How Johnny Harris uses Music to Tell Stories — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00music
2. 0:01and the choice of music
3. 0:04is one of the most important facets of
4. 0:06filmmaking
5. 0:08on this channel i've spoken about music
6. 0:09in its many forms about the creative
7. 0:11process about running a band about the
8. 0:13technology behind recording but one of
9. 0:15the things i'm obsessed with that i've
10. 0:16never spoken about is how it's used in
11. 0:18film to tell stories
12. 0:21so how do you use music to tell stories
13. 0:24well in order to show you i want to
14. 0:26break down a piece by filmmaker and
15. 0:27journalist johnny harris called the
16. 0:29dangers of ignoring julian assange
17. 0:32johnny harris is probably my biggest
18. 0:34influence when it comes to using music
19. 0:35in storytelling there's an inherent
20. 0:37musicality to his work he uses music to
21. 0:40structure his stories to make the
22. 0:42intellectual emotional to make you lean
23. 0:45in pay attention and care
24. 0:48now this video in particular is a
25. 0:5030-minute piece covering the entire
26. 0:51story of julian assange from the
27. 0:53inception of wikileaks to his current
28. 0:55conflict facing extradition to the us
29. 0:58and potentially
30. 0:59175 years in jail
31. 1:02[Music]
32. 1:05but now if you remove the music we're
33. 1:07looking at 30 minutes of exposition
34. 1:09backstory and political commentary no
35. 1:12matter how good the visuals it's
36. 1:13incredibly hard to get people to stick
37. 1:15around for 30 minutes of information
38. 1:18dense and complex material but by
39. 1:20leveraging music not only does it become
40. 1:22possible but the story becomes
41. 1:24enthralling there's an emotional
42. 1:26significance given to the story and you
43. 1:28leave that video not only understanding
44. 1:30what's happened but caring about it it's
45. 1:32an outstanding piece of work and i just
46. 1:34want to show you some of the musical
47. 1:36techniques at play here that make it so
48. 1:38good so this analysis is in three parts
49. 1:41the first is about the opening theme how
50. 1:43music in the opening sequence helps set
51. 1:45up the narrative arc second i'll be
52. 1:47covering smaller details the choice of
53. 1:49specific music arrangement ideas and how
54. 1:51music interacts with and supports
55. 1:53dialogue and third i want to zoom out
56. 1:55and look at more thematic ideas music as
57. 1:58characters and ultimately the role that
58. 2:00music plays in a story and by the way
59. 2:02credit to tom fox who composed the music
60. 2:04for this video you did an insane job
61. 2:07let's have a look
62. 2:08[Music]
63. 2:13on a spring day 10 years ago a 41 year
64. 2:16old australian man named julian assange
65. 2:19dressed up as a motorcycle delivery man
66. 2:22he dyed his hair put colored contacts in
67. 2:24his eyes and even put a rock in his shoe
68. 2:27so that he would walk differently than
69. 2:29normal so this opening is steeped in
70. 2:31confusion and mystery the music is vague
71. 2:33you have a rhythmic bass line that's
72. 2:35coming in and out and there are
73. 2:37dissonant drones to give you this
74. 2:38ambience of uncertainty it's the start
75. 2:41of a crime mystery drama not unlike the
76. 2:43things you'd find as a netflix
77. 2:45documentary he was sure he was being
78. 2:47followed by dark government forces that
79. 2:49were attempting to capture him and send
80. 2:52him to the united states to be locked up
81. 2:55he showed up here
82. 2:56to the embassy of ecuador in central
83. 2:58london out of that vague opening a
84. 3:01rhythm has now emerged the baseline is
85. 3:02more predominant as we gain clarity on
86. 3:04the subject a theme musically is
87. 3:07emerging
88. 3:09once inside this embassy he wouldn't be
89. 3:11on british soil anymore
90. 3:13no one could barge in here and grab him
91. 3:16he'd be safe
92. 3:18it's called political asylum so we
93. 3:20already have moments between his
94. 3:22voiceover where the music is more
95. 3:23present and it's building on this
96. 3:25intense dark
97. 3:26scary feeling
98. 3:29we have brief moments of space in this
99. 3:31intro where the music is the dominant
100. 3:33element pushing forward the emotion the
101. 3:36intensity of the subject he's about to
102. 3:39speak about ecuadorian embassy in london
103. 3:41he wouldn't leave it for seven
104. 3:44years testing one two three
105. 3:48and another cut the song has been taking
106. 3:50shape and then it's pulled away again
107. 3:51i've been
108. 3:52looking at a lot of
109. 3:58this
110. 4:02even that part i love this even in
111. 4:04moments where there isn't any music
112. 4:05there's a musicality or rhythmicness in
113. 4:08the edits he makes like that can be
114. 4:10turned into a beat
115. 4:13anyway so the music's been pulled away
116. 4:15before it really reached its climax yet
117. 4:17which suggests to you that that's still
118. 4:19going to happen and the lack of music
119. 4:21here is not the end of the intro but
120. 4:24actually an excursion into something
121. 4:26else because there's two things that
122. 4:28johnny harris has to do in this intro he
123. 4:29has to introduce the subject matter and
124. 4:32the emotion that we should associate
125. 4:34with that and he has to introduce
126. 4:35himself as a character as the
127. 4:37personality that's gonna carry the story
128. 4:39now the character johnny plays in his
129. 4:41videos is that of a slightly neurotic
130. 4:43paranoid researcher that's uncovering
131. 4:46all of these truths that's cataloguing
132. 4:48all of this information and is bursting
133. 4:50to present to you to lay it all out so
134. 4:51that you can see what he's seen he's
135. 4:54chosen not to put any music when he's
136. 4:55introducing himself as a character which
137. 4:58is kind of a smart thing to do because
138. 4:59he wants to appear neutral in this video
139. 5:03now that he's introduced his character
140. 5:04given you a bit of background we can go
141. 5:06back to the music we had in the intro
142. 5:08but we're only going to get back to the
143. 5:10music once he's given you the critical
144. 5:12line to lead you back into the narrative
145. 5:14which is i want to tell you the story of
146. 5:17julian assange this guy's a traitor
147. 5:20this is a blow
148. 5:23a to
149. 5:23to a free press what this story is is
150. 5:26like a an expression of a new kind of
151. 5:28power we've returned to a build-up the
152. 5:30music is back and he's going to give you
153. 5:31the final pointers for what this story
154. 5:33entails before giving you the climax the
155. 5:36power of
156. 5:37secrets of information an anti-war
157. 5:40online organization attacking u.s policy
158. 5:44in afghanistan and the reason i'm
159. 5:46calling what julian assange does power
160. 5:49is because the u.s is trying to lock him
161. 5:51up for 175 years because of what he did
162. 5:54it's all here in this indictment
163. 5:57the most powerful country in the world
164. 5:59feels threatened by this man and what
165. 6:01he's done i want to take you through
166. 6:03julian assange's story and then to
167. 6:05unpack why the united states is trying
168. 6:08to lock him up for the rest of his life
169. 6:10and i want to persuade you that no
170. 6:12matter what you think of julian assange
171. 6:14and his conduct and his ethics and his
172. 6:16mission
173. 6:17this case should not be ignored
174. 6:22illegally
175. 6:24it's so satisfying to reach that moment
176. 6:26in the video but why are we getting a
177. 6:28reward at this point in the story we've
178. 6:29watched what two minutes 30 of the video
179. 6:32like congratulations we haven't gotten
180. 6:33to any material yet
181. 6:35why is there a reward the reward here is
182. 6:37that we've gone on our way through a lot
183. 6:39of chaos and a lot of different things
184. 6:41that don't make sense right now and
185. 6:43we've arrived at a question which is
186. 6:45what has happened to julian assange what
187. 6:47is his story and we're rewarded for that
188. 6:49because we understand our mission now we
189. 6:51understand what this video represents
190. 6:53and we've set up the main arc which is
191. 6:54to reach resolve
192. 6:56on that question but you can't go ahead
193. 6:58and answer that question instantly after
194. 7:00that then the video would be over
195. 7:02in order to answer that question we're
196. 7:04gonna have to dive into somewhere else
197. 7:07[Applause]
198. 7:10okay let's get up to speed really okay
199. 7:12this is instantly great before we can
200. 7:14get back to the intensity the emotional
201. 7:16gravity of the main question we have to
202. 7:19go somewhere else we have to get more
203. 7:21information we have to understand the
204. 7:23situation better the pacing of the
205. 7:25entire following scene is tied to the
206. 7:27rhythm of this soundtrack it's less
207. 7:29intense and bottom heavy and nervous
208. 7:31compared to the intro theme and there's
209. 7:33an important reason for that this gives
210. 7:35us an openness to be able to look from a
211. 7:37distance at all the material to start
212. 7:39understanding it to reach clarity
213. 7:41instead of having an emotional reaction
214. 7:42to the material we're ingesting
215. 7:44rationally a lot of information to make
216. 7:46sense of things this is something that
217. 7:48johnny harris himself has talked about
218. 7:50this idea of having thinking pieces and
219. 7:52feeling pieces there's some music that
220. 7:54makes you feel things and there's other
221. 7:56music that makes you think or that makes
222. 7:57you
223. 7:58lean in to pay attention to information
224. 8:01and johnny harris throughout his videos
225. 8:03is playing this beautiful dance where
226. 8:05he's jumping between moments of thinking
227. 8:08to moments of feeling julian assange is
228. 8:10an australian hacker who spent most of
229. 8:12his life breaking into computers and
230. 8:14getting his hands on information that he
231. 8:16wasn't supposed to see but that he
232. 8:18believed the world should see
233. 8:20when he was 35 he built a web even there
234. 8:23that little moment in between his
235. 8:24talking the music is pulled up if you
236. 8:27put music underneath a scene with speech
237. 8:30and you lower the volume so that it
238. 8:31doesn't overpower the speech it will
239. 8:33sound like a song whose volume has been
240. 8:36lowered however if the music has these
241. 8:38moments where it comes up in between
242. 8:40certain phrases it will give you the
243. 8:41impression that the music is slowly
244. 8:43building in the background there's an
245. 8:45emotion that is building up even through
246. 8:47sections which are very information
247. 8:50heavy so that was 2006 julian assange
248. 8:52builds wikileaks and soon after he
249. 8:55starts receiving submissions like people
250. 8:57start giving him documents that are
251. 8:59supposed to be secret and he starts
252. 9:01publishing them everything from drone
253. 9:03strikes in yemen to oil scandals in peru
254. 9:05to corruption in the arab world tibetan
255. 9:08uprisings in china leaks like this sort
256. 9:10of seem common to us now but this was
257. 9:13like 2007. wikileaks was a totally new
258. 9:16thing it was this open source
259. 9:17intelligence website
260. 9:19for that last section the music was
261. 9:20pulled back it was more simple there
262. 9:22were only a few elements remaining there
263. 9:24is as much power in pulling back a song
264. 9:27as there is in building it up slowly
265. 9:29what does pulling back a song tell you
266. 9:31it tells you that the song is coming
267. 9:32towards the end of its duration where
268. 9:35something new is supposed to happen and
269. 9:36that means you've built in an
270. 9:38expectation for a change coming soon
271. 9:40into the video through the music so even
272. 9:43though he continued talking for another
273. 9:4520 seconds you are already anticipating
274. 9:47a change in mood before it's happened
275. 9:50you see how incredible that is like that
276. 9:52is a tiny detail
277. 9:54that will subconsciously make you pay
278. 9:56attention because you're anticipating
279. 9:57change even though the change is
280. 10:00deferred it's delayed until a later
281. 10:02moment
282. 10:04amazing stuff understand
283. 10:06how far
284. 10:08you can
285. 10:09push
286. 10:10government
287. 10:11into doing something
288. 10:13here the music's been really reduced
289. 10:15down and you're paying close attention
290. 10:16to what julian assange is saying
291. 10:19but wikileaks wasn't really noticed
292. 10:20until 2010 when something happened that
293. 10:23would change everything
294. 10:26[Music]
295. 10:28we've reached a new big intense moment
296. 10:30so we've had roughly four minutes of
297. 10:32backstory and context to build up
298. 10:35towards the next emotional moment and
299. 10:37it's gotten very serious again in iraq
300. 10:40there was a 22 year old american
301. 10:42intelligence analyst named chelsea
302. 10:44manning horrified by what she was seeing
303. 10:46she decided to download hundreds of
304. 10:49thousands of classified documents these
305. 10:51emotional cues you're getting musically
306. 10:53are making you react differently and pay
307. 10:55a different kind of attention to each
308. 10:56bit of information you're getting he is
309. 10:58still providing backstory he is still
310. 11:01providing more context introducing new
311. 11:04characters and new events but it feels
312. 11:06very different because through the music
313. 11:09he's telling you that this is an
314. 11:11intensely heavy thing from military
315. 11:14computers
316. 11:15and upload them directly to wikileaks
317. 11:21[Music]
318. 11:22of course our top story this morning
319. 11:23there's this brief moment there of like
320. 11:25three seconds of just these synths
321. 11:28blaring at you full volume and it is so
322. 11:31good
323. 11:33[Music]
324. 11:35now if you if you listen to any film
325. 11:37scores you will have noticed that a lot
326. 11:39of film score composers will compose
327. 11:41certain themes for certain characters or
328. 11:43events a certain character is introduced
329. 11:46they have a melody when they reappear at
330. 11:47a later point in the film that melody
331. 11:49comes back and what johnny harris is
332. 11:51doing with the songs in this video are
333. 11:53not too different from that introduction
334. 11:55score it's this synth heavy electronic
335. 11:58bassy emotive feeling and whilst playing
336. 12:01that song he's introducing the main
337. 12:03conflict which is this guy julian
338. 12:04assange and the us government right that
339. 12:07is the big conflict between that intro
340. 12:09and where we are now we had the
341. 12:11backstory of julian assange and what
342. 12:13happens at the six minute mark
343. 12:15the u.s government appears or reappears
344. 12:18and it reappears with the same emotional
345. 12:20gravity there's kind of an association
346. 12:22made here between the us government and
347. 12:24what they're doing and the danger of
348. 12:26them
349. 12:26and
350. 12:27synth heavy bassy emotive music
351. 12:35in history and this is the stuff we've
352. 12:37been looking through over the past few
353. 12:39weeks hundreds of thousands of
354. 12:41classified documents containing
355. 12:43never-before-seen details on how the u.s
356. 12:46conducts its war its diplomacy its
357. 12:49intelligence
358. 12:52okay so at this moment he is covering
359. 12:55what was the content of these leaks the
360. 12:57leaked drone footage showing the
361. 12:59execution of civilians there's a lot of
362. 13:01very dark and very serious material that
363. 13:02he has to cover here now these are the
364. 13:04kind of moments where i would struggle
365. 13:07to have the confidence to pick the right
366. 13:08music because you are deciding for the
367. 13:11audience what you want them to feel and
368. 13:13what reaction you want them to have to
369. 13:15things and that is kind of your
370. 13:16responsibility as a filmmaker like you
371. 13:18you are responsible for communicating
372. 13:21what emotional response you think is
373. 13:24appropriate for the material you're
374. 13:26showing now there's a reason why i don't
375. 13:28make videos about war and politics
376. 13:30because it is very difficult to do that
377. 13:32right and not offend people or make
378. 13:34people feel bad
379. 13:36by getting the emotion wrong and the
380. 13:38tone wrong in your music this is tough
381. 13:40stuff to do and i think he's done a
382. 13:42really good job here but i do not envy
383. 13:44the job of the film composer or himself
384. 13:46in choosing these songs that is a
385. 13:48stressful thing to get right
386. 13:54[Music]
387. 13:57oh yeah
388. 13:59[Music]
389. 14:14how do you end a scene that has that
390. 14:17kind of emotion in the music you let it
391. 14:19fade and you breathe and you have a
392. 14:21moment to collect your thoughts so that
393. 14:23you can move on the natural response
394. 14:25someone has to watching that kind of
395. 14:27material and seeing it for the first
396. 14:29time is exactly the response he's put
397. 14:32into the edit
398. 14:37you read about this scene where an
399. 14:39apache helicopter is flying over some
400. 14:42insurgents in a house and from there he
401. 14:44can bring back in a thinking soundtrack
402. 14:47to start processing this information
403. 14:49it's weird to me that this is just a
404. 14:51youtube video available online like the
405. 14:53the techniques used here are those that
406. 14:55come from documentaries and film and it
407. 14:58is very well done and i just wanted to
408. 15:00shed some light on that alright let me
409. 15:02summarize some of the ideas that you can
410. 15:04take away from this first leading with
411. 15:06emotion at the beginning of the video
412. 15:08creates a question for the audience what
413. 15:10information or story warrants that kind
414. 15:13of emotional reaction the audience knows
415. 15:15that the rest of the video will be an
416. 15:17answer to that question and they will
417. 15:18stick around to see you articulate it
418. 15:22second if you have music that is
419. 15:23underneath speech and you let it come up
420. 15:25for little periods in between phrases
421. 15:27you're creating a kind of dense energy
422. 15:29underneath that scene imagine that this
423. 15:31is the music whenever you're talking
424. 15:32you're pushing it down below but when
425. 15:34you stop for a moment it comes up to the
426. 15:36surface and this creates a kind of
427. 15:38energy and a sense of urgency in the
428. 15:40music it wants to be present and it's
429. 15:42building underneath despite it being a
430. 15:45very tiny detail it's very different
431. 15:46from having the music just at one level
432. 15:48there is no urgency it's not building
433. 15:50it's just there
434. 15:52third pulling back on a song withdrawing
435. 15:55elements signals the end of a section if
436. 15:57you signal the end of a section 30
437. 15:59seconds before the actual end it will
438. 16:02create anticipation by the audience
439. 16:04knowing that the end is coming soon is
440. 16:06near
441. 16:07and anticipation creates engagement all
442. 16:10of film all of the things that make you
443. 16:11pay attention in film is all about
444. 16:13building anticipation what is going to
445. 16:15happen now i want to lean in and see
446. 16:17because i care about it if you signal
447. 16:20that things are going to happen that
448. 16:22makes people watch
449. 16:24fourth and here we're getting to kind of
450. 16:25an advanced idea associate music with
451. 16:28characters in your story julian assange
452. 16:31is a character the us government is a
453. 16:33character in moments when those two
454. 16:35collide we want to call back the musical
455. 16:37theme
456. 16:39i could honestly go on about this stuff
457. 16:41for hours but it was never my intention
458. 16:44to make this comprehensive as long as
459. 16:45i've sparked your curiosity for music as
460. 16:47a means of telling stories i'm happy
461. 16:50because the real thing i want is for you
462. 16:51to start experimenting with music
463. 16:53yourself and i have two things that can
464. 16:55help you first i've decided to make my
465. 16:57entire music catalogue free to download
466. 17:00and use this includes my first album
467. 17:02instrumentals as well as a collection of
468. 17:04songs that i wrote specifically for my
469. 17:07videos which i've never released before
470. 17:10i encourage you to download them
471. 17:12experiment with them and send me
472. 17:13whatever you make i would love to see it
473. 17:15to be clear you can use this music in
474. 17:17youtube videos that are monetized i will
475. 17:19not copyright strike you it's all on
476. 17:21bandcamp you can name your own price
477. 17:23including xero so it is free but if you
478. 17:25do decide to pay whatever the amount it
479. 17:28goes towards making more music and
480. 17:30videos and
481. 17:31i appreciate it i've never asked or even
482. 17:34allowed people to contribute money to
483. 17:35this project so it's a little weird
484. 17:37saying stuff like this but
485. 17:39cool
486. 17:40second of all if you want to learn more
487. 17:41about this topic johnny harris actually
488. 17:43has a visual storytelling course
489. 17:46together with nathaniel drew
490. 17:48where he discusses in detail how he uses
491. 17:51music in his films so if you want to see
492. 17:53more of him discussing it
493. 17:55i've left the link for this course in
494. 17:57the description go check that out and i
495. 17:59will see you
496. 18:00next week
497. 18:05[Music]
498. 18:14how much do you deserve
499. 18:19how much do you deserve
500. 18:22[Music]