Day After Tomorrow, Essay Example

Music in The Day After Tomorrow

Perhaps one of the best cinematic events in this decade has been the evolutions of special effects mixed with the power of music over the last decade.  Hollywood has pulled out all of the stops to appeal to the audience’s intrigue and emotions, and this is especially true for the viewers of The Day After Tomorrow.  This film saw original music composed by Harold Kloser and Thomas Wanker featuring a series of short clips within a full score that were strategically placed throughout the film to enhance the feelings and emotions for the audience in each scene.  For instance, the main score includes lengthy, steady notes in a compilation of melody that invokes the feeling of loneliness and sadness, which is fitting seeing as the plot of the film surrounds the world experiencing a modern day Ice Age and over half the world is destroyed.  This is a common theme throughout the film and it is particularly evident within three specific scenes of the movie where the music is designed to communicate much more to the audience than the images of the screen.

The first scene that uses this method the best is about thirty minutes from the final climax of the film where the father (Dennis Quaid) and his partner are trudging across the open sheet of ice and snow on their way into the city.  The scene shows the open landscape and snow that covers New York City over halfway up the height of most of the largest buildings.  There are no other people around and the camera zooms out to show the landscape view of the entire city.  This is extremely poignant as the main score plays and it truly emphasizes the loneliness feeling within the audience.  Also, the song helps to portray the notion that there is very little hope that things will change.  The lengthy notes and the repetitive nature of the score are unchanging just as the scenery within the film is unchanging and empty of human contact.

The second scene of musical importance comes around the halfway point of the film in which the group of high school students is attempting to scavenge an abandoned ship for food and supplies.  Along the trip, a pack of hungry wild dogs come out and view the children as their next warm meal.  As the animals are chasing the children throughout the ship, the music is much different than the main score.  This portion of the music is extremely fast-paced and it is filled with very sharp, loud notes to add to the element of surprise.  As the dogs are sneaking around the corner, the music is primarily low pitched and the volume is low as well.  The camera shows the dogs sneaking closer to the children and as they are ready to pounce, the notes become increasingly loud and short.  Kloser and Wanker as well as the entire music editing staff strategically placed this portion of the original score into the scene to add an increasingly terrifying element to the scene.  The audience is not just relying on the fear it receives from the images within the scene, but also from the scary nature of the music that continues to heighten the emotions as it the scene comes to an incredible climax.

Finally, the audience experience the same score from the first scene mentioned within this paper, but it is placed in the rescue scene at the end of the film.  All of the characters are reunited and rescued by the American government who has sent helicopters to collect all survivors.  The images pan around the entire city showing survivors atop all of the major buildings in New York City and multiple helicopters stopping to pick up each of the groups along the rooftops.  The same music is playing during this scene, but it appears as though the pace of the score is slightly increased and the notes are not as lengthy.  Using the same compilation of notes but adjusting its overall speed and duration, the audience experiences a sense of calm, hope and joy for the characters.  This score is able to present two quite contrasting feelings to accompany two contrasting scenes within the same film, but by adjusting the music ever so slightly, it completely changes the mood and oratory experience for the audience.

The music throughout the film The Day After Tomorrow is utilized as a cinematic tool to enhance the quality of emotions felt by the audience.  The three scenes described are clear examples of the extent to which Kloser and Wanker’s score was able to impact the experience for the audience by adding an emotional element that would not be found only through the images on the screen.  While loneliness, fear and hope are common emotions felt every day, it is very difficult for a director to implement these feelings into images on the screen.  In the end it is true that sometimes the power of music is able to achieve much more than the power that a camera lens of CGI graphics can ever achieve.  This score is not only excellently edited within the film, but it is a timeless piece of music that will always strike the same emotions it was intended with or without the accompaniment of the film.

References

The Day After Tomorrow. Dir. Roland Emmerich. Perf. Dennis Quaid, Jake Gyllenhaal and Emmy Rossum. 20th Century Fox, 2004. DVD.