Soundtracks and Scores : Question about the 2nd method to…

Question about the 2nd method to…

... compose film scores. The 1st one is, of course, the one where the composer places the music on each scene while watching them. But I just read about the 2nd method where the director tells the composer that he/she is free to freely compose music (knowing the atmosphere of the movie), and then the music is placed on each scene.

Since he/she doesn't know how long the movie will be, how many minutes of music should the composer compose? Or is it hours?

Re: Question about the 2nd method to…

I wasn't aware there was a 2nd method. Can you cite examples? Can you provide a link to that source where you read this?

It's a little more complicated than just how long the movie is. This requires a bit more depth and understanding of film music as emotional storytelling. It's much more specific. Music has to be placed strategically only in certain scenes where the composer and the director feel music is needed, and within those scenes, where certain actions and certain dramatic, emotional moments require punctuation by certain musical notes.

With some rare exceptions, like when John Williams was asked by director Steven Spielberg to compose a 5-note motif for how the extraterrestrials communicate with us humans in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, prior to the movie even being shot, I'm pretty sure the composer is always handed at least a rough cut of the film to look at prior to the composer beginning his/her composition. Then a "spotting session" ensues, where the composer and director sit down and watch the movie that doesn't yet have music, then the composer and director discuss where they feel music should be, and then the composer begins writing the notes for those sections.

Stanley Kubrick completely replaced Alex North's original score to 2001 with classical music pieces that were composed decades if not centuries prior to his film even being conceived, but 2001's scenes progress at such a slow, languid pace that the classical pieces work as they were composed, and precise orchestration wasn't necessary in that film. During the final, dramatic, emotional moments of 2001, when Hal malfunctions and astronaut David Bowman makes his trip into the Great Beyond, there's no music at all! This lends these scenes a documentary realism. Only when Bowman completes his "cycle of life" and becomes a newborn infant again do we hear the strains of the opening title's "Also Sprach Zarathustra" reprised.

Back in the '70s and '80s, when visual FX shots were not yet completed, the composer had to compose music to blank film leader (Close Encounters, Star Trek-The Motion Picture, Poltergeist, for example), relying on the length of those blank film leader sections to determine how long the music for those blank film leader sections should be, and relying on the director to explain exactly what will happen in those blank film leader moments, with the director's explanations backed up by storyboard illustrations. Now directors have animatics, essentially moving storyboards, which make this process easier.

I suppose, if a composer is truly allowed a "free hand", the composer's freely-composed composition could always be handed over to a music editor to "conform" the music to the scenes. This usually happens anyway due to time constraints. When picture editing has drifted behind schedule, a composer will go ahead and have his/her orchestra perform the score while the picture is still being cut. Picture editors are always tinkering with scenes, making last-minute adjustments, cutting out a shot here, adding a few frames to a shot there, right up to a movie or TV show's release date, so music then needs to be re-edited too to conform to the new picture cuts. I would venture most composers (like Stu Phillips, who composed the score to TV's Battlestar Galactica) disdain this idea, because musical cuts and transitions done editorially after the fact never sound as organic as music that was performed to conform to the scene in the first place. But such composers need to be realistic and accept music editing as part of a film or TV show's post-production process.

I'm into mixing "film score versions" of soundtrack album CDs for my own personal enjoyment, and I'm always amazed, absolutely flabbergasted, at how different the final score we hear in a film is from how the music is on the soundtrack album CD, the amount of music editing that goes on during post-production!

Re: Question about the 2nd method to…

Steven Spielberg has often let John Williams at least freely conduct a cue (written for a scene) and then cut the scene to the music. For example, the final scene in E. T.

In fact, collaboration between Spielberg and Williams often began long before shooting the first scenes. Williams would come up with themes according to descriptions by Spielberg and they would discuss these themes, months in advance. Ther are other directors who do this as well.

Hans Zimmer and his students usually write one or several "suites" (10-15 minutes each) of music for an upcoming production. This music is then used as "temp tracks", i. e. placed under completed rough-cut scenes to get an idea of the score. Then, he adapts the cue according to the scene.

It's not a good idea to "freely" write music and then placing it under a scene, and let music and cut run independently. Music must be tailored to and follow a specific scene. (unless you want a disjuncted (sp) effect). You can't ignore the impact a scene and its music have on each other.


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