AWESOME CON FRIDAY PANEL: “The Big Score”
Da-DUM. Da-Dum Da-Dum DA-DUM. Yeah, you know that movie soundtrack. If you don’t? Maybe stay out of the water, with the rest of us. We’ll need a bigger boat.
From the iconic opening strains of the Doctor Who theme, to Psycho’s screeching shower scene score, movie soundtracks help directors get their statement across. Or as panelist Tee Morris put it, “They conjure up feelings that resonate with you”, whether those feelings be joy, excitement, fear or trepidation.
And it all started with 1931’s Dracula. Yeah, Drac got the soundtrack ball rolling. Because before that, music was just placed at the beginning and end of films. “Most of the time nobody cared [about the music],” Morris says. While the music for Dracula wasn’t created for the film – they used Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, among others – music helped establish mood throughout the film. Welcome to the new age y’all!
From then on, it was one revolution after another:
- The Day the Earth Stood Still: used the theremin to get that eerie, other-worldly sound, which became “the” signature instrument in SciFi
- Forbidden Planet: ZERO musical instruments. Yeah, you heard me. A score with no musical instruments. Everything was electronic. So that gorgeous, instantly recognizable Doctor Who “oo-WEEE-oo” opening? Has Forbidden Planet to thank.
- Psycho: The composer knew the story beforehand, so could craft a soundtrack that moved with the action. BTW, those infamous “shower scene” violins? Were thanks to the earlier Marion Crane/Norman Bates parlor scene. Y’know, the one with all the taxidermied owls frozen in attack positions? The composer saw that, and thought “birds in attack”. The rest is cinematic history.
- Planet of the Apes: used random noises to evoke instability, as the astronauts who find themselves in a world unlike their own struggle to make sense of things.
- Logan’s Run: Minor keys and moog synthesizers, baby! Welcome to the 70s!
- Star Wars: 1977, and suddenly? SCI-FI WAS EPIC.
- Halloween: The soundtrack “You want to keep your kids off your lawn on Halloween? PLAY THIS.” Indeed. To paraphrase Morris, this ain’t the soundtrack to play when you’re chilling at home.
- Ladyhawke: Because the 80s decided that pop stars could write soundtracks! They can’t (god bless this film; I love it so, but the soundtrack is an abomination), unless you count…
- Highlander: Who wants to live forever? Queen nailed a twofer; a perfect soundtrack, and perfectly great album.
Nowadays people say there are no iconic film scores anymore. I tended to agree, until Morris laid one last one on our ears: Wonder Woman’s theme. Absolutely crazy intense, and perfect for the character and the film. People ask where the future of the SciFi film soundtrack is going, and Morris has an answer. “Videogames.” There’s some pretty epic sounding scores out there in gameland, if the ones he played for us are any indication. Your move, Hollywood.
Morris says that he’s got another panel he’d like to bring to Awesome Con next year; “Good Soundtracks to Bad Movies”. I’d be first in line.
Panel Grade: A
Tl; dr: Soundtracks definitely add something to a film, and that something is feeling. Doubt me? Watch any one of the above films on mute.
