music for film

[A1A2]

let me see if I can get my question straight here...

I'm very new at this, I am working on a project where I do the film and the music. Now, the film was done first, and I'm having a hard time coming up with music because of the timing issue.

some scenes are long enough for a complete song, some are like 10-20 seconds. How do people normamly go about doing this? And, the film doesn't have a set tempo, and I don't think changing the time signature of the music to fit the film will work..

How do the pros in hollywood do this? their music fits the film as if the film was made "after" the music is done. Are they just that good or there is some tricks I am not aware of??

One idea I have is to make/edit the film according to a metronome, but, that doesn't seem too logical in the big movie production.

Do you guys have any tricks to share???

Al

 

[TexRoadkill]

There are different techniques and it depends on the director. Some directors are more musical minded and cut the film to the final music. Some use a reference track which is music that is similar to what they want and it gives them a tempo and feel to edit with.

You don't really want every cut to be on a beat or it can be a little robotic after awhile. Pick the important que's and use the music to accent them. The rest of the stuff can just kind of happen. It's obvious when you have the right music and tempo because a lot of little cool things happen that would seem like they were intentional but they are just lucky accidents. As an experiment just play a bunch of different music to the scenes and some stuff will seem like it works right away. Then you can write some original stuff with that tempo and feel.

I scored a few small films and I found it best to come up with little textures that could be dropped in an out. It might be a portion of the main theme melody or just the rythm track. It's similar to how tv shows will play a quick snippet of the theme as they transition to different scenes and the commercials.

Another trick is to come up with a short melody that is the theme for every character. That is how Star Wars and many other dramatic movies are scored. When that character is on screen then you play some variation of their theme. When two or more characters are together you can have fun blending and playing their melodies off of eachother. It helps if you stick to the same or relative keys for the different parts.

 

[TexRoadkill]

Another thing that helps is to write short songs that develop the main idea very quickly. Maybe 4 bars or less. Then it's easy to expand them if you need more length. It's much harder to cut back a 2 minute song then it is to expand a 20sec one. Think more in terms of catchy riffs than full songs.

 

[A1A2]

tex,

those are some wonderful ideas! thank you.

i guess I forgot to mention the length of this film I'm working on. It's only 3-5 minutes long, and it's got intro, climax and twist. Like you said, right now I'm using real short songs (4bars or so) for each scene and the connection between each scene is where the problem is.

I've found that using effects like a long sustained gong kinda works when switching scenes/music, but trying to use the dynamic of one song to change scenes is rather difficult. I guess this is where the big difference is between an amature and a good score writer...

Anyway, big thanks for the help, I will keep experimenting.

Al