The reason for choosing this as the first season of Boardwalk Empire constantly lead me down different paths of perception, at the start of the season Jimmy to me was not a main character and not one I could identify with but by the end of the first season and into the second he was the character I most wanted to see succeed. The clip itself begins with Jimmy leaving a house for his trip to New York where he faces two men wanting to essentially mug Jimmy of something they believe to be theirs before Jimmy retaliates by murdering the two men before they can get to him.
Before starting to compose music for the clip I studied the film and made a cue sheet of how and where I wanted sounds to enter and exit that were out of the normal flow of music.
For this clip I began writing using piano in the key of G major. As we first see the character I wanted the audience to not see him as a threat, a character that can't be fully read but is not someone who is threatening us. The melodic theme is slow and involves a short descending line within the major scale. Strings are used as to not allow the character to seem all alone and in complete sadness and the harp is used in small, three note ascending patterns to uplift the character.
Jimmys Theme
As Jimmy encounters the men that face him the melody turns to the relative minor key of E minor. The change here is to signify the threat held against our character, he now is in a state unknown. The theme lacks the same power as the introductory theme as our character is to seem more vulnerable in the uncertainty of how he will react. Stabbing chords are played on the piano here with a low and high G at either end and are synced to specific actions we see on screen such as the introduction of the other mens gun. This is to reinforce the shocked feeling that our character me have and the danger that is infront of him. I decided that the music should fade out just before Jimmy kills the two men as to add to the shock of this character defending himself in such a way. The silence adds intensity as we see a new, truer side to the character one that knows the feeling of insanity.
The third variation of the theme comes after our character has killed the other two men and seems to have no remorse for what he has done. Although the Stabbing G chord comes back and reminds us of the initial key, the melody is instead played starting with A and utilises the accidental of Bflat which was not found in the previous key signature. The reason for this being that we are seeing who the character really is. He is the same man as before but he is not the man we thought he was.
The following is the resulting video:
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