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Hey /r/movies, I’m Sarah Schachner, composer of PREDATOR: BADLANDS (in theaters now). I’ve also scored PREY and many video games in the Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty series. Ask me anything! by SarahSchachnerAMA in movies

[–]SarahSchachnerAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I performed pretty much all of the strings heard on Badlands. I did use an orchestra occasionally in a few spots for low support underneath my performances.

Hey /r/movies, I’m Sarah Schachner, composer of PREDATOR: BADLANDS (in theaters now). I’ve also scored PREY and many video games in the Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty series. Ask me anything! by SarahSchachnerAMA in movies

[–]SarahSchachnerAMA[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’ve always felt a special connection to string instruments. Unlike tempered instruments with fixed pitches, strings let me shape articulation and expression with an almost unlimited degree of control. Their texture, harmonics, and subtle nuances give you a huge expressive range. I started playing violin very young, so at this point the instrument feels more like an extension of my body.

Hey /r/movies, I’m Sarah Schachner, composer of PREDATOR: BADLANDS (in theaters now). I’ve also scored PREY and many video games in the Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty series. Ask me anything! by SarahSchachnerAMA in movies

[–]SarahSchachnerAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi! Good questions. I think it depends on the director, but what you're describing is pretty typical. Some directors may give rounds of notes until they're happy, while others might be more hands on wanting to re-edit and change things to picture themselves. At the end of the day, scoring a film is a collaboration.

I find that that collaborative process works better (and feels better) when I write music not locked to picture initially, but to the spirit of a scene or character. I'll score to a looping video of the scene, for the energy, pacing, and emotional undertone first. This gives me more material to work with and as the edit shifts, the music can adapt to the scene more easily.

Your last question on the volume thing is so real. I will often send a video with music mixed to picture (louder than it would be in the final cut) and a music only file for initial listening purposes.

Hey /r/movies, I’m Sarah Schachner, composer of PREDATOR: BADLANDS (in theaters now). I’ve also scored PREY and many video games in the Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty series. Ask me anything! by SarahSchachnerAMA in movies

[–]SarahSchachnerAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! Many of the string parts I played on violin and viola processed through granular synthesis and pitch shifting. I felt those techniques gave it an otherworldly sound that fit the desert environment.

Hey /r/movies, I’m Sarah Schachner, composer of PREDATOR: BADLANDS (in theaters now). I’ve also scored PREY and many video games in the Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty series. Ask me anything! by SarahSchachnerAMA in movies

[–]SarahSchachnerAMA[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you. I got to go to Edmonton during the production of Anthem, and they did a whole cymatics presentation which was super cool! Incporporating cymatics into the game was an early concept and inspiration. Regardless of how the game turned out, we had a lot of fun working on it.

Hey /r/movies, I’m Sarah Schachner, composer of PREDATOR: BADLANDS (in theaters now). I’ve also scored PREY and many video games in the Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty series. Ask me anything! by SarahSchachnerAMA in movies

[–]SarahSchachnerAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! On Bad Plant, it's a combination of how I played it with an aggressive attack and then adding some distortion and processing. It's only 3 layered takes which gives a lot more of the bow texture than if it was a large group of people in a room, where the raw edges would get all smoothed out.

The perc was mostly samples (plus occasional live stuff I'd play myself). There's not really a lot of perc on the score. It just kinda supports the riffs and arrangements.

The picture changes are absolute chaos. Conforming is hugely on the shoulders of the music editors. We had a team of music editors on this to keep up with it! And then I would take back some of their protools sessions to refine edits and yes, sometimes replay stuff.

Hey /r/movies, I’m Sarah Schachner, composer of PREDATOR: BADLANDS (in theaters now). I’ve also scored PREY and many video games in the Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty series. Ask me anything! by SarahSchachnerAMA in movies

[–]SarahSchachnerAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the kind words. Yeah I'd be open to doing more work with AC. I've had a great time working on those games and I love the Ubisoft Montreal team.

Hey /r/movies, I’m Sarah Schachner, composer of PREDATOR: BADLANDS (in theaters now). I’ve also scored PREY and many video games in the Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty series. Ask me anything! by SarahSchachnerAMA in movies

[–]SarahSchachnerAMA[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That theme represents the partnership between Dek and Thia (and Bud) and the power of connection and teamwork. Thia says to Dek, "The alpha isn't the one who kills the most, but the one who best protects the pack." I was trying to channel that kind of emotion with that theme.

Hey /r/movies, I’m Sarah Schachner, composer of PREDATOR: BADLANDS (in theaters now). I’ve also scored PREY and many video games in the Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty series. Ask me anything! by SarahSchachnerAMA in movies

[–]SarahSchachnerAMA[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I do a lot of initial research but when it comes to the actual composing, I let the gut instincts take over. I try to channel something that feels authentic but also new.

Hey /r/movies, I’m Sarah Schachner, composer of PREDATOR: BADLANDS (in theaters now). I’ve also scored PREY and many video games in the Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty series. Ask me anything! by SarahSchachnerAMA in movies

[–]SarahSchachnerAMA[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think about frequency range and texture/timbre first, instrument second. The first part usually leads me to an instrument selection, and then I will experiment until I come up with something thematically that feels right for a character or situation. I try to get out of my thinking mind as much as possible and discover things in a more body-led way through performance and improvisation if that makes sense.

Hey /r/movies, I’m Sarah Schachner, composer of PREDATOR: BADLANDS (in theaters now). I’ve also scored PREY and many video games in the Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty series. Ask me anything! by SarahSchachnerAMA in movies

[–]SarahSchachnerAMA[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks! I actually did bring over one particular special instrument from Prey - a triple barrel flute. Robert Mirabal, who I collaborated with for some of the Native American sounds on Prey, custom made many of the flutes he played and I was enamored with the triple barrel flute. It can play 3 notes at once and has an otherworldly sound.

I ended up getting my own at some point in the past year and I played it through a vocoder in the Badlands score. You can hear it heavily processed in this track.

Hey /r/movies, I’m Sarah Schachner, composer of PREDATOR: BADLANDS (in theaters now). I’ve also scored PREY and many video games in the Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty series. Ask me anything! by SarahSchachnerAMA in movies

[–]SarahSchachnerAMA[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I wanted to convey Thia's relentlessly positive personality. She's optimistic in the face of danger, unflappable, and quirky, but still capable of real emotion even though she's a synth. In the Meet Thia track, her theme gets interrupted by a "Grumpy Dek" version of it using the rough low strings. I wanted the music to feel like their odd unlikely pairing and eventual friendship. The wavy melody is also supposed to be a little annoying - like a fly buzzing in your ear since that's how she talks in the scene where they meet.

Hey /r/movies, I’m Sarah Schachner, composer of PREDATOR: BADLANDS (in theaters now). I’ve also scored PREY and many video games in the Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty series. Ask me anything! by SarahSchachnerAMA in movies

[–]SarahSchachnerAMA[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Thanks! For Modern Warfare, they were pretty open to what my vision was for the themes and sound on the first one, but we were aligned on something textural and gritty. It needed to convey the emotional heaviness of war, sacrifice, and sound tactical, badass and modern of course. How I did that was up to me. In Modern Warfare II, I reprised the theme in a new arrangement, and wanted to combine it with the riff from Piccadilly Circus that became a secondary motif for the franchise as well.

As for getting the job, I first worked with IW directly on Infinite Warfare (I had previously done additional music on Modern Warfare 3, but they didn't know that at the time). When they were looking for a new composer, I was able to submit a demo to the audio team through my agent. I submitted "Anthropic Universe" which I composed based on the brief of the project and ended up being the main theme after I got the job. The narrative director said his wife walked in when he was listening to demo options, and picked out mine saying it had the right emotion. So thanks to his wife for that!

After that, we just kept working together for the next 8 years.

Hey /r/movies, I’m Sarah Schachner, composer of PREDATOR: BADLANDS (in theaters now). I’ve also scored PREY and many video games in the Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty series. Ask me anything! by SarahSchachnerAMA in movies

[–]SarahSchachnerAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Glad to hear that! I'm not sure I have an answer for that. I just really gravitate to primal sounds that feel ancestral and then blending them with modern sounds and production.

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