setting

An interesting incident:

One of my former posts turned up when someone searched for composers who have copied other great composers. The person followed up with a message to me sharing another example he’d discovered:

Hans Zimmer's Interstellar soundtrack, (especially the track Quantifiable Connection)

&

Mattia Vlad Morleo’s 'Free Waves' from his album 'The Flying of a Leaf'

In this case, Hans’s work came first. I recommend you give them both a listen and see (or hear) what you think. The evidence of some heavy influence from Hans seems  clear to me.

While investigating this, I ended up listening to the whole soundtrack for Interstellar. I’d seen the movie before but never listened to the music by itself. Let me tell you, It’s an experience.

As I listened and recalled parts of the movie, I was reminded again of why I love sci-fi stories that take place in space. I love the exploration of the unknown: the helplessness, danger, loss, solitude, beauty, awe and absolute wonder which that particular setting invokes. 

Not long ago, our family took a trip out to Zion National Park in Utah. It’s an amazing place to say the least. Even the drive there was of value. I’ve had my share of long drives through the desert and I’ve always enjoyed them, perhaps for the same reasons I like stories in outer space.

There is a severity to the desert, a bleak harshness, and also a remarkable beauty in part because of how deadly it is. It’s both unforgiving and rewarding—a place of extremes.

Settings like this put me in certain moods, they get me thinking. They inspire me. Naturally, I like that.

The setting is almost always crucial to a story. It creates borders (and not just in a physical sense). It determines how the story will feel, what it will be about, how the characters will move about and interact.

Have you considered your own settings and what effect they have on you?

Do you have any particular places you enjoy visiting, whether on Earth or through the vehicle of your mind?