Score

For the score much of the work was done on Garage Band and was generally done during the week when we had finished editing, as this was rarely the case much of the scoring was left until the end, however a foundation had already been established and much of the later work was simply building on and adding to that original framework. The scoring was done by Hugh and was entirely synthesised, no real instruments were used during the process, nor were outside musicians called in, however this was discussed as a possibility  However the wealth of material and potential that GarageBand offered meant we were able to acheive the sound we wanted regardless.Most of the soundtrack and sound production was done during March after filming, in addition we also were forced to dub much of the dialogue for the film, again done through GarageBand by Hugh.

The score of the film Donnie Darko is a prime example of the minimalist, moody sound we would like to acheive, the lack of any real melody or tune would add to the atmosphere but would merely supplement the on-screen action . We feel that it would create tension and atmosphere whilst not overly intruding on the actual film.

The score itself was composed largely of samples from GarageBand's built in library, in keeping with this mininmalist, ambient feel much of the score was comprised of ambient sounds which were giver reverb to create a sense of space and emptyness. Traditional sounds such as more instrumental pieces were also used and these were similarly given added atmosphere through the use of reverb; in addition the distinctive booming sound heard throughout was created manually through the software by using a Double Bass and applying reverb and some distortion and then playing it in the upper echelons of its range. This sound was obviously inspired by the ominous horn sound which was used to great effect in Inception by Christopher Nolan(http://inception.davepedu.com/ which is coincidentally a slowed down version of 'Je Ne Regrette Rien', we also toyed with the idea of using a song from that time period in an ironic fashion during the Garage scene however it never came to pass), the sound is incredibly distinctive and instantly creates an atmosphere of foreboding and impending doom, which is exactly what we striving to achieve. It took quite some time to find a suitable sound and we were considering simply recycling the sound from Inception. Equally important was removing the ambient sound in the film, which was very invasive at points, we eventually found a low-key yet space-filling section that we could loop for the backdrop however this was also very-time consuming and quite soul-destroying in parts, one can only listen to recorded traffic and wind sounds for so long.

The dubbing process was also very lengthy as virtually every line required it, getting a good take was comparatively quick compared to the editing, which required the creation of a new track for almost every line which was a very laborious task. We also had to account for distance and timing etc to make the dubbing look and sound more believable which required a keen ear, close attention and lots of rewinds. Lots and Lots. Ultimately however we eventually got it done and its a pretty good job, there are a few where you wouldn't even know it's been dubbed. Others(Looking at you Adam) were slightly more difficult. We wanted to ensure that our dubbing was basically spot on as we have all experienced the horrors of poorly dubbed film, be it a poor film made worse or a great one deprived of perfection(The Good, The Bad and The Ugly along with many other Sergio Leone films stands out, however accountancies can be made for the fact that he is Italian and the film itself is so superb)

This is just a brief run through of how we managed to create the sounds of our film and some of the influences we had and techniques we used.