Even though I’ve only scored one film project in the past, this is an area I am finding myself extremely interested in. The idea of creating emotion and story through the sounds they are creating is the pinnacle of what musicians strive to do, and something that intrigues me greatly.
I have spent a fair amount of time over the last month or so searching the internet for the ‘right’ way to start a film scoring project, as with most things in the creative industry there is no right way to go about this.
The general consensus of how to start a project is to watch the film over and over until you understand the various inner workings of it. Then seek the direction that the director would like to pursue with the film so that by the end of it you haven’t just created something that only satisfies you but also that you’ve achieved the main objective of film scoring which is to tell the story through sounds.
When it comes to the start of the writing process this is where your own personal workflow can come into effect. Some people will say that the first thing you should do is just jump right in and start making music to suit each scene, but there are some other things you should consider first... Go through and figure out where not to put music, as I’ve discovered it’s extremely easy to go head first into a pile of virtual instruments and midi programming and forget the main objective of what you’re doing which is to tell the story. So I feel a good way to do this is to find the parts that don't need assistance in telling the story and let them breathe on their own. After you’ve figured out where the music will be placed, go through and create a tempo map across the whole track. The tempo track can be a useful tool to assist you to hit cuts that you want for dramatic effect or to signify the ending of a particular part of the film. But be careful not to be hitting every single cut as this can make things a bit awkward to the audience viewing the film and can make the music a bit distracting from the film.
A few other things to consider would be to create a palette of instruments and effects you want to use in the film, this will help you to create a cohesive piece of music with an ability to create a theme in the music and create an overall vibe for the film.
Another thing I’ve discovered helps to help alleviate distraction is to keep progressions and melodies as simple as you can, there is no shame in having a 2 part chord progression as opposed to some extremely complicated piece of music.
This is the beauty of using orchestral instruments as it can help the music feel like the composition is changing even though you’ve had a I-V progression going the whole time.
Comments