ABOUT THE "CINEMATIC GENRE"

 

It will have escaped no one, least of all musicians who work mainly on computers, with a DAW and various virtual instruments, that practically the entire VST industry has rushed into the "cinematic" music niche, i.e. soundtracks for films or TV series.

We can't help but notice the flood of sampled sound banks promising the buyer the trailer for the next Hollywood blockbuster (or almost...). Competition in this sector is fierce, and commercial offers come thick and fast...  

I am struck by the abundance, and often high quality, of orchestral banks, either dedicated to symphony orchestras in their entirety, or to particular sections (strings, winds, brass...), often subdivided according to particular playing styles...

Then, of course, there are the banks of percussive sounds, most often thunderous, to punctuate the trailers and various action scenes of the films.

Here we see the influence of the masters of the genre, in particular Hans Zimmer, who is also associated with various commercialized sound banks.

The high visibility of "cinematic" sounds on the market has led to a certain restriction of the creative field, by imposing sound stereotypes and standards of climates and composition.

As a result, musicians have to face new challenges, particularly in mastering the art of classical orchestration, from the distribution of different sound planes to the fine tuning of degrees of proximity or distance of recording microphones, not to mention the laws of harmony.

Orchestral sound banks have a twofold economic impact: they replace, with the exception of the largest productions, the costs of hiring a real symphony orchestra (salaries, studio rental, recording equipment, etc.); they can sometimes reach very high prices, depending on the prestige of the recorded orchestra, the sound quality and the sophistication of the available settings... The financial investment, for a musician working in this niche, can be very substantial too - whether it can be easily recouped is another question.

They also have an artistic impact: bringing acoustic orchestral simulation into the foreground in relation to purely electronic climates, even if the trend is towards hybridization (see Hans Zimmer again). And also to deny electronic music a certain autonomy by giving it an auxiliary, even ancillary role in relation to filmic narrative.

More modest or independent productions, such as avant-garde or auteur cinema, are nonetheless open to less stereotyped soundtracks, such as the neo-classical minimalism of Olafur Arnalds, Max Richter or Jóhann Jóhannsson, or the beautiful hybrid music of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis. But the Hollywood blockbuster industry closes the creative spectrum to standard sounds and compositions...

For my part, I use some of these orchestral sound banks in a minimalist way, from a chamber music rather than symphonic ensemble perspective, as a means of enriching electronic textures and climates, as a way to experiment rather than to emulate a classical orchestra...