The Dark Knight ReScored Part 4

The Scene

For the third installment in this series, I worked on a cue from the movie featuring a scene where The Dark Knight, Bruce Wayve, the Batman, goes to Hong Kong to capture someone committing crimes in Gotham, out of the reach of the American Justice system. The scene features an extremely high daring jump, an awesome fight sequence and a successful mission. And these were my musical objectives for the cue, daring, action, success. 

The Arrangement

As you can see, there was kind of a lot going on in this arrangement, because the cue has a slow build-up, with the almost heist like set up, the preamble to the daring jump to a paragliding stunt, followed by an action scene and more. So the track is quite busy. As I used the same template for each of the three cues, there are some similar instrumentation choices throughout, so let’s get into it!

The Strings 

The Long strings (below) really form the foundation of the cue. They use a similar motif throughout, to that of the main protagonist's theme (The Dark Knights). They are generally staying in the D minor key, as a sort of sonic theme throughout each cue. The below primarily shows off some of the darker bass & celli parts, accomplishing that typical thematic idea, the dark to The Dark Knight's mystique. 

The Second Layer

The second layer of strings is the high section of the string family, the 1st and 2nd Violins. Together they create some of the piercing parts that create a sense of space and emptiness, which comes in especially handy when trying to represent the extreme stunt that The Dark Knight completes in this scene. 

The Short Strings

The short strings are constantly weaving in and out of the cue, at least until the last third of the track. In the beginning, however, is where the strings are more subtle and consistent, acting as a build-up to the eventual drama and action. A similar motif follows later on but quicker, with a lot more energy. 

The below is where the strings pick up. They do this, rather brilliantly if I do say so myself, to take themselves away, leaving room for the emptiness, as I said with the daring stunt. It was important to give that part of the scene a little mess music to add a lot more gravity to the scene (pardon the pun). 

Must not forget the Winds

The winds in this cue really just layer on top of the higher string parts. This has the effect of filling out the sound. Adding a flute section to a Violin part adds warmth and mid frequencies to the part, which brings it out and a little more upfront in the mix. 

Brass Longs

The Brass in this cue is great for adding gravity to the cue. I mostly focused on using Tubas and Trombones, adding bass and low mid frequencies instrumentation to the track. When I did this for this track, I combined two patches from Spitfire Audios Brass sections, the Low Brass & Low Brass Nasty. The Nasty is similar to the Low Brass but a lot grittier and edgy. They add a bit more bite to the part and that is just awesome. 

Brass Shorts

The short brass parts really come in to their own at the end of the track. Again, they're in the same parts of the frequency spectrum but due to the staccato performance, they add some energy and rhythm when it's needed. After all, there is an awesome fight scene later in the cue. 

The Percussion

The percussion in this track is sort of very minimal, almost used sparingly early on, practically for effect. Later i nthe track is a different story. During the action scene, where fists come together and The Dark Knight beats down some thugs, the percussion adds that weight and punch (pun intended) to the cue, syncing in nicely with the physicality of the scene. 

The Synths

Now, the juicy part. the Synths. 

I used a lot of synth stuff in this track. There are some of my trusty Hard Attack Synths early in the track, providing a boost to the texture, almost pieces of ornamentation. 

There are also some deep and STRONG Big Synth Pads, designed off some orchestral string recordings. I layered these on top of the low end strings I talked about earlier on but they also weave in and out, so the texture they add to the cue almost breathes with the energy of the scene. This hopefully, follows the feeling of the listener as you breath in waiting for the inevitable awesome stunt. At least that was the idea. 

Loops & FX

The Loops in this track are the atmospheric wind sounds I designed for the part of the scene where TDK is about to start his huge jump stunt. 

So the below image shows the build up, the long MIDI notes that I used to create the texture. 

And that is the third cue. As ever, I really do hope you enjoyed reading this. If you have any thoughts or ideas, drop them below and let me know what you think. 
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