Based on my experiences working as a freelance composer it become apparent that a lot of the same questions arise during the creative process in composing music for film.

These are purely guidelines of what to expect when engaging me to compose music for film and have been commonly asked questions when working with directors and producers. Obviously make sure you talk to your film composer to understand their creative methods and how they work best as everyone is a little different!

What is a Film Music Composer

A film music composer simply put is a composer who writes music for films - this includes short films, feature films and documentaries. Today a lot of music composers find themselves writing for a lot of different mediums such as advertising, concert music, dance, installations, games, VR etc and can typically be referred to as a media composer, television composer, music composer, screen composer, freelance composer etc etc (you get the idea)

How to get started start with a Film Composer

No surprise this is always the first question when starting a new project - directors want to know what’s the best way to communicate their ideas about music to a composer and how we can do it in a collaborative manner. Of course everyone has their own way of working, personally these are a couple of things I’ve found helpful when starting out a new project and making sure everyone is on the same page

For starters it’s great to have an idea of the overall tone and sound of the film i.e instruments and music genres. Reference music can be a great tool to indicate tone and sound palate, as well as emotion for different scenes of the film. These can come from both the director and the composer

One thing to think about is what stage is your film at? Do you have a fine cut ready and it just needs music, or is it still a script at this point. I’ve had experiences in being involved in both stages of pre-production and post production where fine cut is ready. Either option is fine, however your engagement with your music composer might vary slightly in the process of getting your score

Planning Music Pre-Production

If you’d like to lock down a film composer from the very start this is a great opportunity to develop a sound together and share ideas as you’re developing your film. It’s a good period to discuss and create rough sketches of ideas and themes for the score. Once you’ve got an edit of the film you can start to see if the musical ideas are translating to pics as you envisioned and can continue to develop as you go.

A good thing to keep in mind once you start putting music to pictures, the original ideas might not work as well as you thought (or possibly a lot better than you thought!). Its’ always good to be flexible and open to different ideas and approaches, but you also don’t want to tire out your composer with endless edits and changes before you have pictures locked in for them to score.

Keep in mind that constantly working to new edits can be very tedious and time consuming for composers - even removing a couple of seconds here and there can cause issues with cues. So if you’re going down the road of working on ideas and themes from the very early stages of the film, keep the majority of the composing to when you’ve got a solid edit.

Film is cut and Ready for Music

This is great as the composer can watch it through, spot the film and make suggestions together on the score. Adding references to your edit (more on this below) to test out musical ideas to your pictures can be a great way to indicate to composers what you want from the score. Putting music into the film can drastically change how scenes are interpreted by the viewer, so references can be a great way of getting some initial thoughts and feedback before your composer starts working on the film. The benefit of having a locked edit is that it will reduce time to develop a bespoke soundtrack as the composer can make more solid decisions (less guesswork) compared to working to a rough edit.

Should you include reference music with your film?

A common question I get is whether I like to use reference tracks. Personally, I think references can be a great tool and can give composers a really good sense of tone and emotion for your film when you struggle to the find words to explain what you want. Some of the smoothest projects I’ve had were when the director had great music references for each scene, a clear explanation for what they liked about that reference and why it was working for them. If you’re not too sure about references and what might work for certain scenes, or even the overall sound of the film you can always ask your composer to help look for them! I like to come up with a shared playlist with both references from myself and the director and from there we can really hone in on what pieces and sounds we think will work really well for the film

The Number 1 Rule when using references is:

DON’T FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR REFERENCE TRACKS.

Remember these pieces are there to serve as guidelines and stylistic references. Do not expect your composer to be able to replicate and create the exact same piece for your film. Not only is this difficult and will never sound as good as the original (particularly if you’ve gone down the road of a film composer like Hans Zimmer want something that sounds exactly like their award winning score) but can land you both in a lot of trouble legally.

Always remember these references are just a guide. You should want your composer to engage with your film and write music in response to your story using their own creative voice, rather than copy someone else’s.

How long does it take to write a Music Score for Film

This is a difficult question to answer and will vary a lot! I will say that the last thing you want to do is give your composer the film and ask them to complete it in a week. This can be done but you may not be thrilled with the final product.

Make sure you give your composer enough time to write their score. This might be an obvious point but crafting a score can be a long process and you should consider time for revisions, live recordings, mixing etc.

If you’re not sure check in with your composer - as a lot of us are freelance composers, many might have multiple jobs on at one point and need to juggle your score with existing projects. Others may not be busy at all and can spend a lot of time on it immediately. Have that chat and make your deadline’s are clear so that everyone knows what to expect and can plan accordingly

Are you considering Live Instruments for your score?

So you want to record a full symphony orchestra for you short film - probably not going to happen unless you’ve got an amazing budget (in which case, go for it).

There’s nothing quite like having real instruments in your score, however, depending on what you’re after having real instruments can be time consuming and expensive.

A lot of the technology and software composers use can be extremely effective in recreating instruments to the point where the real thing and the virtual instruments are indistinguishable. If you have to ask the question ‘is this a real instrument’ - then its probably doing the job just fine

Things to consider if you want live instruments recorded:

if you can’t have your orchestra, perhaps you could record some of the leading melody instruments e.g if you have a score that predominately features flute and some orchestra, perhaps you could have the flute recorded live and rely on libraries for the orchestra
does time frame you provided your composer allow for them to organise and book performers and venues for recording? Occasionally you can get lucky if their home studio is suitable for recording, the composer themselves plays the instrument you’re after, or they are able to pull in some favours from friends - which is all entirely possible!
Most musicians need to read scores (music notation), so creating those individual parts can be time consuming. Make sure you discuss time frames with your composer so that they can prepare and price work accordingly
does your budget allow for live players? - If your budget is already pretty stretched then it might be best to stick to the virtual instruments. If you’re not too sure you can always talk to your composer to get an idea of rates and discuss your budget accordingly
live recordings are much harder to manipulate than virtual instruments - this is important to keep in mind as you want to be 100% sure on your score before you get it recorded. Making changes once the cues have been recorded is extremely tedious and may require a re-record which in turn means more time and money. Make sure you’re 100% happy with the demo cues before your composer gets them recorded.

An example of a music score - this one for an orchestra

How to discuss feedback regarding music

‘I’m sorry I don’t know the proper music terms for this’ - No stress! Music is subjective and giving feedback can be difficult and daunting, especially if you’re not familiar with all the terminology

I hear this a lot, directors, producers, editors not sure how to talk about your work or give feedback because they get caught up on using proper musical terms. To be honest, not knowing the correct musical term for things is completely fine. We can usually decipher what you mean or what instrument you’re referring too

In a lot of ways it can be easier to talk about music in more general terms as we’re able to look at overall picture. I think its helpful to talk about emotion and story (rather than specific music terms) and whether the music is telling the story you want.

What is important when giving feedback is making sure that it’s clear and constructive. Its great to provide a reason as to why something may not be working for you - maybe its too ‘synthetic sounding’ maybe the melody is too loud in the mix, the emotion isn’t quite right- whatever it is, giving reasons as to why it isn’t working for you is helpful rather than saying ‘it just isn’t working’.

Talking about the emotion and tone of the scene generally doesn’t require specific music terms, as well as structure and layers - wanting something to build more, have more pace, more energy, less layers, are all OK ways to describe music and don’t require specific terms.

In giving feedback I also think it’s important to look at the overall picture and listen to how the composer is trying to shape your story. Everyone wants to avoid doing 10+ revisions so make sure your clear, concise and constructive with your feedback so that it doesn’t leave your composer with dead ends and no idea how to take the next steps.

I also think there is immense value in being able sitting down with your composer and go through changes together. I like to do this for the final stages of the score, particularly if there are fiddly edits and little tweaks, as understandably you wont always be able to be in the room together to go through feedback all the time. Changes can be made much quicker when you’re both in the room and can hear in real time if how they’re working with the film and discuss accordingly. Its definitely a lot quicker than sending those long emails with lots of feedback on them!

What does a Film Composer cost?

Everyone’s different, some freelance composers like to base it off an hourly rate, others through per minute of music. Rates will also depend on what level your composer is at (emerging composers vs professionals will have very different rates), whether live instrumentation is involved and/or deadlines (if you need score done urgently you might have to pay extra to get it done quickly so that composers can prioritise the film)

Every job is different and also dependent on your budget. Personally, I like to look at a per minute rate and the overall scope project before giving a number. It’s also OK to approach a composer with a budget and see if it works for them and discuss whether the budget may be appropriate

Hopefully, this gives you some insight into how to work with a freelance composer! All these areas are subject to change depending on who exactly is doing your score so make sure you talk to them and understand how they like to work. These are all based on my own experiences and personally what I have found helpful.

If you gave any thought or feedback please feel free to get in touch :)

Cassie To is an Australian freelance composer who has worked on numerous television series, ads and films. If you are interested in discussing an upcoming project don’t hesitate to get in touch.

You can check out some of her recent work here.

Working with a Film Music Composer