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lm scoring school. All ThinkSpace programs are wri8en and
tutored by working professional composers, orchestrators and
sound designers. We teach what we do every day for a living.
With over 5000 graduates and students, ThinkSpace courses
have helped many composers on their way to success. In 2015 ThinkSpace launched the worlds online
only Masters program in partnership with the University of Chichester.
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Technology
It is also my job to warn you that, in a way, it isnt really like that and it is fraught with diculty that only a much
more detailed course like Music for the Media or our Masters programs that can fully prepare you. So lets get
going
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1. The Project
HOW LONG IS IT? Post-ProducJon: Edi?ng the lm, music and sound.
A short lm can be anything from a minute to half an DistribuJon: GeZng the lm out to its millions of
hour but 5 - 15 minutes is common. fans
Drama, thriller, horror, ac?on, fan lm, comedy,
The rst draD of the lm is called an assembly and
romance?
is normally 50% over length.
WHAT IS THE CREATIVE APPROACH? The next is a rough cut, which is closer to the
nished length but things might s?ll change
Cool and contemporary, classic Hollywood on a drama?cally.
budget, art-house indie lm vibe or slightly cheesy?
Finally there is the locked cut or nal cut. At this
This is where it comes to working out the directors point (theore?cally) the picture doesnt change any
approach. Look him or her up on IMDB or nd their more so that sound and music can work with the
website or Facebook page and suss them out. See if nished picture.
theyve worked with other composers before.
Once sound and music are done the lm is mixed or
dubbed, where music, dialogue and sound eects are
Technical (but important) all brought together.
Details
You need to know the schedule and so a Schedule: So you need to know when the lm is
going to be locked and when they need you to
quick overview of the process is in order.
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Talk to the director if possible and get to know them
and their musical taste. Try to avoid vague
descrip?ve words and pin them down to concrete
examples.
2. The Brief Films are s?ll no?onally divided into reels roughly 20
minutes long. Tradi?onally cues are numbered:
The director of the lm needs to give you
a brief, an outline of the broad direc^on 1M1 = this means the rst cue in reel 1
the music should be heading.
1M2 = the second cue in reel 1
This can be anything from
extremely loose adjec?ves like 1M3 = the third cue in
cool, contemporary and
(yawn) you get the
upliDing to very specic
idea
references to exis?ng styles of
music. Some directors have no
Most lms come with
idea what they want or have an
what is known as
idea but want to hear your ideas
burnt-in or visual
rst. So you can expect
?mecode, like the
everything from no help at all
example below.
right through to a detailed
blueprint of what theyre
expec?ng to hear. Timecode is a unique
reference to each and
every frame of the lm
Frequently editors use
and is always
temporary music to cut to, known as a temp track.
formaHed as:
These are normally commercial tracks that they have
no inten?on of using in the nal lm and are unlikely
to be able to use anyway, but oDen gives you a good Hours: Minutes: Seconds: Frames
idea what kind of thing they are thinking about.
So if you want to describe the point the cue should
Composers HATE temp tracks. start, you could say just aDer the man walks out of
the room or much more accurately 10:05:06:12,
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that is ten hours, ve minutes, six seconds and if you are scoring a cue half way through a 20 minute
twelve frames. reel.
For technical reasons, more oDen than not, the For the sake of this quick and simple explana?on, we
beginning of the lm is not 00:00:00:00 but starts on will assume that the movie starts on the downbeat of
1 or 10 hours. bar 1 and the music starts on the down-beat of bar
3.
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Always keep in mind one nal macro ques5on how does this cue t into the overall structure of the score as a
whole?
A girl, Naomi, is doing the washing up in her kitchen when all of a sudden theres a knock on the door.
She opens it and Tom, her boyfriend, enters the room. He gives her a peck on the cheek and slowly sits
down at the table.
She turns, looking concerned and suspicious, and moves to sit opposite him.
He looks down at the table and then straight back into her eyes.
Im just not the man you think I am... Im Im actually an alien shape shi=ing hamster and my real
name is Murgatroid!
With a brilliant blue ash, he morphs into a 6-foot alien hamster. Immediately he starts chasing her
around the kitchen.
She unleashes a mighty lizard scream and dives across the room, grabbing hamster Tom in her gigan5c
lizard claws. With one enormous scream the lizard eats him whole.
Where is the music going to start? It could be when he knocks at the door or it could be when he says I have
something to tell you.
The rst sec?on probably runs from the start up un?l he reveals his true iden?ty and morphs into a hamster.
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This is then followed by an ac?on sequence. Clearly there is a big moment half way through when she turns into
a lizard, which reaches a climax when the lizard eats the hamster.
So thats at least three sec?ons the tension when he is talking, the ac?on when he is chasing her around the
kitchen and the climax as the lizard turns the tables and eats him.
It probably goes down to something low and brooding aDer he is eaten and fades out as she leaves the room.
Hit Points
How many places in this cue does the
music need to be perfectly in sync with
the video, so that it hits a par^cular piece
of ac^on to the split second?
These hard hit points arent as common as you might
imagine. Many of the transi?ons between sec?ons !
can be placed anything up to a second either way.
Hard hit points need to be within 12th second or
The faster tempo the further the marker moves to
two frames.
the right.
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Actually wri?ng this kind of music is a life?me of
study.
SecJon 5: The AYermath: Low brooding music Now go through the movie using automa?on to mix
fading out as she slithers out of the room the music and dialogue together so you can clearly
hear the dialogue with the music underneath.
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Now export or bounce out those two tracks so you format they can view, MP4 -H264 is a reasonably
have one audio le with the music and dialogue safe bet.
mixed together.
Once thats done send it to the client via WeTransfer
Some DAWs like Cubase will allow you to replace the or Hightail or one of those le transfer services.
audio on an exis?ng movie. The next step is to do Include brief notes about what youve done and why
that, so the audio le with your music mixed with the if there is anything controversial or anything you
dialogue replaces the original audio. were unclear about.
If your DAW wont do that then you are going to
need a video-edi?ng programme like iMovie or
Adobe Premiere.
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The free trial lasts one month, one month to enjoy
What next? the complete ThinkSpace experience. But make the
Well youve got to try it of course! By now most of it. Once the trial is over, its gone. Our
community is only those who are really serious about
you should be dying to have a go and see
a career in media music or sound design so this is a
if its as easy/hard/fun/frustra^ng as you one-?me oer.
think.
We have only just scratched the surface. hHp://thinkspaceeduca?on.com/mDm1
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