Link to film: youtu.be/7WHk6jXuTpU
What I set out to do in making the soundtrack for Weird Guy, was to make music that would tell a rich story filled with as many questions and nuances as any other good film plot would have. I did not simply want to create music that would sit in the background complementing the film by providing the “mood or emotion” (although those are the most important contributions of music to a film) yet I didn’t want to skew off into academic ramblings that would turn away a non-academic audience.
Therefore, the sound track for Weird Guy employs many instantly recognizable musical elements such as Leitmotifs, juxtaposing minor and major ideas, contrasting dynamics, and also playing with basic musical elements such as intervals, to musically create 2 voices that are wholly independent, yet always create harmonies that move the piece forward.
This is once piece called A Song on Two Voices and I have divided it into parts for both the film and to better communicate my ideas.
A Song on 2 Voices (Beginning):
This piece is meant to portray the 3 abstract ideas that are prevalent in the film which are Good, Evil, and the Grey Area in between. The 2 voices represent good and evil, yet their combination creates the protagonist’s identity. The voices work harmoniously for most of the piece, yet they collide towards the end (also when the protagonist looks at himself in mirror) symbolizing the ambiguity that lies in between both good and evil and how grating it can be to not conform to societal stereotypes of what good or evil are meant to be.
Good and Evil Leitmotif:
This was meant to establish the leitmotifs and the individuality of the voices.
Garden:
The part begins with the protagonist leitmotif which displays this raging battle going on his mind that is forcing him to pick one of the voices (possibly good which is the most prominent) yet his environment also induces him to become allured by evil thoughts, and in the end, it leaves him bewildered.
Street:
Once again, the leitmotif opens the scene yet this time the environments around him make this leitmotif sound minor which, in turn, makes the evil voice more prominent. The protagonist himself refuses this and is ever more trying to escape it. Thus, the tempo speeds up as he chases a girl with good intentions, but he does not realize that his “good” intentions lead her towards danger (something that the environment was frantically alluding towards.)
Fight:
This part shows the colliding of both voices into a chaotic argument, which leaves the protagonist in utter disarray. The loud chords in the lower register signify the death of the protagonist’s psyche (accompanied by the protagonists literally death).
Credits:
The credits quote how the piece began, with a major and then a minor interval created by these voices. The music of the credits is not really meant to be a closing, but instead a new beginning. man is himself a product of these voices that operate daily in him thus everyone fights with these voices during their day to day life. The protagonist died because of his failure to quell these societal pressures and the voices that resided in his head.
The credits serve more as a warning then a closing to persuade people that it is better to not focus on why one is not fitting into these pre-established norms. One should instead be trying to find a way in which they are happy perceiving themselves (which for most people is that grey area between good and evil). Something that the protagonist never tried to do. He was ruled by these to voices and this was his ultimate demise.