First Gig Scoring a Short film...QUESTIONS!

Business & Career
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Hello everybody,

So, as you may have read in my introduction post, I am 21 and still have not gotten into the scoring scene other than doing practice scenes on my own.
Yesterday, a friend of mine called me and told me that him and a team of film makers are making a short film (20 minutes) and they want me to write the music for it. Yay!

As excited as I am for it, I am also slightly terrified because I have never done this before in this way.
My questions have nothing to do with the specifics of writing music, but are more about the logistics of scoring someones film.
Here they are:

  1. Assuming there is no sound mixer for the film, what are some techniques you guys use to mix in your music into the film?

  2. Do you guys have any tips for developing a theme in a short film? There is much less time to do it, but it can still be done.

  3. Assuming the film is 15-20 minutes, how long should I say I need to complete the music? (I know this is mainly up to my own speed in writing music, but should I give my self a bit of wiggle room in case the director requests some scenes to be redone?)

Thats it for now. I would appreciate any help and words of advice you guys have!

Thanks,

Ryan Stella

2

Hi Ryan,
First of all, congratulations on your first gig! :slight_smile:

To answer your questions:

  1. Always write music around dialogue to make sure you don’t interfere with it. You’ll have to deliver a 24-bit 48kHz .wav file or a ProTools session depending on what they ask you to do. Ask the production on what they expect you to give them.

  2. For thematic material, ask the director in which music direction they want to go, if there are any references they’re looking for. Once you understand the style they want, you can write a theme that sets the general mood of the film. Try to write a theme that’s very memorable for the main theme.
    You can later reuse the full or parts of the theme(s) and might have to reorchestrate them, change the time signature, tempo or even the key from major to minor or vice versa depending on the needs of the scene to make it work with the required emotion.
    I highly recommend watching this video analyzing the usage of Leitmotifs in the Lord of the Ring series.

  3. The average time in my experience to score a 2h film is about 6 weeks. In your situation, I’d say 1 week of work. If you’re able to ask for 2 weeks, that would be great because you can take more time to work on the material.

Have fun! :smile:
Medhat

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  1. Assuming there is no sound mixer for the film, what are some techniques you guys use to mix in your music into the film?
    It’s a tricky question cuz if you are not a mixer yourself so you cannot learn anything in 5 mins, usually it takes a couple of years to be good at mixing. So it’s better to find a mixer for the film if your client wants this film to be good after all with a good sound.

  2. Do you guys have any tips for developing a theme in a short film? There is much less time to do it, but it can still be done.
    Usually you have to talk about it with a director of a short movie, because if it is 20 mins films maybe you have to compose several themes. And you can compose one main theme like they do in original scores for hollywood movies, and a couple of additional themes for the main character, main villain, and for some environment stuff. But usually your director should give your references of music he likes and wants you to compose something similar for his movie.

  3. Assuming the film is 15-20 minutes, how long should I say I need to complete the music? (I know this is mainly up to my own speed in writing music, but should I give my self a bit of wiggle room in case the director requests some scenes to be redone?)
    Again it’s all up to your director, director should guide you all the time, cuz he should tell you the exact timing where music should start and where it should be ended. Because if it is not a musical you cannot physically compose music all the time for entire 20 mins.

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Thanks for your responses! I am hoping to learn more information on the job once they start filming. (Which I will get to be apart of!)