene tries to transmit to us. Even when we refer to the mix of this music, we can hear that it is quite inside-in, never covers the effects of original sounds of the film, which are usually quite strong in Korean cinema (something a little characteristic of Asian cinema).

I took the liberty of adding some " climax " into the scene (like the moment where he takes off her hat) and emphasizing them from the music using them as points of support and breathing.
About the instrumentation, I chose to combine Asian elements such as the "Erhu" (a traditional Asian violin) and an Asian percussion set, with the piano, a typical western instrument (as in the original music of this film from where I was inspired).

The original music of this film was composed by Kang Eun Il, an incredible Korean composer whose music combines Asian folk elements (rhythms, melodies and instrumentation) with Western elements of classical music and jazz, generating a beautiful fusion completely different from what is normally heard.

Where and how to make your music? :

Well in this case I used the Logic, a Daw (digital audio workstation) exclusive for Mac, one of the standards to work with audio and video; the Logic comes by default with a fairly complete library (although not high quality) of midi musical instruments and gives us the option to expand it. For this job I use only Logic instruments, that with a little equalization and edition can take you to a successful place; obviously, you could use much more realistic instrument libraries, but also, heavier and more expensive.

There are many programs where you can do works like this, like the old and well-known Protools, Cubase, Studio One and one of the favorites of the house : Reaper (Highly recommended, can be used for free and its license is quite economic).

So you know, today we have many tools available to compose, experiment and work, it's just a question of research and start making decisions .... try and fail hahaha.

I hope this post has been useful and entertaining, any doubt, suggestion or comment, do not doubt to comment; I will try to help with all the pleasure of the world!

Yours truly: @piterman