Between Lines
Services: Music Composition, Sound Design, Audio Lead, VO Artist
I was so honored to have been part of an amazing group of women who created this beautifully designed and animated short film.
When Sarah Beth Morgan approached me about creating the sound and music for this film, I was still new to creating music for animation. However, she gave me a chance and over the course of the 2 years it took to create this film - I honed my skills and am super proud of how everything turned out.
Thank you to Sarah, Taylor Yontz, and Rebekah Ratliff for trusting me and giving me the opportunity. I couldn’t have done it without my dear friend, Hope Brush (mixing, mastering, and right hand lady) + Sophie Coran(string arrangement master and director). We also hired 2 incredibly talented string players, Shelby Yamin + Nicole Boguslaw
Credits:
A film by Sarah Beth Morgan, in association with Hornet. Our team proudly features over 30 insanely talented women from all over the globe.
Demo 1
This is one of the very first demos I sent to the team. I liked the idea of the orchestral staccato quarter notes because it helped sync up with the edit, and really grabs the viewer's attention. I later added the vocals in to layer on top of the orchestral stabs to give it more of that dramatic/operatic effect.
I really tried to think about how I felt in late elementary school/middle school and the extremely uncomfortable feelings I experienced during that time, trying to make friends and maintain relationships. I thought about my experiences with bullying and how my mind would shut down at times when I was experiencing toxic friendships in school.
To capture these feelings, I knew I had to be particular about the chord progression and what kinds of instrumentation to choose. It's a tough balance, because you don't want to be too dramatic while getting the point across, but you also want to maintain that feeling of - "this is literally what it feels like to be a tween girl." Everything feels really dramatic and intense.
Instrumentation
I chose to do a mix of midi strings and brass - more specifically the midi instruments from Spitfire Audio - and layer those in with real strings players which gives it more of a live effect.
I used a lot of atmospheric sounds from my Prophet Rev 2, which are a lot of the synthy pitch bends you hear around :30-35 seconds. I also layered in some guitar effects as well which really helps fill out some of those more atmospheric/transition spots you hear throughout.
Vocal Arrangement
It's an understatment to say that I love vocal layering and vocal harmonies. I'll do it all day.
The biggest challenge is making sure it's not taking away from what's happening on screen, which is why I really focused on layering the vocals in with the sound design and music. They're there to act as a support for the VO as well as the overall emotion of the film.
Overall, I'm really happy with how the layering turned out and I like to think that the vocals serve as almost a choir for the main character's feelings.