Music for film
The following is a short consisting of the classic film studio production logos accompanied by new music composed by Bryan Reeder. It is intended whimsically as an introduction to a future feature film. The music is varied, including orchestral excerpts, piano selections, synth tracks, brass ensemble, and wax cylinder recordings. It is an eclectic mix of material meant to uniquely color each logo, evoking new and original sentiments, and celebrating the iconic images.
The following two projects were conceptualized by Bryan Reeder and recorded live along to each film by the Bryan Reeder Trio (featuring Calvin Crosby & Will Clark). They are both improvised soundtracks to preexisting feature length films. Most film music plays a supportive role by following a scene’s mood and atmosphere in an attempt to elucidate the pictorial and verbal narratives. The overarching idea guiding these soundtracks, however, is that each element of a film (image, dialogue, and music) must be an autonomous composition that, instead of conforming to the ‘big-picture’, provides us with a unique vision of the cinematic composition. The soundtrack may contradict the image, reveal an alternate meaning, distort, obscure or define the dialogue. It follows from this idea that a film emerges as the result of the coordinated coincidence of these uniquely defined elements and not the rule of one over the others. Each soundtrack obeys its own organizing rule or logic that governs by whom or when these improvisations take place. City Lights was recorded in 2009; Dog Day Afternoon was recorded in 2011. All of the soundtracks were recorded and mixed by Brian Trent.
City Lights
In the first soundtrack, Chaplin’s City Lights, each musician is assigned a leading character. Only when their respective character is on screen can they play, making for an interesting sequence of instrument combinations and playing times. The piano takes the role of the tramp, the drums become the blind lady and the bass is the millionaire. It is hoped that the music colors each character in a novel way and highlights the relationship between the seeming spontaneity of Chaplin’s movements and musical improvisation.
Dog Day Afternoon
The second soundtrack, Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon, uses a set of timed cues as its organizing principle. These cues determine the entrances and exits of our musical improvisations. Following a carefully aligned prompt track, the trio plays for one second and then stops for one second, plays for two seconds and then stops for two seconds, plays for three seconds and then stops for three seconds, etc. This continues until the middle of the film at which point the process reverses itself. We find that the music and its sequentially timed pacing, though disrupting the sense of timing given by the order of scenes and shots, shares with the film’s protagonist a sense of inevitable undoing.