‘A Tale from the Endless Stair’, is a bizarre and incredibly violent animation that my brother, Joe filmed last summer.
I composed and recorded the music in one day with Joe sitting beside me, directing things.
The composition process was very quick and very natural. Joe had clear ideas for the music already – a little bit of the theme music for Battlestar Galactica, a dash of the soundtrack for 28 days later – which made things very easy.
Here’s the first part of the film:
The opening theme was built on a simple 7/8 ostinato and some discordant string chords, all played (not very well) on my trusty yamaha keyboard.
The main theme is also based on repeating ostinatos, a doom metal inspired repeating acoustic guitar line that slowly builds in intensity before collapsing into white noise.
The second half of the film sees the Demon finally appear:
The sharp eared amongst you might spot elements of the Comrade Robot song ‘Demon‘ in some of this. Joe has also used Demon over the end credits of the film, the finished version of which should surface soon.
These are both guitar based background loops, the first a moody loop in A minor, the second a more discordant multi-layered affair for the Demon fight.
Composing this music was great fun, and one of my first forays into music for film. I’m particularly proud of the ‘main’ theme which was a real collaborative piece. Most of the musical ideas came from Joe, which I then crafted and shaped into the sounds he was looking for.
The experience has left me wanting to score music for some more films. Quite how I get to do that I’m not too sure yet, but I’ll be working on it over the coming months.