Lost Treasure Of The Valley: Nuts & Bolts
This is for the musicians out there who want to know some of the nuts & bolts of what I did and why I did it. This is going to get into the nitty gritty of the music theory, composition and touch on musicology.
First, some backstory. The director for this project, Rob Husted, requested some music for the Kickstarter campaign for LTOTV, but there was no finished picture to score to, only a script and a handful of rough storyboard drawings and photos of some locations.
Due to this being an adventure/comedy, with lots of nods to the 80’s and 90’s, I knew this was going to be a theme/Leitmotif heavy score. After listening to a bunch of reference material, mostly consisting of Back To The Future, Indiana Jones, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, and Brian Tyler’s main theme for Thor (some of his best work, in my opinion!), while reading the script, I came up with what became the main theme of the film.
As you can see above, my gut told me to do something simple that ascends — to give a sense of hope and optimism, excitement at what’s going to be around the next corner. Treasure hunting!
I wanted it to have a Lydian feel to it, because that tells me “I have no idea where I’m going, but I’m on an adventure!” Plus, I wanted follow suit with the film and give a nod to some of the classic scores of those fantastic 80’s action/adventure movies in my score.
As you can see, we do an ascending pattern for the first few bars, then end by descending to the lowest point. I did this for two reasons: 1. I knew that for actual use in the score, I’d mostly be using the first half of this theme as a stinger/touch of it here and there, the second half only got used when the full theme was playing and 2. It really just felt natural to have it descend to the lowest point at the end.
The rhythm of it is pretty straight forward, I wanted to write something that I felt could work in a variety of tempos and figures. In the context of the film it’s currently serving, it’s mostly played slowly. However, planning for the future, I’d love to do a bombastic, Indiana Jones version of it, however this project never called for it. If there’s a sequel, I’m hoping that opportunity comes up!
Speaking of Indy, let’s move on to the next theme I wrote for our washed up Indiana Jones, the Adventurer, and all he brought to Jake’s drab life.
The biggest thing for me was using a i-III chord progression somewhere in this theme. This has always reminded me of cowboys and cool, badass Westerns — whether it’s a level in a video game, or a popular song. This felt right to me, so I ran with it.
Similar to the Treasure Theme, I ended up using the first 6 bars a bunch throughout the score. Anything beyond that was reserved for full statements of the theme.
I kept this one a little more sparse, as that felt right for a few reasons. This was mostly played on a Fender Strat, with drop-D tuning. I wanted that low D to really resonate, as it instantly took me to that Western tough guy space. Additionally, I wanted this cue to speak for itself — it’s about being a badass, and when you’re a badass, you don’t need to show the world you are, you just know you are. Third, I wanted plenty of room to re-harmonize it as needed.
Generally, my melodies tend to be more on the complex/active side. On this project, I challenged myself to do more simple melodies, ones that outline their chords, or follow scales more closely. I’m happy with the results and will probably do more of this in my writing in the future.
If you want to hear this soundtrack in whole, it’s available on all major music streaming platforms! Amazon Music, Apple Music, Bandcamp, Spotify etc.
