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How do you select music or sounds for your film?

Mimi910

Mimi910

The thing I currently have the most trouble with is adding sound. I am never quite sure where to add music or if I should add any at all. And if I should what type of music, how could I be sure it truly goes with the subject or if I should keep looking.

Any advice or comments, on how you choose music for your shorts or scenes or features and how you find it, is greatly appreciated.
 
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What are you trying to say with your short? What is the mood you want to set? What do you want to be known about the characters?

Sound works on us in very subtle ways, and even in instinctual ways. The roar or hiss of a predator can still raise the hackles on the back of your neck. There are many sounds that we automatically associate with certain responses, like a car horn or a siren. Many of us associate crickets with late summer, and small water sounds with peacefulness. Music clichés also have strong associations for us - some of them even come from films.

You need to choose appropriately and carefully so you are consistent with what you want to say, even if you go with a contrasting sound or piece of music. But that is the first step; what is it you are saying with your visuals? Once you have answered that question the rest of them get easier.
 
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Finding music that fits like a glove is always difficult.
That's why a lot of films use composers to create a score that does fit.

You can try to browse stockmusiclibraries. (I'm not familiair with US libraries)
On the other hand: Tarantino just seems to browse his own music collection :)
 
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For any type of music whether it be name artist, movie, tv, video game, or royalty, I usually just sit down briefly listening to random ones. I do this until I find one that hits me as the mood that I'm going for. You also have to decide if it's crucial to add music. Especially when you had a scene that a originally had no music and add one in later, it changes the dynamic of the scene completely whether it hurts or helps it.
 
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Thanks guys for your input!! :) I guess the process will get better and I will increase my accuracy with practice. I hope any ways.
For my last assignment I actually went to my music library and found something that sort of matched.
 
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I would have to imagine sound design and music would be a daunting task for film makers who aren't already skilled in those areas.

I can't even start cutting a film without music to set the mood and guide the tone. Since by the time you are cutting, most film makers won't already have original music written, personally, I like to find music from films that I really like and simply lay it in the cut just so I get an idea of how I want it to feel. The trouble with writing music yourself and especially asking someone else to do music for you, there's always some trial and error you need to allow. What if your composer isn't quite nailing it? What if as the composer you're just not inspired enough? This is why I always and HIGHLY recommend getting music you love from other films and placing it in the cut. You can try out many different pieces as you progress in the cut, switching them out, putting them back, experimenting with just the right tone. Trial and error. And when you think you got it, then show a composer what you want. Have them listen to it. There's nothing wrong with making something sound similar. Chord progressions are recycled ALL THE TIME in film scores, even the very best ones. What's more important here, in my opinion, especially considering this is music for a FILM, tone needs to take precedent over trying to do something too radical. A good score sinks into the scene and doesn't float on top of it.

TL;DR Insert in your cut music you love as a guide for tone and pacing. Try out as many pieces as it takes to feel just right. When satisfied, turn it over to a composer to mimic the tone with an original piece.

As for sound design, this is an extremely subtle, misunderstood, tedious, and can be extraordinarily technical art form. If you want your film to shine, hand this job over to someone who really loves to do it and knows how to do it right. I'm sitting here erasing my thoughts and rewriting them. Then staring at my monitor unable to think of anything that doesn't sound scary. Maybe someone has a simpler way of explaining acceptable sound design for independent film makers?

One of the best tips I can give is don't be afraid to let the sound design become part of the score and vice versa. Some really cool and interesting things can happen.
 
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Different procedures how to find sound and music

To my mind there are several ways to find perfect music for a film. The first way to my mind is to use you intuition first. How does a scenery in your movie look like. Are there scared people, happy people, crying, laughing or whatever.....feelings are easy to see and so to select the right direction of music also.

In other circumstances you just use your brain instead of instinct or intuition...if there is a car chase or something scary you wouldn't use slow but happy music:)....at least...you do it like all the others do it:)))....
 
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JGBarnes said:
I'm sitting here erasing my thoughts and rewriting them. Then staring at my monitor unable to think of anything that doesn't sound scary.
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Thank you for your post it was helpful. And it is a daunting task, like i am missing a link. A link that could make or brake the whole thing. But your tips were really usefull and I will definately try that approach. :)
 
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And thank you Ken. I think my biggest problem was not having that much knowledge about music, as of late i've started to explore more, and listen to sounds in films as oppossed to just looking at camera movements, lighting, tone. Hopefully I will get better with time :)
 
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The beauty of the process is you can try it first. Put various types of music under a scene or a transition, what effect does it have? If you find something that makes the scene better, then find something (or in my case have something written) that evokes the same mood as the trial or temp music.
 
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JGBarnes said:
...I always and HIGHLY recommend getting music you love from other films and placing it in the cut. You can try out many different pieces as you progress in the cut, switching them out, putting them back, experimenting with just the right tone. Trial and error. And when you think you got it, then show a composer what you want. Have them listen to it. There's nothing wrong with making something sound similar.
Click to expand...

This is not an uncommon workflow but in practise I believe it to be a mistake, for several reasons. By getting a composer to essentially copy (let's say paraphrase for legality's sake), you are to a large extent defeating the purpose of hiring a composer in the first place, because you are placing strict constraints on their creativity and ability to aid the emotional content of your film. A good score not only under pins individual scenes but evolves with the film and the characters to help drive the story and character development. This can't be done if all the composer is doing is paraphrasing various pieces of music already chosen.

JGBarnes said:
Maybe someone has a simpler way of explaining acceptable sound design for independent film makers?
Click to expand...

In essence, Sound Design is the art of using psychoacoustics, the perception of sound, to manipulate the audience's attention and emotions. BTW, it's no where near as tedious as filming! :)

G
 
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AudioPostExpert said:
This is not an uncommon workflow but in practise I believe it to be a mistake, for several reasons. By getting a composer to essentially copy (let's say paraphrase for legality's sake), you are to a large extent defeating the purpose of hiring a composer in the first place, because you are placing strict constraints on their creativity and ability to aid the emotional content of your film. A good score not only under pins individual scenes but evolves with the film and the characters to help drive the story and character development. This can't be done if all the composer is doing is paraphrasing various pieces of music already chosen.
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I half agree with this. I mean, if you're just giving a temp score, no further direction and telling the composer "off you go!" then yeah, I definitely agree with you. But if you take the time to say "hey, I like the rhythm of this piece" or "can you do an arrangement instruments like this piece," and that sort of thing, a temp score can reall help communication. Let's face it, music folks and film folks don't always speak the same language. There's a lot of cross communication learning that should be done on both sides!

I don't expect a director to say "hey can you do a modal shift on the viola line at measure 23" but that might be what they want. For them to say "hey, can you do something like this piece does at the 2 minute mark?" is an effective way to communicate. Gets everyone on the same page! So familiarizing yourself with different types of music, and as Gonzo says, experiment by just dropping different things in place, is definitely a good thing.

Of course, I've worked with Directors who have just said "that's wrong" until I came up with something that was barely distinguishable from the temp score, so you definitely don't want what you're hearing to be locked in to that. But directing the composer to get the emotions you want to convey correctly is a good thing, and at the end of the day you should end up with music that you are both happy with.

So, yeah, listen to music, try stuff out and don't let yourself get locked in to specific melodies. And treat your composer well :D
 
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JoshL said:
... and don't let yourself get locked in to specific melodies.
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This is the big problem because if they cut in a temp music track, the director and editor may hear that temp music a hundred times while editing. The music gets burnt into their brains and then anything other than an exact copy will sound shockingly wrong.

Of course, it depends to an extent on budget but as a general rule the composer should be able to advise the director on where the music should be used and the style and feel of the music appropriate to aid the story. A director of course does not have the experience or knowledge of how to use music compared to a dedicated professional specialist (the composer). To not involve the composer in the decisions of where and how to use music is the height of arrogance as well as a waste of what the director is paying for! The composer should be a collaborator not a slave.

G
 
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It can be complicated hiring a composer to make the music that truly fits, and it can also be expensive. That's why stock audio websites are out there to give cheap songs for just about anything. If I was choosing music for a scene, I would have the scene play in my media player with the sound muted, while at the same time playing music from stock audio sites to see if the mood is a match.
__________
Aaron Martin, composer
My Compositions
 
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AudioPostExpert said:
This is the big problem because if they cut in a temp music track, the director and editor may hear that temp music a hundred times while editing. The music gets burnt into their brains and then anything other than an exact copy will sound shockingly wrong.

G
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I've found the most important thing to do in this situation is to copy exactly the beats per minute of the temp music. Yes you may encounter some temp melody love but you should really be able to create the same mood with a different tune. But the rhythm of the edit and the way it works with the bpm of the temp has to be preserved.
 
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JoshL said:
I half agree with this. I mean, if you're just giving a temp score, no further direction and telling the composer "off you go!" then yeah, I definitely agree with you. But if you take the time to say "hey, I like the rhythm of this piece" or "can you do an arrangement instruments like this piece," and that sort of thing, a temp score can reall help communication. Let's face it, music folks and film folks don't always speak the same language. There's a lot of cross communication learning that should be done on both sides!

I don't expect a director to say "hey can you do a modal shift on the viola line at measure 23" but that might be what they want. For them to say "hey, can you do something like this piece does at the 2 minute mark?" is an effective way to communicate. Gets everyone on the same page! So familiarizing yourself with different types of music, and as Gonzo says, experiment by just dropping different things in place, is definitely a good thing.

Of course, I've worked with Directors who have just said "that's wrong" until I came up with something that was barely distinguishable from the temp score, so you definitely don't want what you're hearing to be locked in to that. But directing the composer to get the emotions you want to convey correctly is a good thing, and at the end of the day you should end up with music that you are both happy with.

So, yeah, listen to music, try stuff out and don't let yourself get locked in to specific melodies. And treat your composer well :D
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I was going to respond to AudioPostExpert in essentially the same way. Thank you.

What I originally meant was not to literally copy or paraphrase the music, I'm sorry if it came across that way. Just experiment. Drag in and drop out music you like until you're satisfied with the tone, then hand it over to a composer and just say, "Like this."
 
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JGBarnes said:
Drag in and drop out music you like until you're satisfied with the tone, then hand it over to a composer and just say, "Like this."
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Sorry, I strongly disagree with this approach. If you want "original" music and you want it to be as good as possible, you don't want to be tying the composer to creating something "like this". You need to give them the freedom to do what they are best at and aim to achieve something better than "like this". If "like this" is what you want then go and licence it because what you are after is not a original composer but a someone who can create pieces of music similar to what you have already chosen. An original composer is a creative artist but recreating music similar to what already exists is more of a skill than an art.

The whole point of employing a composer in the first place is to hire someone who knows a whole lot more about film scoring than the director. Film scoring has little to do with creating nice pieces of music, it's about creating music which best aids the story telling, any other consideration is at best secondary. The risk for the director in giving the composer the freedom to achieve this goal is mis-communication and the possibility (or with a small budget, the probability) of hiring a composer who is not so good at film scoring.

Practically, the composer should be intimate with the script, intimate with the story and fully understand all the obvious and hidden implications in every scene. The Director should indicate the mood/s and pace of the scene/s plus any additional requirements of the music, for example: Aid continuity, help the audience to remember something which they've already seen or anticipate something they haven't yet seen or even to misdirect the audience. The composer can then come up with musical ideas to fulfil all these emotional and narrative requirements and should be able to do so far better than any piece of temp music you could ever find (or there'd be no point in hiring a composer). In this scenario the composer is a collaborator and the Director is a director rather than a dictator!

G
 
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This is a great conversation, and I find myself late to the table. Though, it seems I'm right in time to say, "here, here".

AudioPostExpert said:
Sorry, I strongly disagree with this approach. If you want "original" music and you want it to be as good as possible, you don't want to be tying the composer to creating something "like this". You need to give them the freedom to do what they are best at and aim to achieve something better than "like this". If "like this" is what you want then go and licence it because what you are after is not a original composer but a someone who can create pieces of music similar to what you have already chosen. An original composer is a creative artist but recreating music similar to what already exists is more of a skill than an art.

The whole point of employing a composer in the first place is to hire someone who knows a whole lot more about film scoring than the director. Film scoring has little to do with creating nice pieces of music, it's about creating music which best aids the story telling, any other consideration is at best secondary. The risk for the director in giving the composer the freedom to achieve this goal is mis-communication and the possibility (or with a small budget, the probability) of hiring a composer who is not so good at film scoring.

Practically, the composer should be intimate with the script, intimate with the story and fully understand all the obvious and hidden implications in every scene. The Director should indicate the mood/s and pace of the scene/s plus any additional requirements of the music, for example: Aid continuity, help the audience to remember something which they've already seen or anticipate something they haven't yet seen or even to misdirect the audience. The composer can then come up with musical ideas to fulfil all these emotional and narrative requirements and should be able to do so far better than any piece of temp music you could ever find (or there'd be no point in hiring a composer). In this scenario the composer is a collaborator and the Director is a director rather than a dictator!

G
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I'm in full agreement. To me, giving a composer a musical piece, and telling them to do it like this would be like giving an actor a DVD and telling them to do it like this. God, talking about killing creativity. If you want a wooden performance, this is how to get it.

That being said, JoshL, I do appreciate your comments on how showing a particular piece to a composer can be a simple means of communication, because the director isn't capable of speaking music-language. But if that's ever used as a means of communication, I think its use should be limited, and only for a few very specific moments.

I also think that while the director-composer relationship can be worked out online, I personally would not want to ever do it that way. I need to be able to talk it out. Watch the film together, and just talk. Face-to-face is way more efficient for any kind of creative collaboration, but I have to think that especially true for music. Face-to-face time allows the director the opportunity to say something stupid that makes absolutely no sense, musically. But then, when the composer asks them to elaborate, the director can go, "You know, something like bom-bom-treedadeeladidee, swchooosh, bham-traptaPOW!" And when the director looks away, the composer rolls their eyes, but understands exactly what it is the director is looking for. :D
 
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I guess I never answered the original question. And to respond to a few posts, I would absolutely never edit to a temp-score, unless it's a musical montage (in which case, I always edit to a temp-score).

Filmmaking is a visual medium, first and foremost. I don't say that to discount the extreme importance of music (or audio, in general). But just remember why people are watching. Music, though incredibly important, is one of the last things you do.

If you have a composer, then the ifs and whens for adding music is something you just work out with them. You got them involved with your project because they can do something you can't. Let them do it. But it's still your movie, and they should expect you to add guidance, if you will. At the very least, you should be communicating feelings you want for which scenes, and when those feelings should start/stop.

If you don't have a composer, I agree with some of what has been written in this thread already. Just try different pieces out. Doesn't take much time to just plug a musical piece in and see how it feels. You just might find one that is such a perfect fit that it'll force you to go back and edit some of those visuals to better fit the music.
 
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