I don't mind long days of hard work when I get do much joy out of what I do. I must have spent one of the happiest and most fulfilling week of my life, working on, editing composing, mixing and finalising the score for the black and white and silent reworking of The Third Wife, now entitled Between Shadow and Soul - which was the film first title before Ash changed it to 'The Third Wife'.
I just came back from 4 days in Toulouse where I worked on the music editing for our 'secret' black and white film project.
A lots of music has been written for it. Hours and hours. Much more than anybody would for a film, many tell me. Ash and Julie, the editor played with all the pieces I had sent them. The first draft already surprised me more than pleasantly, as they used the music in ways I didn't expect. Naturally, the next step will be to bring all the pieces and bits together to create a coherent musical flow.
Then more magic happened, on the very last moment before I was leaving for the aiport. I still had no plan for the end credit. "I will take care of that later when I'm back in Paris" I said to Ash.
Then for some reason, Julie suddenly played a track I had composed for the lost DunHuang project Silk x 21. It was one of the pieces that Ash and Julie had liked when they spent a whole day listening to all the music I had sent them. "We love that one" Ash said. It's a pity it isn't in the film..."
"Wait a minute... it would actually be very nice for the end credit!" Ash's eyes lit up! "Oh YES!!! That's a brilliant idea!!!"
We tried it and indeed it worked very well.
"Now..." I continued "We have to introduce that theme somewhere in the film, so it doesn't feel like a peacock in the living-room."
It was an elegiac melody sung by a male voice, backed by a male choir, with a string section part in the middle. But the style and mood was more... Slavic.
Ash didn't say anything and waited for me to go on.
"Julie, I will give you a cello track that plays that theme alone and we can put it in the scene when May is watching the second wife and her daughters sing under the moonlight.
"YEEEEAHHHH" Ash was overjoyed.
"But it still feels a tad odd to have this Slavic chanting in your film"
"I don't care!!!" Ash cried out with a big smile. "I like it!!!"
"Maybe... Yes! maybe we should re-record a female voice for the end credit. I will re-structure the piece, of course, and add musical motives from the film. But the female voice will make much more sense." I thought of Isabelle.
Ash loved the idea. That will happen when we work together again at PolySon with Roman.
I was bewildered by how pieces which I wrote one years before 'The Third Wife' began shooting, had been patiently waiting to be used, as if my intuition or inspiration had anticipated what was to come years after...
The three of us were stunned in a state of wonder.
Bienvenue in Paree...
A young black girl at the Gare Saint Lazare, working for the train station to help travellers and tourists:
Girl: "Oh it's very eezee, you go down down down of ze gare, hein! Trois niveaux, hein? And zen you follow ze panneau, d'accord? And you walk tout droit and you are arrivé!"
Tourist: ...
Finished the music for the end credits of Song Lang. Solo violin by Koji, strings, percussion, and the piano reprising the elegy at the very end. I asked Leon to sing a couple of lines in cải lương style so that the audience dive once more in the atmosphere of the film before leaving the theatre. A few details to readjust, but I think the score for the film is now completed. I can't believe I managed given the conditions and the limited time I had.
Now, three days left in Paris before the next chapter begins...
