PROJECT DETAILS

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• Year: 2025

• Duration ~ 90 minutes

• Instruments: String orchestra; vocals; drums; bowed mountain dulcimer; synthesizers including analog and digital modular synthesizers, granular synthesizers, and virtual software synthesizers; custom virtual samplers; and a variety of digital effects processing

• ​Roles: Composer, performer (vocals, synthesizers, drums, mountain dulcimer, effects processing, MIDI programming), orchestrator, score producer, score mixing and mastering engineer

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OVERVIEW​

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The story of Viper unfolds in a post-nuclear war future where Cole, an ex-mercenary, stumbles upon a cure for the fallout-induced cancer ravaging society—including his dying daughter Evie and his deceased wife. Defying orders, he steals the cure, setting off a desperate escape to save his daughter and humanity itself. Hunted by a government who seeks to control the cure, he finds refuge with the indigenous Cowichan Tribe whose wisdom challenges his dark past and reignites his belief in redemption. Viper was written and directed by Marc Furmie and stars Golden Globe-winner Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Peter Facinelli, Jillian Dion, and Stephen Dorff. The film was shot on-location in the forests of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, and in Los Angeles, California. The film is scheduled for release in 2025.

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SOUND PALETTE AND ARRANGEMENT

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​The choice of the instrumentation and creative sound palette of a score is essentially an extension of the film's world-building process, making it one of the most important aspects for me in composing for media. The score for Viper is rooted in a hybrid electroacoustic palette that combines string orchestra, drums, vocals, and bowed mountain dulcimer, with extensive electronic synthesis and creative audio processing. These creative audio processing techniques included pitch shifting, time stretching, and granular synthesis, all of which alter the timbral quality of instruments and sound sources, giving them an unfamiliar, eerie sound. This hybrid sound palette reflects the film's dark tone and serves as a musical extension of the dystopian setting of the film, while the musical motifs highlight and support the core emotional themes and story arcs that revolve around grief and loss, oppression, the fight for survival, and ultimate redemption and hope for the future.

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Much of the the power of film scoring comes from dynamic range. This can be achieved through dynamic range in the literal sense of changes in volume, but also through contrasts in the instrumentation and sound palette used to create a score, as well as changes in the density of the arrangements using those instruments. The hybrid combination of recognizable Instruments that are familiar to Hollywood film scores (such as the string orchestra, vocals, and cinematic taiko drums) and unfamiliar sounds and instruments (such as the elements derived from synthesized textures and digitally-processed instrumentation and audio) serves as a core element of contrast in the dynamic range of the score. While the synthesized and processed textures, pulses, and ambience serve as an extension of the film's dark and unfamiliar setting, the presence of recognizable string orchestra connects us to key, emotional struggles at the core of the story. Similarly, the presence of solo vocal melodies are a fundamentally-human element which, in stark contrast to the processed and electronic textures in the score, shines a light on the emotional experiences of characters at points of key plot development. This contrast in instrumentation reflects the experiences on screen, as we follow the main characters' deeply human, emotional struggles within the context of the of an eerie and broken world that seems devoid of hope.

My score for the feature film Viper is rooted in an electroacoustic palette that combines string orchestra, percussion, vocals, and bowed mountain dulcimer with extensive synthesis and sound processing techniques. The sonic palette and musical motifs of the score serve to highlight the dystopian setting and dark tone of the film, and to support core emotional themes that revolve around grief and loss, oppression, the fight for survival, and cultivating hope for the future. 

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SONIC PROCESSING TECHNIQUES

 

The creative sonic processing techniques in the score for Viper are one of the key elements that shaped the tone of the sound palette. Two key processing techniques were often applied to both the electronic sound sources (analog oscillators) as well as to the acoustic instrumental palette (string orchestra, vocals, and bowed mountain dulcimer):

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GRANULAR SYNTHESIS​

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One of the core processing techniques used in the score was granular synthesis. Individual pitches, atonal textures, and even fully orchestrated movements from the acoustic instrument palette were processed through a variety of granular synthesis methods to create the many rhythmic pulses, melodic patterns, and ambient textures that form some of the core motifs of the score. The ambient and textural motifs serve to highlight the underlying tension and unease present throughout the tone of the film, while the pulses support and enhance the heightened suspense and intense action that take place in several key scenes. These textural and pulsing motifs are heard extensively in tracks including "The Prayer and The Boat", "Debriefing" and "Viper - Title Theme".

 

PITCH AND TIME-BASED PROCESSING

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Throughout the score, pitch shifting and time stretching techniques were used to alter the tone and timbre of instruments. This was a crucial technique for imparting and dark in unfamiliar quality to instruments that aids in reflecting the films dystopian setting. Often, this was done using basic digital pitch and time-adjustment tools to make subtle alterations, as heard in the vocal melody in "Wolf and Wife", and the bowed mountain dulcimer roars in “Clean Up Your Mess”.

 

CUSTOM VIRTUAL SAMPLING 

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Another method for altering the pitch and time of sounds was through the creation of custom virtual samplers. For this process I worked with a string ensemble to record a collection of pitches and textures, which were then used to create virtual samplers that I programmed to play back these recorded samples at altered pitches and speeds. The result is a string orchestra sound with an eerie, unfamiliar quality, as heard in the string chords in “Journey to the Village”. Often, these processed string chords were paired with traditionally-orchestrated string ensemble chords to create a balance between the familiar and the unfamiliar. 

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