VGM108 Artist Series Vol 9 – Andrea Bellucci – The Longest Journey

01-08-2018

Album Description

Another Solar System means another place to call home. Salvation. But with this opportuntiy lies great peril and powerful enemies unknown. With this artist series collection, Andrea explores dark drones , hybrid epic percussion and lush orchestration. Program these tracks for stories of space exploration, menacing aliens outside your vessel and digital menaces that lurk from within.

Check out the full album on YouTube!

ARTIST SERIES INTERVIEW

Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) of choice

Cubase

Favorite Media Composers

Danny Elfman
Michael Giacchino
Jonny Greenwood
Trent Reznor
Wojciech Kilar

And for how their music has been used or is source of inspiration for other composers:

Bela Bartòk
Gustav Holst
Krzysztof Penderecki
György Ligeti

Favorite Scores

Lost
Mom and Dad (2018)
Phantom Thread
Paranorman
Revenant
The Dark Knight

Discuss your personal creative workflow

When I’ve got some video material from director or producer, I usually prepare my DAW importing any video file I have, and start loading some instruments, depending on film’s needs and guidelines by the director, and my personal judjement about the film as well. When I’m producing music for VGM I just carefully read the guidelines and follow them in order to choose sounds, length, overall feelings etc. In both cases I usually don’t use templates, as I found them insufficient to cover specific aspects of a project, and on the other hand, I can load the usual orchestral sounds very quickly in my DAW.

Define you personal sound

In a world of big orchestral sounds, I tend to use small ensemble and sounds from “concrete music” when I can, basically for two reasons: they are way more inspiring to me, so when I start playing them I have more chances to come up with a cool idea in less time. They also sound always “new” to my ear, so I guess they create the same result in my audience’s ear too, and things seem more unheard, so I get rid of the stupid fear of being necessarily unique: and I get original eventually!

Outline your approach to scoring to picture

I’m always open to hear any doubts, concerns, ideas, thoughts from the director; that’s a big part of the job and it’s fun too, as I see it just like a tailor listening to the client in order to create the perfect suit for him. Of course, if I know that my approach could be a better solution in a specific situation, I work hard to make the director change his mind and turn towards mine, but at the end of the day it’s always collaboration, that means that you need to accept compromise and make them valuable.

Discuss the theme of your Artist Series album

For this album we needed a big orchestral sound, mixed up with epic synths and drums. In this scenario, I imagined a not too long and not so “melodic” horn theme, but something that would sound ominous, vigorous and heroic at the same time. Once I got it, it’s been easy to modify it and make slower or faster, played by synths or piano, and use it as counterpoint for other thematic material.

Discuss your approach to time management when composing

When I have lots of time I basically waste it; when I know I don’t have it I get very inspired and efficient, doing things quickly and well-crafted.

Discuss gear that is important to your workflow

I’m a son of the digital virtual world. Therefore I love using my favorite virtual synth (Omnisphere) together with many sample libraries in my Kontakt, but I love to record myself as much as I can, from small percussion to strange sounds, as well as my guitars and cello.

Offer any advice to fellow artists

I can just say that no matter what the submission or the request is, and no matter how much time remains in order to do something, a composer should always have fun in writing, scoring, producing stuff: otherwise the result would be affected by bad feelings, and it’d seem kind of a boring track, or a bad-structured piece, and audience would notice it, just like audience would hear how much fun you had making that tune.

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