Scoring a short film

[Fernando Ortega]

Hi,

I just became a member of this community a few days ago, I’ve been reading some of the threats and I find this place fascinating, for sure I will be around here frequently.

This is my first threat, and probably the reason why I wanted to find a composers forum. The situation is that I am composing the score for an animation grad film at my school, and also doing the sound design, I’ve been into music for almost five years, and this would be my first project, and it is really important as it is this person’s graduation film! 

At the beginning I didn’t want to offer my help because of my lack of experience, but I said: Just go for it! and then you will find a way to do it. I really have little experience in composition, I’ve been playing bass for five years, and piano for about two, but I became fully interested just one year ago; I know some theory but still have a lot to learn for a decent level of knowledge. And I am not studying composition.

And after all of that preview of my background..

--------HERE STARTS THE IMPORTANT QUESTION---

How do you decide what to do when you have to score a film? 

At this point the idea of the film(animation) is just being started, the storyboard is not finished yet and I barely know the story, I have an idea of the style but don’t know the whole story as it has been changing. 

Should I wait until I have the story put on time and graphics to have the final piece? I’ve been experimenting and doing some tests, but I just don’t know if it is going to fit or not.

Thank you! 

“ )

P.D.: I’m attaching the two pieces I have at the moment if you want to take a look. MusictestJ is the first test I did, just to get a sense of the sad part of the story. The happy one is the last sample I composed, it is the main theme and then it stops and starts the “background music” sample. 

[Douglas Edward]

you really can't do much until you see the film. until then it's a guessing game.

P.S. - what you just posted is called a "thread", not "threat". I thought you were threatening us with your first threat haha.

[Travis Coats]

Like Doug said it really is a guessing game until you get some visuals. Even if the visuals are clips or still frames, you don't really have much to go on without them. A lot of small movie directors might already know what they are going for, but in my minimal amount of experience, they hardly ever know (and are usually quick to change their mind). :P

[Chris Alpiar]

There are two ways to approach. First, if you have time and if you have faith in the potential quality of the product (and this is always my preference!) - get involved in the outset. Become not 'the composer' but a TEAM MEMBER whose responsibility lies in being the music department, all aspects. You are the musical expert, you are the person who understands the craft of ways to turn emotion into music, you are the person who hopefully has enough experience in all different kinds of musics and who is free enough to step away from it all and you are the person that will dig DEEP into the film, the characters, the plot, the far seeing implications to society as a whole for this product being created and put out into the world where it changes people. So I LOVE to be able to jump in at the script stage, write themes, motifs, concepts, maybe if the feeling is going to be allowed to build character themes, its a great time to really get inside the characters and their development and try to define them musically. Since its all unattached to the timeline, you can get invaluable feedback from the director on the overall direction of musical concepts long before you ever get to post and begin the scoring process.

 

Now, actually scoring the dramatic underscore - this should never be done in earnest until you have LOCKED PICTURE, meaning no more edits at all! There can still be post work to be done (color corrections, ADR, foley, etc, etc, but the picture should be locked in terms of number of scenes/frames

 

Unfortunately unless you are working on a very high profile or high paid gig, it will almost never pay to do the pre-production era work. I dont suggest this as a businessman, even in the slightest, but as an artist and if you personally dont mind and have the time and you are still defining your career, it will pay off tenfold IMO to do the script level writing. James Newton Howard (I think its him at least, or one of the big guys) always does this kind of approach and its something I really love to do

[Sandy Herrault]

I really  liked happy Julie. Just seemed right for something light-hearted and yet it had a melancholy sweetness.