A Process For Choosing Your Film Composer

Choosing the right composer is a crucial decision when finishing your film. Good music can either save or destroy years of your hard work. We've all seen movies with a lackluster score with lackluster scenes. If you have the budget to hire a composer, then make sure it's spent on the right one.

Here are a few steps you can take to narrow down your choices to the best one.

Investigate

If you have the time, you should search for composer's based off of their preferred:

1. Sound

2. Texture of instruments

3. Musical genres

Your composers will probably not have enough time to begin with, and challenging them with a film that does not have good chemistry with them will only make matters way more difficult for you.

Trial

Pitch two crucial but different scenes of your film to your composer candidates and ask them to make a musical treatment for what they were given. Give them three days and tell them you are not expecting a masterpiece, but something rough. This will help you see their range and if they have chemistry with you as a collaborator. You can also ask them to tell you what their development process was like for their work; that will help you determine if their work will fit your time and budget.

Discuss

Send your whole film to your composer and schedule a meeting to discuss the movie and their thoughts on it. Find out how they connect with the movie and if they like it. What were their initial reactions? Invite them to come up with original ideas and DO NOT tell them how you want it done. This will only close the door for the composer's great ideas that you will never have.

Choose!

In the end, choose the candidate that has the best chemistry with project and you and also is personally invested in the film. They need to like your movie, be excited for it, and respect it for them to bring out their best work.

Be Upfront

Tell your composers their due dates and budget from the start since you will be asking for a lot of work in a short amount of time. Chances are you will not be able to pay them a luxurious wage either. Make sure you both agree on expectations and compensation, and please respect one another.

Good Luck!

Choosing a composer for your project is a critical creative and logistic decision. Go into the process with an open mind and good intentions, and the worst that will happen is that you may have to move onto another candidate. The best that can happen is a score that you will jam out to the rest of your life.

For some inspiration, check out the scores I’ve worked on with my numerous composers at https://www.reelnationmedia.com/music.

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(Tutorial) How We Added A Robot Eye in "DEAD ED"

The effect was, at first, difficult to learn. I haven't worked much in Adobe After Effects, the software used to create the effect, but I had enough knowledge to develop our own process to replace a robot character's eye with a light that brings him to life.

The tutorial was made for other visual effects artists working on the DEAD ED team, but, since the video was decently put together, I wanted to share it to my fellow creators at Reel Nation Media. You can view the video below:

With this video, I hope for those looking to achieve the similar effect will avoid the frustrations of figuring this out from scratch!

If you found this helpful to you, please consider becoming a member on the site for future content similar to this. If you are a VFX artist who knows a better way to do this, then please give us some constructive feedback!

Keep it Reel!

Music Spotting for Film

A quick intro to the spotting session...

Music Spotting, more commonly known as the "spotting session" is a commonly practiced process in the film industry. It is when the director and editor (sometimes composer) watch the fine cut of the film and discuss the framework for the music cue sheet and music design of the overall project. This process keeps collaboration and communication open between the post-production team and is filled with excitement. Depending on the length of the movie, this process may take days.

Here are our steps for a Music Spotting Session:

1. The director and editor discuss initial ideas on how they want music to work with the film on a general basis.

2. They then mark the points when they want music to start and stop into the timeline of the fine cut, and watch repeatedly.

3. Then they discuss ideas on how they want the music to function within the sequence. They sometimes throw in temp music to see whether their ideas work or not.

4. Finally they decide where the music should come from, which can be one of three places: acquiring licenses for already existing score or songs, composing original score, or pulling from an already owned music library. Budget plays a major role in this step.

Communicating ahead of time with your composer, director, or editor will also help lay out what you need to accomplish and how you need to accomplish it during the Music Spotting. If I have already chosen a composer before shooting the film, I will share the script with him/her to predict which sections of the film will be scored. This is also a great time for your composer to add their own unique perspectives and creative input into the project.

The spotting session for me is one of my favorite parts of the filmmaking process; I love envisioning the picture and music working simultaneously to deliver the story in a moving and powerful way.

How do you like to think about music for your film? Let us know!

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