Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 – Courtyard Apocalypse
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 2 is the 8th film in the hugely successful Film Franchise Harry Potter. Courtyard Apocalypse is one of the tracks composed by French composer Alexandre Desplat, who also composed many other tracks from both part 1 and part 2 of the film. The Soundtrack was released on WaterTower Records.
The Movie itself is targeted to 18 – 34 year old according to NewYorker.com. This is due to the audience growing up with the film series at it goes on. Starting from 2001 when the cast were all 10 years old, the audience have matured and so have the themes of the movies. With the darker themes of the movies the music will change too. Courtyard Apocalypse is one of the most tense scenes in this film and the music portrays that.
This however has not limited the movie to England, and is the most popular film franchise worldwide. This is also shown in the sales of the movie soundtrack, reaching number 2 on the US Top Soundtracks chart.
A New Headmaster” brings with it a sense of tragedy that approaches the epic, with a beautiful dark arrangement of “Hedwig’s Theme” by John Williams in the score’s middle section before Desplat introduces this score’s second major theme, the “Defence Theme”.
The Music for the second part of the 2 part finale is a somewhat tribute to all the previous films, with a return of Hedwigs Theme aka the main Harry Potter theme. This time though there are changes to the music. It has become more ambient with spaced out sounds and has been registered to a minor key to convey the dark undertone of the film. It also has been mixed with 2 of the other prominent themes ‘Dragon Flight’ ‘Procession’.
“‘Courtyard Apocalypse’ and ‘Statues’ are two cues I like very much because of the buildup. It might feel a bit like Doyle’s Harry Potter and a bit of Remote Control Productions, but the buildup makes me actually feel something, perhaps heroism ”
In Courtyard Apocalypse you can hear foley has been used for effects such as bells, bricks falling, wands firing spells, explosions and so on. The Instruments used help to give a sense of not only loss but also a lack of hope to the piece. Having Orchestral drums, with very subtle reverb, with a steady beat underneath giving the subtle illusion of a heartbeat help to make it more dramatic because as the scene progresses and gets more intense the drums get faster and louder until the climax where they slowly fade away. The strings have a been double tracked towards the end of the clip to make them louder and also add a dramatic effect. The Drone make from the violas has been panned and you can hear it start from the left and move to the right very slowly and as the scene progresses you can here it going from left to right a lot more quickly but not to much that it is overpowering but with the other strings it is less noticeable. There are not a lot of audio FX used because there are so many sound effects and Foley used. This is good because it doesn’t overpower it.
‘Statues’ is another one of the main themes. It has a very subtle opening, starting off with drums coming in very quietly and gradually building up, adding is some high strings all building up with some low strings and and a choir. There is and epic build up where at the very climax of the song everything has stopped playing and we are left with just the hanging chord of the choir and cellos. You can here in the Strings section that there has been some compression added to stop the strings from distorting and sounding to over powering. You can hear in the Synths that there is very little high frequencies meaning that it has been EQ’d and the tops were cut off. This is probably to stop distortion.
Kingsman : Secret Service Trailer
Kingsman : Secret Service 2015 is the first film in the Kingsman series with a second film scheduled for release in 2017. The Soundtrack was Composed by Matthew Margeson and Henry Jackman, who has also composed scores for hugely successful films such as Captain America: Civil War and X-Men: First Class. The soundtrack was released on Cd by La-La Land Records.
Kingman : Secret Service is targeted to teenagers aged between 15-18. The soundtrack has an age rating of 18 due to cursing on some of the songs on the soundtrack. The soundtrack is a mixture of instrumental tracks and songs from a diverse range of artists, from Dizzee Rascal to Take That. The film and soundtrack were aimed at males, however according to rotten tomatoes the film had a surprisingly high amount of female viewers compared to what was expected.
This Soundtrack was praised for bringing back the classic superhero movie music, Having very dramatic superhero theme songs for the protagonist and dark dissent music for the villain in the film.
‘Manners Maketh Man’ has a spy-like opening, very dramatic, but the fun begins 30 seconds in with a superhero-like theme, a pretty great one at that. It brings back memories of X-Men: First Class. ‘The Medallion’ is a lovely cue, heroic and has a slow build up’ this to me is overly EQ’d and doesn’t sound the best that it could have because to many of the frequencies sound really wide with a lot of top frequencies so it doesn’t sound balanced. The AudioFX however are much better and make up for the overly EQ’d music. When Collin Firth first throws the glass with his umbrella. Foley is used to emphasize the glass being dragged across the table. Also a very high pitched sine wave is used when the glass is in the air before it hits the guy in the head. The music also matches the actions of people because after this when the guys falls on the ground the music has very short sharp stabs and as each of them is sounded the men around the guys look at Collin firth one buy one. This adds dramatic effect. Valentine, the name of the villain in the film and also the name of his theme is very similar to Manners Maketh Man, but instead has a reversed synth and a high pitched streaking flutes. There is Reverb added to the majority of this track, which help to add a certain ambiance and suspense. It has been EQ’d to take off all the lower and mid frequencies to make it really ‘screeched ‘.
References
Harry Potter
Denby, David
THE LONGEST JOURNEY
“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2” and “Tabloid.”
July 25, 2011 Issue
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2011/07/25/the-longest-journey
Wikipedia – Deathly Hallows Composer Alexandre Desplat on Part 1 and 2″. Filmmusicmag.com. Retrieved 1 August 2012.
Wikipedia – Soundtrack Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 by Alexandre Desplat”. Eveninghour.org. 1 August 2011. Retrieved 1 August 2012.
Southall, James
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2
Monday August 12, 2103
http://www.movie-wave.net/harry-potter-and-the-deathly-hallows-part-2/
Kingsman
Wikipedia – Henry Jackman & Matt Margeson to Score Matthew Vaughn’s ‘Kingsman: The Secret Service'”. filmmusicreporter.com. 2014-05-20. Retrieved 2015-08-04.
SoundGeek
Soundtrack Review
Kingsman The Secret Service
February 17, 2015
http://www.soundtrackgeek.com/v2/soundtrack-review-kingsman-the-secret-service/
Zee Braith Music 