Creating The Score

Creating the score is the aspect I was most looking forward to when planning for this project. However, when it actually came to creating the score, I found that it was a lot harder than I had thought it would be.

Firstly, I am having to adapt and work around footage of which is not my own and was not intended for me to create the score. These means that the timing of the music is will obviously be harder as the timing would not have been pre-planned during the filming of the sequence.

Secondly, I had first tried creating something reminiscent of Jerry Goldsmith's work on the film 'Alien' (Scott, 1979) with a more realistic space-horror aesthetic. However, when pairing this style of music with the somewhat dated visuals, there lacked consistency and the music simply did not suit what was shown on screen.

Therefore I had to find a way of creating a score that still retained the sci-fi horror aesthetic of a more modern type, whilst making it still suitable for the dated footage.

I started off my just creating several simple tunes. I tried to give some of them a more sombre feel so that they did not seem to happy and animated, otherwise they would not have fit with the horror aesthetic. After choosing which ones I liked, I then started to add more instrumentation to them.

As I realised that creating a completely modern horror score would not work, I thought about how I could make the score my own. In previous projects where I had created a score, I used synthesizer sounds and instruments quite heavily in oder to create more impact, while creating some more quiet pieces in a similar fashion. I decided that this be incorporated into this particular score. After adding all of the instruments, I then experimented with the different amplifiers for different sounds to much success.

The most notable pieces are as follows

'Opening'
This piece starts off reminiscent of 'Alien' with a heavy wind sound starting off. This then fades into two simple, deep notes from a synthesizer. This sequence carries on for much of the opening, aiming to set a dark and mysterious tone to the opening few minutes.

'Skagra'
There are several versions of this piece of music, all of which vary with instruments being added or taken out. This is supposed to be the theme for the villain 'Skagra' who features prominently during the sequence. The quieter variations mostly consist of just a simple drum beat reminiscent of 'The Terminator' (Camera, 1984). However, the more bombastic versions contain piano, synthesizers and even some brass and string instruments. The orchestra style instruments are reminiscent of those used in the scores for Doctor Who from 2005 onwards, acting as a call-back to those pieces of music while not being as heavily used here. I feel that this achieves a style that is more reminiscent of modern Doctor Who, yet can just as easily be used for the original series, acting as a sort of compromise between the two.

'The Doctor Who Theme'
Though this isn't an original piece of music, it is synonymous with the show and I had looked forward to recreating the theme for this project from the start. I actually tried to keep my version as close to the original as possible as I feel it doesn't really need updating, aiming to create a cleaner sounding version. This includes heavy use of piano, bass and synthesizer. I also tried to emulate the echoes that featured heavily in the original.

Overall I am happy with the music that I have created and feel that they suit the sequence already in place while adding a more modern aesthetic.

Here is a video which shows the original pieces that I made for this video including some which did not get used in the final edit. The Doctor Who Theme does not feature as i did not compose that piece of music originally: