As a screenwriter, I got into
incidental music to find the power it would give a scene I was writing. The scene I had written was the beginning of
the Battle
THE HISTORY OF FILM MUSIC
Filmmakers have always
understood the power that sound and music have to enhance storytelling. Music enhances the emotional impact and power
of a film by reinforcing the mood of a scene or by hinting at unspoken
conflicts or feelings.Its effectiveness was so well understood that even “silent” movies were generally accompanied by some type of music. Some early filmmakers’ commissioned musical scores from well-known composers, as Sergei Eisenstein did for his 1925 silent film The Battleship Potemkin. In 1933, Max Steiner composed the first modern-style score for the film King Kong. Steiner’s innovations set a standard for
Although silent films were,
well, silent... organists, pianists or full orchestras supplied live musical
accompaniment in theaters, and often sound effects were created on the spot by
sound-effects specialists.
Many of the world’s top
early filmmakers and executives believed that this would be sound technology’s
ultimate usage, as silent film pantomime had created a “universal” language.
Watch a short scene in
a movie without the sound and note what information in the scene is conveyed
just by the visuals. Then do the
opposite: listen to another scene without looking at it and write down what you
think is happening in the scene.
Amelie and The Black
Stallion are both good films to listen to without pictures. Other suggestions are the airplane crash
scene in Cast Away and the opening shipboard scene in “Master and Commander: The
Far Side of the World”. Consider what is
known about the age, gender and personalities of the characters, the tone, time
of day, historical period and setting of the scene from the sound alone. Then watch and listen to the scene and think
about the way sound adds to the experience.
Look for instances where the picture and the soundtrack are giving
different or perhaps even conflicting information simultaneously.
MUSICAL SCORE
Using rhythm and tempo,
melodic harmony or dissonant tones, a film score conveys mood, emotion and
character in ways that dialogue alone cannot.
As early as 1908, French composer Camille Saint-Saens wrote the first
score tailored for a specific film, the silent L’Assassinat du Duc de Guise,
and Russian director Sergei Eisenstein commissioned a forceful percussive score
from composer Edmund Meisel for his 1925 silent film The Battleship Potemkin.
Generally, however,
silent films were released without musical accompaniment. “Fake books” helped theater organists or
musical directors find appropriate compositions for each scene. These books included compositions to cover
almost any on-screen situation from romance to battles to comedy.
During the early days
of sound film, composers condensed or adapted existing musical pieces. Then, in 1933, Max Steiner wrote an
innovative score for the RKO film, King Kong, which still influences movie
scores today.
Rather than a series of
musical interludes, Steiner provided a musical illustration of the film’s
narrative content. Steiner and the
film’s director Merian Cooper agreed not to employ a score during the first
part of the film, which showed the realities of Depression-era New York Skull Island
From then on, music
accompanies most of the film’s action. A
few scenes, like King Kong’s fight with a dinosaur and his battle with circling
aircraft from on top of the Empire
State Building
Following a
nineteenth-century operatic model, Steiner used leitmotifs, or themes, for different
characters and situations. (One of the
best-known examples of a leitmotif is the two-note theme that signals the
appearance of the shark in Jaws). Although
King Kong does not speak, his complex personality is depicted through music. The giant ape’s brutality is conveyed by
dissonant tunes and the use of brass instruments, for example, while his tragic
loneliness is represented by a yearning melody.
As Steiner proved,
musical scores can provide more than just a background to the rest of the film.
The 1945 film The Lost Weekend, starring
Ray Milland as an alcoholic on a weekend bender, was originally screened
without a musical score. When the
audience laughed during the dramatic drunk scenes, the film was immediately
withdrawn, and composer Miklos Rosza was hired to write a score. The newly scored film went on to win Best
Actor, Best Picture and Best Directing Oscars.
Music can also
underscore the humor or pathos of a scene by playing against what is seen
onscreen. For example, in Life Is Beautiful,
light-hearted music performed on the soundtrack while a tragedy unfolds
intensifies the sense of loss. Intercutting
the cheerful song “Whatever Will Be, Will Be” (Que Sera, Sera) with attempts to
free a small boy from his kidnappers heightens the tension in the 1958 film The
Man Who Knew Too Much.
In some scenes, absence
of music is the most eloquent accompaniment.
Peter Weir, the director of Master and Commander, requested breaks in
the underscore so the audience could hear the sounds of the ship and sink into
the daily life of the characters.
Before composing the
score, the composer attends a “spotting session”, a meeting with the producer,
director and music editor, during which they decide how and where to use music
in the film. The composer then begins to
compose the musical phrases or “cues”. Cue
sheets indicate each place in the action where the music enters and exits. When woven together, these cues make up the
score.
The composer’s choice
of instruments is often guided by the content of the scene. In The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers,
composer Howard Shore
To demonstrate this,
look at a scene from a film of your choice and identify as many different
musical themes or leitmotifs as possible.
Some suggestions are Batman: The Dark Knight, Jaws, Star Wars, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial or any of The Lord of
the Rings trilogy. Identify the tone or
mood of each motif.
The purpose of a
musical motif is to provide a musical phrase that represents and recurs with a
character, situation or emotion. A great
example is the musical phrase in Jaws that lets you know the shark is close at
hand.
Screenwriters should consider
the way each theme adds to character development and the ways it helps
communicate the storyline.
Musical Score Terms
Cue: A short piece of music written and performed in
relation to one of a film’s scenes or segments.
All the cues together make up the film’s score.
Leitmotif: A short musical phrase representing and recurring
with a character, situation or emotion. The
device derives from 19th-century opera.
Song Score: When songs completely or principally make up a
film’s musical score.
Spotting Session: A meeting between the composer, the producer and
the director where they decide how and when to use music in the film. Usually the composer does not begin to work
until after the spotting session.
SONGS
Instrumental music is
only part of the composer’s tool kit. Songs
are often employed to emphasize or comment on the dramatic action in
non-musical films.
Songs in films, whether
they are existing popular songs or composed specifically for a film, express or
emphasize the thoughts and emotions of the characters or heighten the mood of
the film in both musical and non-musical films.
They may highlight a single dramatic moment or represent the theme of the
entire movie. Movie theme songs often
become so popular that people enjoy them long after the film has left theaters.
Composers can employ
well-known songs to set the film’s historical period or evoke the music of a
foreign country.
Characters in musicals
often break into song when they cannot express the strength of their feelings
in any other way.
Songwriters will search
the script for places where the story lends itself to songs. Sometimes a line of dialogue provides the first
words of the song.
While movie scores are
usually written after the film has been completed, songs and song scores for
musicals are written and recorded before filming begins. (Often a musical existed as a live-theater
production well before it became a movie musical). The actors then lip-sync to the recorded
songs during their performances. This
ensures the songs will sound “perfect” and allow the actors to concentrate on
their visual performances. Often actors
who cannot sing well lip-sync to pre-recorded singing by another performer.
Song Terms
Melody: A linear sequence of notes that make up the most
recognizable part of a piece of music. Melody
is usually pleasing to the ear.
Pitch: The relative highness or lowness of a musical
note. In general, bigger objects make
deeper noises and smaller objects make higher-pitched sounds. Low-pitched sounds and music can sound
threatening or sad, while high-pitched sounds tend to be perceived as happy or
carefree.
Rhythm: A regular, repeated pattern formed by a series of
notes of differing duration and stress which give music its character.
Through listening to
the song “When She Loved Me”, in Toy Story 2, the audience learns the sad story
of the character “Jesse”. Whether a song
is heard on the soundtrack or performed live in the film, the lyrics may
express or emphasize the thoughts or emotions of the characters, as they do in
Toy Story 2. Or a song may be
deliberately chosen to play against them, as in Chicago
By using existing
popular songs, the composer takes advantage of the audience’s prior
associations with the music. Well-known
songs can establish an historical period as in Pleasantville and “O Brother
Where Art Thou?” or evoke a foreign country as in Frida. Songs are so evocative that Lawrence
When songs completely
or principally comprise the music, as in The Big Chill or the 1973 film
American Graffiti, it is called a compilation song score.
Original songs, written
specifically for a film, such as the Oscar-winning songs “The Hands That Built
America” from the film Gangs of New York and “Moon River”, from Breakfast at
Tiffany’s, may either highlight a single dramatic or emotional moment or make a
statement about the entire film. The
popularity of theme songs like “My Heart Will Go On”, the Oscar-winning song
from Titanic, is often exploited to promote the film.
In musicals, songs
function as a type of dialogue.
The music and
especially the lyrics of the songs are closely interwoven with the script,
whether written expressly for the musical as in Chicago
Finding the right words
and melodies to fit the characters and the story is the job of the songwriters,
who look for moments in the script that call for a song or for a line of
dialogue to inspire the first words of a song.
Characters in musicals often break into song when they experience strong
feelings they cannot contain. The makers
of Chicago
Unlike typical film
scores, which are usually composed after the film has finished shooting, songs
for musicals are written and recorded before production begins. Then, during filming, the actors lip-sync to
the pre-recorded numbers. Moulin Rouge
exploits this practice to make the audience aware that the film they are
watching is a work of fiction, as for example, when a character seems to be
inventing the song “The Sound of Music”, although the audience is fully aware
that the song was composed years after the period of the film and years before
the movie they are watching.
A song’s use of rhythm,
instrumentation, lyrics and melody reveal or comment on the nature of the
character or situation it accompanies. Listen
to other sections of the score in a movie where the song is reprised or worked
into the underscore. Ask yourself why you
think the composer chose to use the song again in these places. Is it associated with the same characters or
the same emotions?
Many musicals such as
Cabaret, Funny Girl, The Sound of Music, All That Jazz, Topsy-Turvy and Chicago
