What follows are the different versions of the theme music that was made by the composer Paul C (@sabiensoldier on Fiver).

I have presented the different versions of the music alongside the notes I sent to Paul regarding my thinking for the design of the music.

Based on the thinking in my notes, I named the theme music ‘Cave of the Binary Organ’ and then later ‘Cave of the Binary 8-Bit Organ’, when Paul added some 8-Bit into the theme.

The first video contains the first version of the theme music that I cut together with an excerpt from Test Episode 12: The Amazing Birdman to illustrate how the music would fit within each episode of the podcast…

Something divergent

There are plenty of film/cinema podcasts out there which have romantic/nostalgic styles of theme music, and that is fine for their podcasts.

However, for the Breaking Cinema podcast I am looking for a piece of music that very much embodies the divergent themes and aesthetics of the overall project…

Breaking with established conventions while still being interlaced with elements of those conventions.

Ideas for the theme music

Breaking with established conventions while still being enthused with elements of those conventions.

An organ presence.

Percussion.

The scratching decay of film and the scattered complexity of binary code.

See the Inspirations and Ideas playlist (all the video linked to in this brief can be found in the playlist.

I am keen on using an organ element for two reasons:

• I was blown away and hugely inspired by Hans Zimmer score for Interstellar!
• The organ comes with an inherent religiosity (as does all cinema) and is intimately representative of the silent cinema era.

While the podcast’s focus is very much a mishmash of different periods and ideas (the theme music should also contain some flavourings of this, if possible).

However, the only era of cinema that the theme music should be overly specific too is the silent era.

The silent era is the only other period in cinema history that comes anywhere close to the industry disruptions and technological innovations that are currently causing a great deal of chaos – this is exactly what the podcast is probing into!

As I have commented in one of the episodes already recorded, a good way to sum up where cinema is as an art-and-business form at the moment is to think of it as silent cinema 2.0.

New rule books are being written and just as hastily rewritten, as indeed they were in the silent era, albeit less hastily. Therefore, there should be something primordial about the approach of the music, it needs to take a step back from the familiar and the established.

It needs to dabble in the unknown.

Therefore, caves and cave music, going back to the origins of art and taking an objectified look at those first expressions; while exploring alternative routes they could have taken, breaking with what we have come to accept as established conventions.

And looking forward to where things are heading with the mass creative expansive growth of technology…

I briefly discuss and illustrate this point in the following video…

I go into much more visualised detail about everything I have written here in the video and vision board I created for the project’s graphic artist…

You can see my Breaking Cinema Graphics Vision Board here

Basically, I need something that is traumatic, unnerving, primordial, objectified, machinistic… but ultimately hopeful, transcendent even.

The structure of the music

In the following video I discuss and illustrate the shape and structure of music required in order for it to fit within the format for each podcast episode…

From Paul C:

Check it out! I gave it the 8-bit treatment, sped it up a lot and added drums. It grooves a bit more now like some sort of twisted horror-funk!

My modifications request for version 2 of the theme:

For the intro:

1. 0:01 – 0:03 – stretch this out again like it was in version 1. Maybe also after the first 2 seconds have a slight 8-bit build-up into when the 8-bit really takes off.
2. 0:11 – 0:15 – tone down the 8-bit and make the version 1 elements more prominent.
3. 0:24 – 0:28 – really tone down the 8-bit and make the organs and drumming of version 1 more prominent. Throughout the track we should get version 1 (0:01 – 0:02) more prominent to version 2 (0:03 – 0:09) more prominent to version 1 (0:10 – 0:16) more prominent to version 2 (0:16 – 0:24) more prominent to version 1 (0:24 – 0:34) more prominent.
4. If you could make the overall track run for about 40 seconds that would be helpful for the
   narration I am planning to put over it.

For the outro:

1. Put more of version 1 into it, again like how I said the intro track should alternate between
   version 1 elements being more prominent to version 2 elements being more prominent.
2. Stretch the length out to around 30 seconds

My modification request for version 3 of the theme:

I have only one modification request for the Outro…

Smoothen the transition at 0:18 and adjust the transition at 0:24 so that it plays better/smoother. Ignore what I said about the track needing to be 30 seconds, just make it the length it needs to be in order to play properly.

My final modification request:

I just have one final request for the Outro track, could up the 8-bit to how it was in the first version you sent me.

I had planned to put narration over the theme that would’ve been made up of a female voice identifying the podcast as “Breaking Cinema” and would also have cut in other relevant clips, such as quotes from Marshall McLuhan, that would have elaborated on the flavour of the podcast.

Then over the outro music there would have been further narration asking the listener to “like the podcast on facebook, write an iTunes review, visit the website for more info,” etc.