How to Train Your Dragon 2 Flight Scene

You have a really good starting plan for your music! I can clearly tell what you want to do with your composition in relation to the video. The video is very fast paced, and I think your choice of instruments will be crucial to the tension of the music. I would suggest keeping a simple, quick motif in your composition. At the beginning, the strings can play the motif. After Hiccup falls off, use the motif again but maybe in richer tones and bigger chords with multiple instruments as supporting sounds. I also suggest thinking about the time Hiccup spends stopping in the sky in relation to the pause in your music at that point. I think keeping some sounds going on (but not necessarily music) when he is stopped in the sky would avoid the music sounding too abrupt and predictable. I really like the "cliffhanger" idea for the ending; I think it suits the video and creates suspense. The buildup of energy from the music would give the ending a lot of power. Overall, you seem to know how you want to put the visuals together with your composition. I am excited to see the final result!

Great job, Eunice! Your outline is well thought out, and the work that you did in class was a great start. I would suggest coming up with a motif for the main character, so you have a unifying sound. Please continue posting process updates.

I completely agree with Almeda, good analysis and ideas for the sections and music. Now you should mark all the exact timing as it is explained here below. Apart from the initial instrumentation you propose for each part, I also recommend to compose something simple at the beginning (just the main instrument melody, the leitmotif, and drums and so on), and then think what you would expect to listen apart from that, as background: a bass line? Some string chords? Other melody (countermelody) to accompany nicely the main one in a different instrument? You decide.

Here some general ideas to help you build the music: Think of the functions of the music for audiovisuals that we studied at class and also the composition concepts. Start with analyzing the video more precisely and setting its parts and the mood and characteristics of the music for each part. Plan your instruments. Remember that to make a crescendo you can add instruments apart to make them play louder and vice-versa with decrescendo. Select a good tempo that goes well with the images (beat per minute), though you might change it in some section if you think it is going to fit better. To open the video in Logic: File-Movie-Open Movie. Then mark the sections of it in the next way: Logic Pro-Preferences-Advanced Tools and activate all except for Control Surfaces and Surround (and score if you are not going to use it). Then Track-Show Global Tracks and in the Arrangement Track you can establish the sections, for example:

- Introduction: objectives (mood to set, things to remark with music...), Function/s of the music in this section (set the mood, present the main character (you can create a leitmotif for it), place the viewer in the physical place where the action is (country, region, etc.), underline the time the action takes place...), Composition concepts to get the objectives and music functions: crescendo to begin, tempo that fits, kind of music to set the mood, instrumentation that fits with the place and time,...
- And something similar to the other sections.

Also in the markers track you can put markers to synchronize important moments in the scene to synchronize with the music, example: evil monster appears suddenly (remark with its leitmotif or with some low tones, or drums, etc)

The process should be that: set the objectives, set the music function/s, set the composition concepts to get them, compose the music.

Good starting outline. Though it seems you've already thought about this, I stress that it might be beneficial to play on the changes in mood throughout the scene. The feeling around the first part of the scene when they're just flying around is very different from the two times hiccup drops. And even within that subset, the two drops are very different in the feeling the communicate (the first one is playful and exciting, the second one is a little bit scary, as if we ought to hold our breaths and hope it goes well)
Also, it seems to me these two could be seen as independent climaxes in the scene, so having silence at the beginning of the drops sounds like a great idea!

There's definitely a good plan here, as others have mentioned there are some really dramatic moments in this scene like when the Dragon starts dropping out of the sky so I would make sure to capture those big moments well.

First of all, I'd like to say, excellent choice of trailer! I feel like a trailer like this would be very amenable to a lot of different scores. You could make something truly unique here. I agree that you seem to have thought this through extremely well, and thats awesome! A suggestion though: you might want to go for a sound that is less bombastic than what is in the actual trailer. That would be a nice way to add variety.

There are a lot of really dramatic moments that you can capitalise on. I believe the success of your idea will very strongly correlate to how well you use those moments.

Besides all the instruments you want to add in the background music, maybe consider some natural sounds that fit the motion. Like the wind sound from the the flying dragon, and the sound of the sea, I think these sounds are very important since it will make the video more pursuasive. There are definitely a lot of dynamic moment going on in this video, I think using drum sounds is a really good approach. Also , it would be really fun if you can change the voice of dragon to a more interesting one.