Silent Movie Scoring

Fermynwoods Contemporary Art has been working with The Complementary Education Academy for ten years, bringing arts programming to students who have been excluded from mainstream education. Or, rather, we bring the students to the arts, using our site at Sudborough Green Lodge, deep in Fermyn Woods, for workshops.

We were happy to work with composer Michele Catania from the group Tracksound, who screened the 1917 silent Italian film The War and Momi's Dream, along with a live performance of Michele's original score, at our venue The Arches last month. We wanted to replicate some of this experience for the CE Academy students, with added interactivity!

To begin, Michele introduced the film itself, which is the story of a family, including young Momi, waiting for word from the front during World War I. Momi's father gets a letter to them and in it describes he and his fellow soldiers helping a destitute local mother and son. After hearing this letter read out loud, Momi begins to play with his toys but falls asleep, beginning what's thought to be the first animation in Italian film history, as the toys play out scenes from the war as imagined by the child. 

Despite its age, our young people were immediately engaged with the film and its story. Michele translated the Italian subtitles and answered their questions while his score played in the background. He regularly called attention to the changes in mood in both the film and score, pointing out how easily one student could tell who the bad guys were after the music became more sinister. 

Then it was our turn. With keyboard, synthesiser and percussion, Michele encouraged the students to improvise an emotive score including the sounds of planes, bombs, soldiers arguing, poisonous gas being released on the battlefield, and laughter. Students had several tries, sometimes deciding to swap instruments. In addition to watching the screen to match the action, Michele conducted them, giving queues and gesturing dramatically to convey the emotions to match. In the end, everyone agreed it was effective to tell a story without words, using only music and visuals, and Michele urged them to continue to use music as an outlet for strong emotions.

This workshop was part of our programming for Fermynwoodstock, a music and sound art festival the CE Academy students will be presenting at the end of the school year.    

To learn more about our Alternative Provision programming: http://fermynwoods.org/alternative-provision/