- Opening Theme - oboe, clarinet, cello - played during the opening credits
- Theme of Romance - violin, flute, keyboard, cello, recorders - played when Thomas and Questa meet for the first time in the woods
- Main Theme - trumpet, saxophone, cello, oboe, flute - played during the wedding reception
- Conspiratorial Camel - made with software instruments - played when Questa explains the camel's history and again during Jeanne's long exposition at the end
- Alien Instruction Manual - made with software instruments - played during the alien's voice-over scenes
- The Journey Continues - keyboard, recorder, flute, cello, oboe, alto voice - played during the stop motion sequences and at the start of the ending credits
- Lost In Paris - keyboard, flute - played when the pair are lost in paris
- There's a Rainbow in My Camel - different versions of this melody are played each time the camel glows
- Sunken Pride - trumpet, saxophone, cello - played when the ship sinks
- Eccentric Englishmen - trumpet, saxophone, cello, keyboard - played when the couple run off to the posh shop, and when the camera pans up their eccentric clothing
- Gaullist Vigilantes - trumpet, saxophone, keyboard, flute - played in the first ninja scene
- Race to the Finish - made with software instruments - played for the first time when Jeanne runs along the shore of Loch Ness, then again in the scenes on the motorway, and again at the end when the alien starts being evil
- Theme of Espionage - clarinet, violin - played when Jeanne is spying on the couple at Loch Ness
- The Loch Ness Monster Attacks - trumpet, saxophone, cello - played when the Ultimate Gaullist Weapon attacks
- Arrival at Rodborough Common - oboe, clarinet, keyboard - played in the car at Rodborough Common
- Kiss Conquers Camel - violin, flute, recorders, cello, keyboard - played when Questa kisses Thomas at the end
- Saving the World - oboe, flute, cello, alto voice, tenor voice, keyboard - played when Thomas and Questa are sat amongst the flames at the end
- Final Message - oboe, violin, cello, keyboard - played during the alien's recorded message at the very end.
The film's main theme actually doesn't receive much prominence: it's playing in the background of the wedding reception. It would have appeared during the credits, but it was clear that The Journey Continues was a much better quality piece all round. Nevertheless, the oboe section of the main theme was the basis for the Theme of Espionage, and the subsequent flute section was the basis of The Loch Ness Monster Attacks. The opening theme is merely a shortened version of the main theme played with different instruments. Lost in Paris, Gaullist Vigilantes, Sunken Pride, Saving the World and parts of Race to the Finish and The Journey Continues all contain 'remixes' of this main melody. The part of Race to the Finish that plays when Questa is talking about Jeanne in the car is a remix of the beginning of The Journey Continues, since it is effectively a more frantic 'journey' scene. Kiss Conquers Camel starts off in emulation of the Theme of Romance for obvious reasons.
The tune that plays every time a tripod emerges at Rodborough Common is effectively the camel's theme: it plays for the first time when we see the camel on the mantelpiece, and Conspiratorial Camel makes extensive use of it. Six iterations of this tune, each one higher than the last, appear in Race to the Finish when all of the tripods emit their light, just prior to the hypermarket's emergence. In this way, there is a complex set of leitmotifs that weave their way through the story, evoking different feelings to suit the action but remaining broadly compatible and cohesive.
The film's score could probably not be described as 'cinematic', nor is it of a truly professional quality, but I don't think 'cinematic' would necessarily have been appropriate for a film of this ilk. This is not a serious film; it's a comic romp of sheer absurdity, and it deserved to have a somewhat quirky score. Not to mention the fact that I did not have an orchestra at my disposal and, even if I had, I wouldn't have been able to handle it. What I'm saying is that a full, professional-quality orchestral score would have been overkill for an amateur comedic weird-fest like From Poverty to Africa; it would have been veritably discordant.
Those pieces that we didn't get around to recording at the studio were produced with software instruments in GarageBand - a very basic MIDI composing application that comes with all new Macs - and processed in Soundtrack Pro. The results are actually more than satisfactory, I think. The advantage of doing a piece like Race to the Finish in this way was that it was easier to insert looping drum beats and other sound effects, and I was able to use different instruments, such as the electric guitar that makes a brief appearance in the first iteration of the chorus, or the entirely synthesised instrument that appears in Alien Instruction Manual.
The Journey Continues is quite clearly the best piece in the score. It was played and sung beautifully. It has quite an interesting structure, building up to the introduction of the film's main theme and then elaborating on it in new ways. And who wouldn't fall in love with the little trill that Maddy spontaneously played on the oboe towards the end? The score for this piece did not originally include the oboe, but it was suggested that the oboe could replace the alto's part. We couldn't decide whether the oboe or the alto sounded better, so we included both, thereby duplicating that part. I was concerned that the piece sounded too 'busy', but overall, it seems to have worked very well. Saving the World is probably my second favourite piece, followed by Gaullist Vigilantes, which fits with its subject matter very neatly, especially the part where the ninjas walk across the zebra crossing, which is accompanied by a tune on the piano which sounds to me like a car's indicator. Kiss Conquers Camel (pictured) was the most difficult piece to play because it's very fast and changes key signature three times.The music that plays during the rolling part of the credits is Un Matin, a piece of Creative Commons licenced, independent French pop music by Christophe Bouvet, which Matthew found on Jamendo. Jamendo is an excellent music sharing website and contains the highest density of good quality music that I've found in any repository of independent music.
Meta-Diegesis
I have made up the term meta-diegesis to refer to a technique which may or may not already have a name - broadly speaking it is the technique of messing with the audience's perception of where a particular element in a scene comes from. In film, 'diegetic sound' is sound that occurs within the film's own universe, such as the dialogue - things the characters can actually hear. 'Non-diegetic sound' is sound that has been added to a scene to create a certain mood, and the audience understands that only they can hear it - not the characters. The clearest example of where From Poverty to Africa deliberately confuses these two types of sound is where the radio broadcast in the car interrupts the music (Race to the Finish) with the words "We interrupt this broadcast of suspenseful film music to bring you the latest headlines". The music comes back again when the announcement ends. Thus, what the audience originally assumed to be non-diegetic sound is actually diegetic. (The fact that the music isn't really on the radio and is added to the scene in exactly the same way as if it were non-diegetic is not relevant.)
The main theme that plays during the wedding reception is supposed to be diegetic, i.e. it is supposedly being played by a band or a stereo system in the background. But it is nevertheless recognisably the main theme tune of the film, which suggests that this music actually has some existence in the film's universe. This idea is backed up by the fact that Monique sings the same tune (using the word 'yam' for each note) as she wanders through the corn field in the Congo. And Questa's mobile phone ring tune is a remix of the Theme of Romance. We might even suggest that the Conspiratorial Camel music that starts playing when Claire comes on the phone and stops playing just before Questa declares that her phone's battery has run out is in fact music that's coming out of the phone's speaker as well. Thus, the non-diegetic music has diegetic parallels, and the effect of this is similar to the more general technique of meta-fiction: to draw attention to the fact that this is a film, a story, a fiction; it's not real. Questa's line "expecting to confront a mad-woman whose position we know well enough for the build-up of dramatic tension" is a concrete example of meta-fiction, where the techniques of film itself are referred to by the film's own characters.
A similar idea is happening with the transitions between the 'past' and 'present' timelines. When Jeanne says "sorry to interrupt your conversation" in the past timeline, Monique comes into the room in the present-day timeline, interrupting the telling of the story, with the exact same words. This again plays on the audience's perception of the origin of the sound and the relationship between the 'story' as it is told and the 'story' as it actually played out at the time that it happened. Both of them, of course, are nothing more than stories being told by the film-makers. This technique is repeated three times in scene 52. The most interesting one is where Questa's mobile phone rings - and we realise that it is ringing in the present-day timeline too.
This 'meta-diegesis', as I have called it, is not restricted to the sound. An exactly parallel phenomenon is used in the 'Race to the Finish' scenes. Questa says "we'll have to go to Rodborough Common ourselves, while there may still be time" and a timer promptly appears on the screen, which we immediately presume is counting down the time that the couple has to arrive on Rodborough Common before it's too late. Such a timer would have to be a non-diegetic timer, since the characters are not aware of it and it has no physical existence in the world. But this is precisely where the film fools you, for at the end of this frantic sequence, the timer reaches zero, and the shot expands to fill the screen, revealing that it did in fact have a physical existence in the story: it was Claire's microwave timer. So the non-diegetic visuals transpired to be diegetic after all, and were not related to the hypermarket, but to the time that it took for Claire to make her crocodile-busting cheeseburgers. This is one of the most subtle jokes in the entire film, and I do hope that it doesn't go unappreciated.
Advice
Music-related advice for amateur film-makers:
- If you can get an original score composed for your film, it is definitely worth it!
- And if you can do this - it is definitely best to compose the music when the scene is already edited, so that you can fit them together much more neatly.
- Having the music played by real instruments has great advantages for the quality and feel of the score, but it is hard work to organise and does limit you to the particular instruments you have available.
- If you can't have an original score, you could browse sites like Jamendo, Magnatune, macjams, opsound and so on; it's amazing how much high-quality stuff is out there, available royalty-free.
- If you're making a comedic film, meta-diegesis is an interesting idea to play with, but for most genres it would probably be inappropriate.
Now let's delve into the world of green screens.
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