Another piece of music raised for discussion in our week 2 lesson was the score for the 2013 film Gravity (dir. Alfonso Cuaron), by British composer Steven Price. The film has just won the Bafta for Best Original Film Music and has been nominated for the Best Original Score Oscar.
I saw the film in 3D a few weeks ago and I think at the time the main thing I took from it was the breathtaking visuals and the fact that I really enjoyed the 3D having previously been a sceptic of 3D cinema in general. The fact that I was so taken-back by the images on screen meant that I hadn't given enough attention to the score. I think this speaks to how well crafted the score is. Although the music was there and helped convey the emotions within the scene there was a subtlety to it that was pitched just right so that it added to the scene but didn't bring me out of the film.
Looking back another great aspect of the music was its ability to convey isolation. I heard that one of the main challenges the filmmakers faced when making Gravity was that there is no sound in space. They approached this in a very interesting way and the sounds in space seemed to have an underwater feel to them. Another big problem that the sound team address brilliantly was the idea of scoring scenes which are about as isolated as you can get which I think they did with they're, again subtle, use of strings.
Within the editing of Gravity itself something I loved about the film was the use of very long takes. The audience is really allowed to take in the shot for the right amount of time, letting the viewer take in the full shot only adding to the immersive nature of the film.
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