collaboration: code switcher
My feeling on this semester's collaboration project is mixed. On the 29th of March, Charlie Pu messaged me on recommendation of our mutual friend and his first choice of collaborator: Ethan Bellhouse, who enquired about me writing the score to his short 6 minute mockumentary Code Switcher. Due to the lack of a collaboration project in the works, I said yes. I then had 2 weeks to finish a film score. Overall, I'm proud of myself for doing it in such a small time, but am not particularly proud of my contribution to the end product.
The film itself is about a beauty product called the "Colour Switcher", which would change the race of the applicant to white. It focuses on two people, Karen, the CEO of the beauty industry behind the Colour Switcher, and Vanessa, an Asian woman and the Colour Switcher's brand ambassador after applying it and becoming senior manager at the restaurant she worked at. It's a very Black Mirror-esque description, but the actual film is more jovial than it would seem, playing more like a fake YouTube ad than a surreal horror short disguised as an ad.
Due to the film being fairly dialogue heavy, so the decision was made to make the music more momentary background noise for b-roll than actually scoring the film, which is an interesting decision, and made my life easier.
The opening track is ok, maybe could've been done a little better, but it is still good. Probably my favourite throughout the film. It's simple and minimal, and has bleep bloops thrown about. It does give light to one of my weaknesses as a composer: I cannot write background music. This music works really well when no-one is talking, but as soon as the CEO opens her mouth, the music jumbles up the words and it's just a travesty. I have a hunch that it's due to all the maximalist jazz/punk/metal/rock music I've listened to and have been influenced over the years. It feels good by it's own merits, but the vibe is definitely "stock background music", which is kind of there... but not well.
After a small remix of the opening track, we are introduced to Vanessa through some b-roll of the Chinese restauarant. It's an okay track, but it does feel a little... culturally insensitive? I know it is a corny sound for a corny film, but even then, it feels a little reductive. It's important to mention that I am a white person with no Asian heritage, but it did get approved by Charlie, who is of Chinese descent, but even still, it's the track I'm least proud of for that reason.
The one that I'm most proud of, however, follows this one, and will probably get deleted off the final final cut, as it still holds on to the weird horror aspect of it. It's creepy and glitchy and just enjoyable to listen to and to create. It plays a lot with the synth plugin Vital and the built-in Ableton effects under the name "Beat Repeats", which are just whacky and gooey and fun. It's kinda sad to know that it'll be replaced by generic opera music for comedic effect, but it definitely falls away from the director's vision, and there's not a lot I can do about that.
The following scene is where Vanessa puts on the lipstick, and becomes emotionally white? There were a couple scenes that weren't filmed as of writing this, but were submitted anyway due to the tight deadline. This is the only song off of the original score that I wrote up for this film, which was a through-composed piano and synth-strings trio piece. I don't mind this one, it's just a bit basic.
The music in the credits was originally the opening music, but due to an error of rendering it to one second and the director getting attached to the first song, it was pushed to the credit slot. It's ok, not my best work, but not my worst. I think most of the issue is the sample quality, but even still, it's not great for what it's worth.
Overall, I think this experience with working with a filmmaker was informative and definitely a good learning opportunity, but I definitely could've done better, and Charlie could've chosen someone more appropriate. That being said, I was extremely lucky to have this oppurtunity, and I'm probably being too harsh on myself. For what it was in the little time frame there was, I think it was okay. So thank you Charlie Pu, Felix Doan, Andrew Ewing, Matthew Hindmarsh and ECU for this oppurtunity, and I must admit, it's always surreal to see your name in the credits.