Re-framing Composing in the Classroom Using the Craft of Film Scoring

Many years ago I worked as a music orchestrator for film and television in both Los Angeles and Melbourne, Australia. For the last 15 years I have been teaching film scoring to high school students. My background in the industry gave me an insider’s view of the practices of professional film composers, and I began to see how exploring film music could provide a unique way of teaching composition in the secondary classroom.

In my classroom I’ve discovered, somewhat surprisingly, that students are capable of producing high quality film music regardless of their musical backgrounds, and they have a seemingly innate understanding of the language of film music and the appropriate mood or style that would effectively serve a film scene.

The Practice of Film Scoring

• uses a multimodal approach to teach composing that aligns with the ways students engage with music through film, television, video games, and other multimedia presentations;

• lends itself to the integration of new music technology and digital performance;

• provides an alternative approach for teaching composing and a way for students to develop compositional tools and skills that facilitate creativity;

• provides a flexible and inclusive approach that supports students from diverse musical backgrounds and experience; • connects what students do in the classroom and beyond it in the music industry.

My interest in this topic has led to a PhD research project that investigates a pedagogy for teaching composing to secondary students based on the real-world practices of professional film composers.

Student composing is facilitated by four characteristics commonly found in the professional film scoring process.

The Language of Film Music

The music accompanying a film is highly coded by its function in the music-film interaction (Gorbman, 1987). Filmmakers use various cinematic devices including music to guide us through the story, and we develop an understanding of the language of film music through repeated exposure to its codes and conventions. Well documented literature from film music psychology supports this notion (Cohen, 2013; Tan et al., 2013). There is a unique relationship between sound and image, and their bond is strengthened when we hear and see something at the exact same moment in time. Music theorist and film composer Michel Chion (1994; 2019) calls this audio-vision, creating the effect that we “hear/see” a film (Murch, 1994, p. xviii).

The literature above highlights the effect of enculturation on a film’s audience. By extension, novice composers have an implicit knowledge of the language of film music. This skill set becomes an enabling factor in the student film scoring process.

The Craft of Film Scoring

The film scoring process undertaken by composers has not changed much over the last century. Scoring each scene requires a non-linear and recursive approach (Sapiro, 2013), where one can begin writing from any point in the scene, identifying various hit points of synchronisation for the music and visual image, and integrating these into their score – much like first completing the straightforward words of a crossword puzzle, then using these to finish the rest.

Compositional techniques and film scoring devices such as theme and variation, leitmotif, mickey-mousing and underscoring dialogue are the mainstay of film music and preferred by composers and filmmakers due to their affinity for storytelling (Audissino, 2014). When these techniques are presented to students as the basis of the craft of film scoring, they are more than capable of learning to apply these techniques to their scores.

The Roadmap – Spotting the Score

A critical aspect of the broader film scoring process is the spotting of the film. The spotting notes outline all the important visual, filmic, and sonic elements that contribute to the narrative and timings in every scene. Professional film composers use this as an integrated guide in the planning and execution of their compositions. Hit Points are used by composers as markers where compositional decisions are made. Student composers can use the spotting notes as a type of roadmap that outlines the form, and identifies points of synchronisation between the music and visual tracks, effectively supporting the onscreen action.

The Medium of Film Scoring – the DAW

The mockup stage of film scoring using a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) is now a permanent part of the professional scoring process. The technology which is readily available and affordable, including software that synchronises film clips and composed music, plug-ins, and high-quality digital audio, has opened the door for film composers of varied musical backgrounds and experience, including novice film composers and music students. Composing directly to a visual track with fixed timings makes it easy to hear/see where synchronisations occur, and requires that composing, orchestrating and recording are interlinked activities in the process.

A successful film score is measured in how well the music communicates meaning to an audience. Film scoring conventions established since the early days of film offer students a set of composing tools, tips and tricks to aid their success. These include scoring the subtext, accenting action sequences, and being aware of competing sound effects, ambient sounds and dialogue.

Film composer Sonny Kompanek (2004) discusses some characteristics of present-day composers that are relevant for twenty first century music students:

• many have no formal music qualification;

• they communicate with filmmakers in dramatic or non-musical terms;

• they have an intuitive understanding of what is appropriate in the scene;

• they solve musical problems to fit the requirements of the scene to support the narrative;

• they are more familiar with computer sequencing than classical orchestration techniques;

• they mock-up their compositions using DAWs, where sound comes first and the score later in the composing process.

Re-framing composing activities using film scoring as a teachable craft has made composing in the classroom more accessible for my students. The elements of composing are presented in a way that has function, purpose, effect and meaning. Students learn various compositional tools and skills through a practical and real-world approach using readily available hardware and software. Film scoring provides twenty-first century music students an introduction to creating music that connects to the ways they engage with music in everyday lives.

Marita Rosenberg is a secondary music teacher in Melbourne, Australia. She studied music arranging and composition at the Grove School of Music in Los Angeles, where she lived and worked professionally for six years. She has over 25 years of experience in conducting and orchestrating for film and television both in Australia and overseas. Her credits include Australian films Hotel de Love and Crackers, UK production Half Light and US television series Chicago Hope. She is currently completing her PhD in Music Education developing a film scoring method for secondary students. Her research has been presented at conferences nationally and internationally.

References

Audissino, E. (2014). John Williams’s film music : Jaws, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the return of the classical Hollywood music style. The University of Wisconsin Press. Chion, M. (1994). Audio-vision : sound on screen. Columbia University Press.

Chion, M. (2019). Audio-vision : sound on screen (Second edition.). Columbia University Press.

Cohen, A. J. (2013). Film Music from the Perspective of Cognitive Science. In The Oxford Handbook of Film Music Studies. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195328493.013.009

Gorbman, C. (1987). Unheard melodies : narrative film music. BFI Pub. Karlin, F., & Wright, R. (2004). On the track : a guide to contemporary film scoring (2nd rev. ed.). Routledge.

Kompanek, S. (2004). From score to screen : sequencers, scores, & second thoughts : the new film scoring process. Schirmer Trade Books.

Murch, W. (1994). Forward. In Chion, M. (1994). Audio-vision : sound on screen. Columbia University Press.

Sapiro, I. (2013). Ilan Eshkeri’s Stardust : a film score guide. The Scarecrow Press, Inc. Tan, S.-L., Cohen, A. J., Lipscomb, S. D., & Kendall, R. A. (2013). The Psychology of Music in Multimedia (1st ed.). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/97

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