Movies are both a visual and aural medium. You watch a movie, but at the same time, you
listen to it. There are a multitude of
sounds to be heard. Foley work, like
footsteps, help to make a scene feel more realistic. Ambiance, such as the basic room sound, can
make a space better realized. One of the
most important aspects, however, is the music used in a movie.
Music is one of the biggest influencers in a movie. It can change the tone and energy in a way
that sends things in a completely different direction. It can build tension in a horror film or add
to the loving feelings of romance. Music
can change a character. It can even
affect the plot in serious ways. If it
weren’t for music, movies wouldn’t be half as entertaining or moving as they
are.
There are many different ways that music can be added to a
movie. Each method of inclusion makes
for a different effect. It could be a
background mood setter, of it could be something that the characters know
about. Overall, there are six primary
ways that music can be brought into a movie, and they will be separated into
two categories.
Background
The thing about background music is that it’s in the
background. Only the audience hears the
music. This background music can
manipulate a person’s feelings. It
brings that ominous feeling that lets you know that something bad is around the
corner. It gives you the stings that
help bring the laughs. Or it can punch
up the excitement by bringing an upbeat tempo that accentuates the action. The first two of the six primary methods of using
music in movies fall under the background category.
First off, there are scores.
People specifically write and perform instrumental music as a mood
setter. These are the more subtle uses
of music in the background. The
instrumentals fade in and out as characters interact with what’s around
them. The beats could match up with the
action, or they could be ambiance like a background noise, that simply provides
a vibe.
An example of a Sunday “Bad” Movie that had used a score to
great effect was Flash Gordon. The band Queen came in to create a score that
would push the movie forward. They made
an 80s kind of synth rock vibe that fit the action/adventure/sci-fi film pretty
well. The Halloween movies had pretty solid scores that lasted the entire
franchise in various forms. The score in
Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers
might not have been quite as iconic as the original, but it still used a
variation on the original’s theme to great, horror effect.
The other type of background music in films is the
soundtrack of songs. It’s not quite the
score (which is also a bunch of songs that could be the soundtrack), but a
collection of various pieces of music.
They don’t all originate from one artist or group working specifically
on that movie. The songs could be songs
that were already produced beforehand, or they could be songs commissioned for
the movie. Either way, they’re not the
instrumental score.
A bunch of movies in the Sunday “Bad” Movies have examples
of this kind of music use. Die Another Day featured an opening
theme song by Madonna that played through imagery of James Bond being tortured
by the North Korean military. Mortal Kombat and its sequel featured
the iconic Mortal Kombat song. Gigli
featured the song Love the One You’re
With, which I keep forgetting is in Gigli
until I hear it and think “What movie is this song in,” then get disappointed
when I rediscover Gigli. One of the biggest, though, was Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie,
which featured a few covers of popular songs such as Free Ride and Higher Ground. Those two songs were used in early scenes
featuring the teens performing different sports, setting up their athletics for
their later fighting moments.
Background music can be essential in pushing a mood as well
as keeping silence from bogging down a movie.
Montages use music to make a series of events more exciting as they play
out in quick succession. Background
music is key to many instances of storytelling.
Other uses of music are important too, which brings us to the other
section.
Foreground
Music that plays in the foreground of movies is music that
plays in the universe of the movie. Both
the characters and the audience are able to hear the music and be affected by
it. The characters could be listening to
it, or it could be in their background while they are doing something
else. There are many ways in which the
music could be presented.
Going off of the soundtracks I was talking about in the
background section, there are instances of interactive soundtracks that get
used in movies. Friday the 13th: A New Beginning had a scene where a
character turned on music in her bedroom and danced before being killed. She was interacting with the soundtrack of
the movie. Fred Claus featured an important scene where Fred approached a
North Pole DJ and changed his music selection from Santa Claus is Coming to Town to Rubberneckin’ before dancing to the new music choice with the elves
in Santa’s workshop. Again, the music
was important to both how the scene flowed and what the characters were
doing. He was interacting with it, but
it was also atmospheric music for the audience.
The rest of the foreground music involves different ways in
which characters perform the music. Performances
are a big part of the music world.
Concerts are a major source of income for musicians. They must perform to record an album. Movies can take advantage of this performance
aspect and add it into the way an actor performs. Sometimes the opposite can happen as well,
where a musician performs with the added task of giving an acting performance.
One of the original ways that this was done, and a way that
still survives, was through the musical genre.
Musicals involve the stories being broken up with music that the
characters sing. The characters aren’t
necessarily musicians. They simply break
into song while doing what they would have otherwise been doing without
song.
Poultrygeist: Night of
the Chicken Dead had characters trying to survive a zombie outbreak in a
fast food restaurant. They sang songs
about fast food, love, and slow fast food love.
They weren’t musicians. Their
stories didn’t need music. But it was
there and they sang. The same could be
said about Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter.
He didn’t need to sing to team up with a lucha libre wrestler to fight
lesbian vampires. Yet he did sing.
Sometimes to alleviate the random singing of it all, the
characters become musicians. They end up
performing their music in concert settings.
Or they perform to show their musical talents. The songs could have something to do with
their story, or they could be songs performed as songs only. The better quality musicals of this type will
make the songs relevant to the story being told in order to have the songs push
the movie forward outside of the character having another performance.
One example of this was in the film The Apple. The songs built
out the characters, from the BIM song that showed how controlling the company
was of the world’s people to the love song played at the beginning that showed
that love could conquer all. The songs
were important to the story. Road House, on the other hand, was more
of a music for music’s sake movie. The
bar had a band that performed music. The
music didn’t push anything forward in itself.
It was background music for the bar while Dalton did his thing of
getting rid of the bad.
Reversing the characters being musicians thing, there’s also
a tendency in movies for musicians to be characters that are themselves. These cameo performances might be seen as
stunt casting in movies. “Hey, let’s
bring in that popular musician to play themselves and perform. That could get more people in seats.” It can work in some cases. In others, it doesn’t work at all.
Nothing But Trouble
was a weird little 1991 film written and directed by Dan Aykroyd. He played the judge in a small, nothing
industrial town who liked to bring the full extent of the law down on
wrongdoers. Some of the lawbreakers that
were brought into his court were musicians of the band Digital
Underground. He wanted them to prove
that they were musicians, which they did by performing Same Song. They then
performed at a wedding ceremony a few minutes later in the movie. These couple moments were the best part of
the entire movie.
As you can see, there are many ways in which music can be
used in a movie. It could be used to set
a mood, to push the story forward, or to accentuate something that is already
happening. The most important thing that
music does is provide an aural experience while watching something. It would be pretty boring to watch a movie on
mute. Sound is half of watching a movie
and music is one of the most important parts of sound. Without music, things would be dull. Don’t you think?
You might think my notes are dull, but they’re here anyway:
- Nothing But Trouble was suggested by @wrongheaven.
- Movies that were mentioned in this post were Flash Gordon, Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers, Die Another Day, Mortal Kombat, Gigli, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie, Friday the 13th: A New Beginning, Fred Claus, Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead, Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter, The Apple, Road House, April Fools, and God’s Not Dead.
- Taylor Negron returned to the Sunday “Bad” Movies with Nothing But Trouble. He had already been featured in Surf School and Bio-Dome.
- Brian Doyle-Murray had a small role in Nothing But Trouble. He had a bigger role in Cabin Boy.
- Finally, John Wesley showed up in Nothing But Trouble. He was also in Perfect.
- Have you seen Nothing But Trouble? Have you seen any of the movies I mentioned? What are your thoughts about these uses of music? Let me know in the comments.
- This was one of many suggestions that I’ve had for Sunday “Bad” Movies. If you have a suggestion, the comments are a good place to let me know. Twitter is another place to find me, especially when I’m not busy with school stuff.
- I like to share clips of the bad movies I watch in my Snapchat story. If you want to see that sort of thing, add me (jurassicgriffin).
- Now we’re onto next week. There’s a movie scheduled for next week that I’ve been trying to include in the Sunday “Bad” Movies for some time now. It kept getting bumped as other movies became available or more relevant. It’s about time I gave The Da Vinci Treasure a proper watch. Let’s see how this one goes when I return in seven days’ time. See you then.
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