When composing the music for the full-film. I opted to minimise time by setting up a universal session and choosing an array of orchestral instruments likely to reoccur throughout the film. This decision not only saved time but also allowed the stamping of the musical brand as it incorporated similar orchestrations throughout. The pre-planning of leitmotifs and themed pieces, Ie. Having a prerequisite of the type of music to support each scene; also made the process quick and relatively easy–hence the two-day turnaround. Once all the music was tracked, I split the different segments of music into different session files ready to be mixed separately.

(Mix Screen)

(Edit Screen displaying MIDI throughout the film)

Psychiatrist Scenes

In order to save further time, I opted to write a minimalist style of music to create a mood throughout the reoccurring location. As previously stipulated, my inspiration came from the stylings of Mark Snow and his contribution to The X Files series of which in the early series, the music consisted of an eerily, dissonant, strings bed throughout any dialogue heavy moments. I decided to keep all music during the psychiatrist sections (bar any spot music) in the same key as it would help save time by using similar EQ and compression settings, with the fundamental notes sitting around the same frequencies.

The Duchess Leitmotif

As predisposed in the music planning post, I adopted for a musical concept known as a ‘leitmotif’ which is a reoccurring piece of music used to mnemonically trigger certain themes, characters or concepts throughout the film. An obvious example is The Imperial March music by John Williams to represent Darth Vader, or the two-noted, bowed, cello music of Jaws. 

For 5150, I chose to use it for representing Duchess, the imaginary horse that Susie escapes her reality to. Because of the appalling situation she founds herself in, I tried to musically portray Duchess as an icon of love–a moment of intense comfort to juxtapose the misery of the asylum. Therefore I wrote a emotional, piano-piece in the style of a ballad to represent this concept. In order to adopt the leitmotif, I stamped the piece by playing the main melodies, simply and boldly during Susie’s first encounter with the horse in the forest scene; to allow the audience to learn the melody before hearing it again later on.

We tried to make the ending of the film as emotional as possible and by doing so, I shifted the key of the leitmotif to a fresh-sounding fundamental. The melodies are already recognised at this point by the audience, however by changing the key, one can adopt that emotive-boy-band-cliché trick of upping the chorus key by a tone to release an onslaught of flying-without-wings-styled emotion (!).

The following examples document the reoccurring piece being adapted accordingly to the mood of the scenes:

1. Duchess Encounter

2. Auditory Hallucination

3. Duchess Reminiscence

4. Crying Scene (Susie is thinking about Duchess)

5. The Ending