GUITAR SHOT: VENDETTA

 CCR1: GUITAR SCENE IN VENDETTA

In my film opening Vendetta, we have a 45 second clip of the masked murder playing a guitar over a voiceover talking about his decisions that he has made, and what he has done. I am a very keen guitar player, and I decided to play the guitar myself in the scene. To come up with what I wanted to play on the guitar, the song has to be mysterious but chilled at the same time.

At this point, I want to convey the troubled state of mind of my protagonist; he has done something terrible that he will regret, but he is trying to defend his own actions to himself. He is a passionate, jealous, and romantic man, who has just been tipped over the edge. I decided to play the intro to Hotel California by the Eagles, as it has a mysterious vibe to it. 

Music has its own language; it has shades of dark and light, which connote a world of different emotions. The reason why it is a mysterious song is because the chords I play in the song are B7, E minor, C major, G major, and a few other flat 7th chords. This chord progression creates a sense of mystery, but are also some chilled, jazz chords. Each string is individually plucked on each chord that is played which creates a sense of control, not just aimlessly strumming. The guitar a chose was a Squire Strat, which is a guitar used a lot for funk, and jazz, and is similar to a fender Stratocaster, which players like Hendrix and John Frusciante would use. The tone used in the song has a lot of reverb and uses the neck pickup, which is a warm smooth sound, and not a quacky funk sound, which the bridge pickup is primarily used for. It also contains a chorus pedal during the chorus of the song, but that is not used in the video. The key of the song is in B minor, which is a key used for sadder, or more mysterious songs, showed by the solo in the song which isn't in the scene, but also has a vibe of mystery, using the B minor pentatonic scale to create melodies that resemble the rest of the song, This whole vibe creates an enigma as to who the player/murder is, and the voiceover creates the idea that he is insane.