Music

To find music I decided to look on SoundCloud as a lot of people put free downloads of their music on there. Even though I know that piano and acoustic guitar music can be a bit cliche sometimes and could possibly make the film feel too sad or appealy I decided this was the the sort of music that I wanted as it would fit with the tone of the film. Below I found two pieces of piano music that I really liked and thought would go great with the feel of the documentary. Instead of waiting until after the picture edit to start looking for music I decided to look for it at the start because even though sometimes you can place music over the top of the edit and it works, it was certainly not worth the risk. Also if you find a piece of music that works I think it's better to try and edit the picture to go with the music and exploit the power of it to the maximum, which is what we have subsequently done with our edit. 




https://soundcloud.com/lorenzodada/solo-piano-free-download 

I decided this piece of music would be to use as an opening under the titles because there is a playfulness to the melody that I like and felt encompassed the feel of the films intro. I decided to use it under the titles first because after our long opening sequence which consists of just our main contributor, Pam, telling a story; I felt there needed to be something to break that up, that could take us from the opening into the main part of the film. 
We're then going to fade it as as the first bit of narration comes in and then bring it back in for a short montage of some of the animals. I think the piece works very well for the montage because the gentle notes of the piano complement the slow pace of it. We've used quite soft and elegant animals for this montage like the owl, stork and Ocelot because we're still easing the audience into the film. 
The pace of the film is also quite slow anyway with elements of humour, which pick up the tone in places, and I felt the music also reflected this because it's got a contemplative feel to it but without being too sad or depressing which is just what I wanted.


https://soundcloud.com/thomasfaton/piano-lonely-free-download 

I also found this piece of piano music as a free download also and even though it has a slightly more sombre feel to it than the last piece I liked it very much and just by listening to it I could feel the emotion and thought it would emulate the feelings of Pam.
 I decided this piece would fit well at the end of the film as I wanted to do a longer montage of all the animals giving the audience time to think about what they've watched and see the full array of animals that are cared for at the refuge. I didn't really know how I wanted the montage to go but I put the music down first and then built the images above. It was good doing it this way because the music helped me decide what should go where and I tried to find shots of animals that fitted with each part of the music. 
For example for the slower parts I used mainly still shots and then when the melody picks up half way through I used more active shots like the Ocelot trying to attack something. This way it stopped the montage from feeling too mournful because it wasn't just animals sat there looking sorry for themselves.
 I tried to use shots of the animals being animals and doing what animals do so I used one of the Lynx s washing because that's what cats do, I also used a funny shot of the big Ground Hornbill bird trying to swallow a hole chick in front of a group of dogs because for me it wasn't her foot injury that encompassed her personality but her funny side and the fact she loves attention so I wanted people to laugh at her rather than feel sorry, I also used a shot of a turtle that's face makes it look like it's smiling so that the audience can see that yes it is quite a desperate situation that they're in and it is sad because many of them have been abandoned but on the bright side they are well looked after now and most of them as good as can be.