The 2003 Pixar film Finding Nemo illustrates a rarely used directorial technique wherein the soundtrack, composed by Thomas Newman, intentionally drowns out dialog between characters that would normally be too important to miss. Near the end of the film, there’s an emotional scene where Nemo hears stories about the brave acts his father is doing in order to reach him. At that point, the music swells up and drowns out what the pelican is telling the young boy.
Why? Because at that point in the story, the look on the boy’s face and the masterful music by Thomas Newman is way more powerful to the viewer than hearing details about what they already know. Director Andrew Stanton (who later went on to direct WALL-E) knew the story would be better told by communicating what Nemo was feeling rather than what Nigel the Pelican (voiced by Geoffrey Rush) was saying.
Check out the main theme of this great soundtrack:
The MusicRevolution.com community of musicians congratulates Pixar on creating a great movie music moment. If filmmakers wish to license a Thomas Newman sound alike, a list of similar tracks available for licensing can be found here.
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Mike Bielenberg is a professional musician and co-founder of http://www.musicrevolution.com, a production music marketplace with over 15,000 tracks online where media producers, video producers, filmmakers, game developers, businesses and other music buyers can license high-quality, affordable royalty-free music from an online community of musicians mbielenberg@musicrevolution.com.
