Film Scoring Theory

The purpose of adding music to a scene is to create a mood. That is the purpose of music in a film -- to create the moods that the director wants the audience to feel. Without the audience realizing it, your job is to get the audience to react to the movie as the director wants.

Special Note - Music from Speaking Voices

Correcting the Mood Also be aware that sometimes, the actors' dialog creates a mood... but it is the wrong mood. As an example, an actor might pretend to be happy but, in reality, he is crying inside. The words of the actors are the opposite of the mood the director wants in the scene. You must add music (or musical sound effects) to correct this and to create the proper mood. Your music tells the audience what the real mood is. Without your music in this scene, the audience can be confused.

Music Can Be Just Sounds

The most important thing to understand about film scoring is the music can be just sounds that create the mood. That is Musical Sound Effects. Music does not need a melody, a rhythm, or anything special. Since the music's only purpose is to create the proper mood, just one, two, or three notes is all you need most of the time. Try creating the mood with musical sound effects which has the same impact but a whole lot cheaper.

 As an example, you can add a violin trill to a scary scene which give the feeling of danger, doom, and dread. Just one note played expressively creates all the mood you need.

Music Must Follow The Mood

The second most important thing to understand about film scoring is the mood in a scene changes from sentence to sentence. When two people are talking and new information is being introduced rapidly, the mood is continually changing. When the mood changes, the music must change to match the mood. 

Scoring for Background and Dialog

There are basically two kinds of music in a scene which has dialog -- background music and narrative music. Background music enhances the mood of the scene. Background music must be very soft and thin. It is heard faintly in the background. .So when you write background music, make sure it is very simple (i.e., a single melody which is simple with no counter melodies and no strong rhythm such as drums). For background music, it must be just a simple melody played by only one or two instruments.

Narrative music is music which tells a story (think "Peter and the Wolf"). Therefore, narrative music must be inserted between the dialog of the actors. Normally, the only way you can do this is to add gaps between the dialog when you edit the scene.

When people are talking, your music must NEVER step on the dialog. The dialog is the most important part of the movie so when there is dialog, the music must be in the background. So if you want to add music which helps tell the story, there must be gaps between the dialog for you to add the narrative music. These gaps are usually only one to three seconds long. 

Sound Effects

There are different types of sound effects.

1. Ambiance = Background sounds = Atmosphere

This is the sound in the background. There are two parts to this.

A. One part of ambiance is room tone. This is the background noise on the movie set. When you erase dialog or unwanted noise (such as the director yelling, "Cut!", you must fill the gap with room tone.

B. After the scene is edited, a background sound is added from sound recorded in the field. If you are editing a scene of three men in a cafeteria, you have to go to a cafeteria and record the background sounds from the real cafeteria and put in faintly in the background of the scene.

Many movies do not have background sound. When you watch "The Sound Of Music" and Maria is singing on the top of a mountain on a green meadow, there is no ambience sound. This scene sounds as if she is singing in a sterile sound booth... which she is. If you take that same sound track and add the sound of a meadow in spring, the audience hears both the singing and the meadow separately... and entire scenes sounds much more realistic and inviting. By not having ambiance, you limit the information that you give the audience.

2. Walla

Where else but in motion pictures do you worry about how people mumble faintly in the background? Walla is indistinguishable voices talking in a mummer. It seems a bit dorky to record people mumbling but it really is great in scenes of a crowd. The most annoying thing is I have not found a good sound effects library with walla.

3. Pre-Recorded Sound Effects

For music, using pre-recorded music is frowned upon. But for sound effects, the fastest and easiest way of getting sound effects is from sound effects libraries.

4. Field Recording of Sound Effects

Eventually, this is where most sound effects for motion pictures come from. It is not easy to record good, clean sound in the field.

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