Tuesday, November 13, 2012

A Movie Musical...?

Good afternoon, writers!

Can you believe it?  We're almost through blogging my experience from the first year of the BMI workshop!

Our next assignment was a fun one, and really tested many of us.  We were paired off with writing partners, as usual, but then we were assigned a librettist to work with as well.  The teams of three were then tasked with writing a scene/song.  However, rather than each team choosing what they wished to write, we were given more specific instructions.

'The Woman in the Window' is an old film noir piece...very stylized and very dated.  The moderator from the librettists workshop (a sister entity of the composer/lyricist one I am in) chose the film, broke it down into sections, and then designated them to various teams.  Each team was to write the appropriate scene/song for the section they had been assigned.  In this way, the entire film would become a musical!

The end results, overall, were quite enjoyable.  People got very creative with their moments...many brought the piece to a fun place of 'camp' (a near necessity when working with such a dated, stylized film), and many found great moments of character and relationship, or at least humor.

My composer for this assignment was Cynthia Wong, a very talented musician who has since moved back to Beijing to accept a job in production.  I feel fortunate to have had a chance to work with her prior to her departure.  Our librettist was the amazingly talented (as both a writer AND performer), Sara Wordsworth.  As fate would have it, we were the one group that was given a scene that, get this, is not actually in the film!  That's right.  The moderator wanted to give the female lead a moment alone, so we were tasked with writing a scene/song for her that takes place in our class, and our class alone.

Fun, huh?

Actually, it really was!  Tune in next post for the resulting song...
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And now, some extra fun!!

Since a blog is nothing without it's readers, I am going to invite YOU to be part of the process!

Have you ever felt a movie would be better if someone burst into song?  (I feel that way all the time...)

Leave a comment below, with the film moment you feel should be musicalized!

Until next time...

-Lee
...of 'Lee'rical Wordplay...

.....in case there was any question...

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