# My first feature - recording w video from Prague



## Unison (Jul 13, 2009)

Hi guys

I've been lurking around the forum for quite some time and really enjoyed the great amount of pro information and discussion. So I thought it would now be time for me to chime in with some offering for your review. 

I have just had the pleasure of seeing the premiere of the first feature film with my orchestral score. It was a Danish production directed by Academy Award nominee Christian E. Christiansen.
The majority of the tracks were recorded in Prague with the city philharmonics. It was a tremendous experience to work with them. And I would like to share some of the results here with you.

Here's the main theme from the movie with video from the recording session:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHcxOQVKo3c

The midi mockup: (mainly Symphobia, VSL and SISS)
http://www.nicklas-schmidt.com/pdf/Zoomers-Titles.mp3

And the score for those interested:
http://www.nicklas-schmidt.com/pdf/ZM04-score-FINAL.pdf


I've also uploaded a pick of some selected tracks from the film to youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2N9fnVarxI

Comments and questions are welcome 


- Nicklas


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## Rob (Jul 13, 2009)

thanks for sharing these, Nicklas, that's very interesting... and congratulations for getting this job done!

rOBERTO


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## Simon Ravn (Jul 13, 2009)

Cool Nicklas - and good to have you here! 8) 

Sounds great!


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## re-peat (Jul 13, 2009)

Very nice. Pretty fabulous mock-up as well.


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## lux (Jul 13, 2009)

yup, agree, thats pretty nice. 

Welcome here Nicklas

Luca


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## Frederick Russ (Jul 13, 2009)

Very nice Nicklas - must have been a wonderful experience. Clean and organized writing plus clear memorable themes. Congrats!


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## Christian Marcussen (Jul 13, 2009)

Nice. It's cool to hear the mockup... The real thing is obviously superior.. but not as superior as one might think. A testement to how far sampling has come the last 10 years.


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## TheoKrueger (Jul 13, 2009)

Very enjoyable music, the video was really nice too.


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## Hal (Jul 13, 2009)

memorable theme indeed
what kind of movie is it ??
i listend to the 7 tracks as well it the sounds romantic,adventure ?
nice to post the pdf.
i just feel there is a little problem with the Mixe when u listen to the music by itself.am sure all this on the picture is different.
welcome here and congratulations.


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## synthetic (Jul 13, 2009)

Wow, wonderful. Thank you for posting these. The recording came out very nice. It's always interesting to see and hear recordings from Prague. Congratulations on a great-sounding score.


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## artsoundz (Jul 13, 2009)

+1/ Also-really appreciate the complete overview you've provided for us. Fascinating stuff and very helpful. Thanks!


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## germancomponist (Jul 13, 2009)

Very coool! Thanks for sharing and, welcome!


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## Lex (Jul 13, 2009)

congrats and thnx for sharing

aLex


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## mixolydian (Jul 13, 2009)

Great, thanks for sharing. Do they have a bunch of cameras installed or is it just for these recordings?


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## Unison (Jul 13, 2009)

Thanks for the overwhelming feedback, guys!  I really appreciate it!

@mixolydian:
The video was actually put together from several takes with one small camera. The contractor was very kind to offer shooting this for me. I edited it in Imovie :o and synced it with a fold-down of the 5.1-mix. Very you-tubian approach, I suppose :wink: 

@Hal:
The three main characters in the movie are 12 year old children. It's kinda directed towards a "family audience", and the 10-15 year olds in particular. The opening credits has a clear reference to the beginning of "the Goonies" (the kids are biking through suburban Copenhagen - seen from a helicopter camera), and the director thought it could be nice if the theme somehow had a distant echo of that musical world. So yes, the film has elements of adventure, young romance and some suspense as well.

Some newspaper and TV reviews here pointed out a discrepancy between the score and the film. Some thought the music had bigger ambitions (production value) than the film was able to fulfill (which I suppose I must take as a compliment) where others thought it was too much, too big for the film. At any rate it was interesting to see how many reviewers actually mentioned the music, which doesn't happen very often for movie-reviews.


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## leslieq (Jul 13, 2009)

Hey Nicklas, that's really awesome. Really nice use of syncopation. The audioreel tracks are equally well done. Very inspired. Thanks for sharing


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## PolarBear (Jul 13, 2009)

What a nice score... and a good mockup too! 

Hehe... Nic Rayne  Cool guy, too! How was the experience? With him being mentioned, did you do everything on your own? Composition, orchestration and all?


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## RiffWraith (Jul 13, 2009)

Very nice - thanks for sharing.

Now, may I respectfully ask you to share something else?

How much time did this take for how much music, and what was the cost?

Cheers.


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## Ian Dorsch (Jul 13, 2009)

Very nice indeed. I've already got the theme stuck in my head.


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## Mahlon (Jul 13, 2009)

Nice!! Theme is very memorable, and I would think the musicians would have a great time playing it.

Thanks for posting your mockup. Always interesting to hear how things go from concept to finish.

Mahlon


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## nikolas (Jul 13, 2009)

Niclas this sounds wonderful and the information you provided is also excellent for the whole community. I think that you (and I) are some of the very few to provide scores with their music! :D

The rendering stands a little thin compaired to the real thing, but who cares? And either way comparison is made reduntand really, since they are two different instruments/beasts alltogether.



Mahlon @ Tue Jul 14 said:


> ...and I would think the musicians would have a great time playing it.


Heh... I'd sasy the exact opposite thing, based on the video. They did seem a little... bored, or maybe just paying attention to the click track. :-/ Dunno, never had such a recording, never had an orchestra wear headphones, so no idea really...


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## Unison (Jul 13, 2009)

PolarBear @ Tue Jul 14 said:


> What a nice score... and a good mockup too!
> 
> Hehe... Nic Rayne  Cool guy, too! How was the experience? With him being mentioned, did you do everything on your own? Composition, orchestration and all?



It was a pure pleasure to work with Nic. You know him?  
He was rock solid on the click and very true to express what I had written. He just happened to be in Prague with another project, and so the contractor suggested I use him as conductor. It was nice to not have to go through an interpreter to the conductor.
In other words I did orchestrate and compose all by myself, except for a few cues where I outsourced the transformation from cubase midi mockup to Finale score to a great colleague of mine, Peter Due. He also gave me a very welcome hand in the endless work preparing the parts. Next time I will not hesitate to hire a copyist!! :roll: 

@RiffWraith:
I had 2x4 hours of recording time, where we managed to get around 25 mins of edited music in the can. One session was with 55 musicians (Strings, winds, horns & perc) and the other session had just strings and a clarinet & piano soloist.
I was amazed at the sight reading capabilities of the players. 3rd take was almost every time ready to take home, and from there it was just a matter of adjusting dynamics or melodic expression, if needed. The total cost was around €10.000 Euro excluding mix.
Thanks for the request, I will try to post some of my other works shortly. 

@Nikolas:
I knew I was going to record with a real orchestra, so the mockup just had to give the director an idea where we were heading. Didn't spend endless hours on it.
Whether the musicians were bored - well, I think they do these recording jobs on a daily basis, and I can't blame them for not being 100% enthusiastic after seven hours of sitting in a hot studio, playing the same cues over and over. There seemed to be a 50/50 division as to who used the click, and who just wanted to play along with the conductor. One thing I learned, and which I think I will use again if possible; on some of the more romantic cues we ended up discarding the click and let Nic conduct freely. It gave a great plus on the expression side to the music, and the required time for the cue was held within a second or two.. (naturally those cues had no strict hitpoints in the movie)..


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## PolarBear (Jul 14, 2009)

Unison, well I don't know him personally. I just happened to attend some of the film music concerts of Germany's "Klassikradio" where he conducted and shared a few bits here and there about his work. (Probably a project of theirs in Prague? They were so far once re-recording hard-to-get and great soundtracks to a film music compilation.) He also did the transcriptions for these concerts which sounded very good and balanced to me (just not at all on that amped electronic harpsichord and celesta for the Harry Potter stuff - anyway, going OT here) - on these concerts he also told that he did orchestrations for major composers of feature film soundtracks (can't remember exactly which) - so you mentioning him just got curious. 

Hope you'll stick around the boards and I'd be pleased to listen to more of your great mockups or nice recordings!


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## handz (Sep 25, 2009)

Great post, thanks for all those interesting informations, music is very nice, congratulations.


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## Pros (Sep 25, 2009)

/headexplodes


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