Telling A Story Through Themes and Melody; A Quick Look

Through study and training in music college musicians are taught time and time again to listen for the melody. 

Thematic material is such an important part of music that we can identify and manipulate the perception of a story through how a melody is presented. It isn’t just a sound to accompany the visuals in a film, it is a character in its own right, it participates in the unfolding narrative and positions the viewer to expect outcomes as well as making feelings evolve along with the story.

Character Themes

Melodic material can in its most basic form attach itself to the characteristics of a protagonist. It can tell you about the type of person a character is, heroic through horns and brilliant brass, shy through quiet flute, happy go lucky through a bouncy clarinet, or violence through aggressive strings. The militaristic, angular and minor tonality of Darth Vader's Imperial March is so iconic it is still attached to characteristics of villany, of strong force and militant mind set… even when it appears outside of the Star Wars films this can continue (see its use in the film Ted when the theme is set to a ringtone and Lori comments ‘that sound pretty negative’). There are many tropes that can be instantly identifiable and even if a listener has not understood why a sound has a meaning they still know what it means.

Character themes can also help foreshadow the presence of characters. If you want to make an audience feel like something is being influenced by a particular character even if it isn’t on screen character association, or foreshadowing, through thematic material is a great way to do this. The theme from Jaws is such a great example of this that the chromatic oscillation of the double bass is now the sound of an incoming shark attack!

Symbolism and Semiotics

Themes don’t just have to represent characters, they can be indications of key narrative themes such as love, conflict, locations, objects, or anything that is a key indicator of connections and meaning within the film. The viewer then doesn’t just understand a connection they feel the impact of this and its associations to other elements within the story. 

Using themes as indicators is also a key tool for rhetoric, foreshadowing and memory to deepen the storytelling. A love theme playing before characters realise that their love is all they ever wanted or a subtle version of a theme to recall what a previous event meant to a character. All these indicators help the viewer strengthen their understanding of feeling the progression of the story.

Transformation and Evolution

In life our emotions are complex and change as we experience new things. Music in film and tv works the same way. It responds to the narrative and transforms to show development whilst maintaining consistency overall. A theme can appear as a solo line in the exposition showing the qualities of the character and develop into a full orchestration to show  gaining strength or the other way around to portray weakness or vulnerability.  The music becomes a programmatic representation of the narrative, it makes us feel like we have been through a journey and the ordeals of the narrative ourselves. Transformation and evolution of themes keeps the feeling of movement and further deepens the connection of the viewer to the film world.

Conflict

There are often times where multiple story lines within films run in parallel and music often expresses the same interactions, often leading to conflicts. One theme can overpower the other and portray power dynamics between characters, they can intertwine and blend to show union in romance or unfold to show an unexpected relationship. Themes can contain similarities in pitch, rhythm, or any other form to show connections between characters or events. These points of conflict carry meaning and hint at further development of the plot with how they appear. Moments of conflict can be vehicles for transformation and evolution and they can intentionally allude to an outcome and mislead the viewer to set up a twist in the plot or allow for hope on a cliff hanger ending.

The use of themes and motifs through a film should be a consideration for all composers and filmmakers to add a multi-layered and deeper approach to story telling.