This week, I’m sharing some music and sounds from a film project I recently worked on. This was a collaboration with my friend, Archie Crisanto. You long term listeners may remember Archie’s name from episode 37 when we collaborated on writing a song together and also from episode 20 when I shared some music I wrote for a play he directed called “The Woman in Black.”

This project was a short 11-minute film Archie directed called “The Tailypo.” It’s a suspense/horror film based on an old folk tale. Basically, a starving hunter shoots off the tale of a mythical beast and cooks it in a stew, only to have the beast return and demand it back. Archie and I came up with the music and sounds together. Most of it was even recorded while simultaneously watching the video in order to get the right timing and pacing.

So first, the opening theme is played on acoustic guitar by Archie. It happens during a scene when the hunter first shoots the creature. The theme is follow by a boom sound which I played on a cajon and heavily altered the EQ to emphasize the bass tones and added a long, sustained reverb effect.

For the next scene, we repeat the theme but this time played by myself on an electric guitar using an ebow, which is basically an electric device that vibrates the strings without actually touching them, making the guitar sound something like a cello. There are also little block hits played by myself on a cajon. Both parts have plenty of reverb added. This music happens after the man collects the tail and walks back to his cabin in the middle of a snowy wilderness.

The next part I played on electric guitar and is sort of another variation on the same theme but with a steady, quarter note strumming. The man leaves his cabin because it’s just too lonely of a place and so the music reflects his sense of isolation and despair. It’s played in a pattern of three instead of four so it doesn’t really seem to feel like it ever settles and resolves, which was done purposely to fit the mood of this scene. I took some inspiration from the post-rock band, Explosions in the Sky.

This last chunk I’ll share are a series of guitar squeals and fast strumming along with an acoustic guitar chimey-sound played at the headstock where the tuning pegs are (which kind of reminded up of the string hits from Psycho). This was played by Archie and done more for sound effect purposes to build tension during the various times we see the creature.

The Tailypo: A Folktale from Archelaus Bombadil Crisanto on Vimeo.

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