Using the Music to Convey the Story

We hear a lot of twaddle about what a genius Kubrick was because, eg, he films exactly down the center of a corridor, spaceship or whatever, when in fact HTFE would you do it?

For mine his genius is in both his music selection and then in the way he uses it, and in 2001 ASO we see this from the very start with the black screen and "black music" to set a black mood.

But then from his vast musical knowledge he selects what was to that time an almost unknown piece of music, ie the initial "fanfare" called Sunrise from Also Sprach Zarathustra, which he repeats twice more in the movie AT appropriate times.

The music has two "false starts" or "yes, this could BE it" statements followed by a third conclusive statement of "this IS it" joining into the triumphant statement to end the piece.

Watch the sequence in the movie if you will, after the initial darkness is punctuated by the MGM announcement.

The music STARTS at the exact moment the Moon slides down from top of screen and the FIRST statement is also exactly as BOTH the Earth and Sun begin to appear, showing the perfect alignment needed for an eclipse.

Then the SECOND statement heralds half the Sun exposed (behind a Waxing Crescent Earth) and the disappearance of the Moon totally from the bottom of the screen.

The Final statements have the full Sun separating from the Earth.

Now one might say (most do) that it is all just "artistic" but IMHO there are some most important "things" going on here (especially compared to the next instance of the music with MoonWatcher) but that is the subject of a far more detailed post.

My point here is to appreciate the expertise required in getting all that "sound & vision" to line up in space and time, and maybe I am more focused on the difficulty having tried to do some similar editing in MovieMaker.

This is the "Trailer" for my new App about The River Thames in England at Thames 'N All and uses the same music to introduce Old Father Thames to the viewer - after a bit of Conrad/Coppola lead-in.