As Howard Shore said, “music is essentially an emotional language, so you want to feel something from relationships and build music based on those feelings.” Providing a narrative of the events, conveying components of the film settings, accentuating the psychological states of the characters, and giving a collective emotional tone or mood to the audience are all key qualities of film music (Khaled, 2018). This analysis is based on Kingsman: The Secret Service, the first of the film’s franchise which was released in theatres February 2015. The film is an action/comedy based on Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons' comic book The Secret Service, which follows the missions of different agents working for a fictional secret service organization named Kingsman. The music was composed by Matthew Margeson and Henry Jackman who also worked on the sequel, Kingsman: The Golden Circle. This analysis will go through the spy music genre and explore two scenes from the case study to show how the music was applied effectively in those scenes and how it can affect how they are both interpreted.
John Barry is credited with inventing the spy music genre on his own. He is most recognised for his work on the early James Bond scores, which were hugely successful. In 1962, Barry's version of the Bond theme in "Dr No" kicked off the whole thing (Burlingame 2008). In early 1965, the "Goldfinger" soundtrack knocked the Beatles off the top spot. He scored ten Bond films in a row, and every soundtrack was a hit. He had mastered the art of music's various components. There are several components of music that influence how viewers or listeners feel or respond. Pitch, pitch range, pitch direction or movement, note articulation, sound quality, rhythm quality, and instruments used are just a few of the factors that might influence how one feels while viewing a film. Pitch refers to how low or high a sound is. A whistle would be a high note while the sound of thunder would be low. Both the high and low pitch can have both positive and negative implications. A high pitch's positive connotation may be bright, vibrant, or joyous, whereas a low pitch's positive meaning could be important or solid. A high pitch with negative meaning might suggest lightweight, trivial, or flighty, whereas a low pitch can mean clumsy, depressed, or dangerous (Griffith and Machin, 2014).
Pitch | Positive meaning | Negative meaning |
High | Bright/energetic/happy | Lightweight/trivial/flighty |
Low | Important/solid | Clumsy/depressed/danger |
Table 1.0 showing the meaning potentials of pitch (Griffith and Machin, 2014).
In music, the melody line will frequently rise and fall in pitch. "National anthems often use stepped increases in pitch to suggest the steady feel of brightness and energy associated with the national spirit," Griffith and Machin (2014) said. " This will be interwoven with lower pitch to emphasise the seriousness and significance of the national effort. Singer-songwriters' sorrowful songs frequently drop in melody to convey a sense of regret and moodiness" (Griffith and Machin, 2014). The other components of music, such as pitch direction, have diverse meaning potentials depending on how they are employed. The tables below will explain to you in detail the different meaning potentials of pitch movement direction, pitch range, note articulation, and sound quality.
Pitch direction | Meaning potential |
Ascending melody | Building of mood/outward expression/increase in energy |
No pitch movement | Emotional stasis/ containment/reserved |
Descending melody | Drooping of emotions/inward contemplation/decrease in energy |
Table 2.0 showing the meaning potentials of pitch direction (Griffith and Machin, 2014).
Pitch range | Meaning potential | Effects |
High | Emotionally expansive | Emotionally open/subjective |
Low | Emotionally contained | Repressed/contained/objective |
Table 3.0 showing the meaning potential and effects of pitch range (Griffith and Machin, 2014).
Articulation of notes | Meaning potential |
Shorter dotted notes | Abrupt, lively, hurried, certain, objective/clumsy if played in deep pitched brass or woodwind |
Longer lingering notes | Emotionally lingering, subjective |
Table 4.0 showing the meaning potentials of articulation of notes (Griffith and Machin, 2014).
Sound quality | Meaning potential |
Breathiness | Intimacy |
Loud/soft | Taking up social space |
Rapsy/smooth | Grittiness/energy very naturalistic and sensual |
Reverb | Scared or isolated |
Table 5.0 showing the meaning potentials of sound quality (Griffith and Machin, 2014).
(Kingsman: The Secret Service, 2015).
The above scene was an altered version of the classic church fight scene from Kingsman. Without knowing there was going to be a fight scene, it may have felt like something out of a comedy and nothing to do with espionage. According to table 1.0, the high pitch could suggest that this scene is trivial, whereas table 4.0 suggests that the short dotted notes indicate clumsy or objective. You might not have felt the danger in that scene as much as the producers would have liked, and there was hardly any tension rising. If that segment of the scene had transitioned to the real combat scene with the same music, the viewers would have been taken aback and confused.
(Kingsman: The Secret Service, 2015).
In the scene with the original music, you can sort of feel something is about to happen, you kind of know our main character is in the wrong place. This was made possible with the low pitch range which from table 3.0, could potentially mean emotionally contained or repressed. There’s a lot of tension built with the music which is done by the timings of the beats, the low pitch and a lot of silence in between the two. As mentioned earlier in table 1.0, the meaning potentials of a low pitch are clumsy, depressed or danger. Frank and David also suggested that the direction of the pitch movement could change what the viewers would feel and in this case, the pitch direction had a slowly ascending melody. The meaning potentials of an ascending melody are building of mood, outward expression or increase in energy. The increase in energy was needed for the second part of this fight scene coming soon.
(Kingsman: The Secret Service, 2015).
After seeing roughly half of the scene, it's reasonable to deduce that the intent of the low pitch was danger and the aim of the ascending melody was mood building/energy rise. The music used in that scene was Lynyrd Skynyrd's Free Bird, which was released in 1973. The guitar at the start of the music contributes significantly to the build up of the chaos that occurs later in that fight scene. It's an understatement to say that music, or the absence thereof, is crucial in a scene. An Avengers action sequence, for example, isn't as enjoyable as a moment from the 2017 film Baby Driver.
(Avengers: Endgame, 2019). (Baby Driver, 2017).
(Kingsman: The Secret Service, 2015).
The scene above is from Kingsman: The Secret Service, and it shows ‘Eggsy’ in a Bespoke spy suit with all of the accompanying accessories. The background music used wasn't the original, but it was added to create other feelings/emotions than those meant in the original scene. The notes were long and lingering, which, in light of table 4.0, might indicate that the character was emotionally lingering or subjective. The pitch movement featured a falling melody, which, according to table 2.0, might indicate a drop in energy, drooping emotions, and inward contemplation, as shown towards the end of the scene when 'Eggsy' looked in the mirror at himself. According to table 4.0 and 1.0, the low pitch range in the scene above could represent suppressed feelings or being emotionally confined while also implying danger. This threat could be directed at someone by our main character on screen. Putting all of these musical elements together could give the impression that 'Eggsy' is the bad guy, which is not really the case.
(Kingsman: The Secret Service, 2015).
After viewing the original scene, a combination of different emotions should have surfaced. The musical elements used are diverse, and they should convey different emotions. The notes were short and dotted, which according to table 4.0 meant abrupt, hurried, or lively, which was accurate. ‘Eggsy' was rushing to change into his Bespoke outfit since he needed to leave the plane as a different person to carry out his agent duties and because another fight scene was coming up soon after this one, I suppose it was lively. There was no pitch movement, which could portray the character as reserved or suggest emotional containment, according to table 2.0. 'Eggsy' had to keep his emotions in check not only to appear cool, but also so that he could begin his job as a spy and disguise himself as someone else without any of the opposition team figuring out who he was. The original scene's pitch and pitch range were relatively high, which, according to tables 1.0 and 3.0, could indicate emotional openness, energy, and happiness.
Every time we are watching a scene, we have to interpret it, which involves making meaning of it, and we frequently rely on whatever contextual information is available, with music being our primary source of information (Ansani et al. 2020). "To produce a harmonious product, different elements like the film's language, editing, flow of dialogue, lighting, and editing must be synchronised; these functions must work together in parallel to deliver a strong musical outcome to accompany the visuals," explains renowned Egyptian film score composer Tamer Karawan (Khaled, 2018).
REFERENCING
Ansani, A., Marini, M., D’Errico, F. and Poggi, I., 2020. How Soundtracks Shape What We See: Analyzing the Influence of Music on Visual Scenes Through Self-Assessment, Eye Tracking, and Pupillometry. Frontiers in Psychology [online], 11. Available from: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02242/full [Accessed 2 Nov 2021].
Avengers: Endgame. 2019. [DVD] Directed by A. Russo and J. Russo. Los Angeles: Marvel Studios.
Baby Driver. 2017. [DVD] Directed by E. Wright. United Kingdom: TriStar Pictures; MRC; Big Talk Productions; Working Title Films.
Burlingame, J., 2008. John Barry invented the spy movie score - Variety [online]. Variety. Available from: https://variety.com/2008/film/markets-festivals/john-barry-invented-the-spy-movie-score-1117995119/ [Accessed 27 Oct 2021].
Griffith, F. and Machin, D., 2014. Communicating the ideas and attitudes of spying in film music: A social semiotic approach. Sign Systems Studies, [online] 42(1), pp.72-97. Available at: <https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=edsdoj&AN=edsdoj.3166d461c9b140b28506c46770324152&site=eds-live&scope=site> [Accessed 27 October 2021].
Khaled, F., 2018. The underlying effect of music in film and the art of film scoring. [online] Egypt Today. Available at: <https://www.egypttoday.com/Article/15/46906/The-underlying-effect-of-music-in-film-and-the-art> [Accessed 27 October 2021].
Kingsman: The Secret Service. 2021. [DVD] Directed by M. Vaughn. United Kingdom: Marv Films; Cloudy Productions; TSG Entertainment.
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