“The Pragmatic Composer - Practical Advice on Film Scoring”

An essay on the art and craft of film composition

"Passionate," "intuitive," "knowledgeable," "wildly creative." These are the qualities most filmmakers seek in a composer. "Pragmatic"? Not so much. And yet it may be the most important quality of all. What follows are some hard-won practical thoughts — born of experience rather than theory — about composers, filmmakers, and the sometimes mysterious, but always exhilarating process of creating a film score.

Composers: You are not writing a piece of music!

A standalone piece of music must do exactly that: stand alone. It has its own architecture, its own internal logic, its own journey. A film score, by contrast, rests upon and supports images, dialogue, and narrative. Its logic is not musical — it is cinematic. Forget about structuring a complete musical work. Think about the film. And when in doubt, remember that less is almost always more.

“Learn” the film — don't just score it.

A great score cannot be fully planned or strategized. I like to say that the composer does not create the score of a film — the composer must learn the film. It is like learning to dance with a partner, or to share a life with one. This intimacy comes from absorbing the film in every way available: reading the script, thinking about the characters, reflecting on the cinematography, sitting with the silences. Without it, the score will remain on the surface of the film rather than living inside it. Similarly, before writing a single note, select your sonic palette first. A tailor or fashion designer chooses the right fabric — or even creates it from scratch — before cutting the cloth. I like to let footage play in the background of my studio while I experiment with texture and timbre. Only when I have found the right material do I begin to write. All of this, of course, keeping the production schedule carefully in mind.

Avoid talking about music.

It has often been said that talking about music is like dancing about architecture. So don't do it. Many directors feel compelled to communicate in musical terms as a way of exercising creative control. But the more experienced ones understand how damaging this can be. Brian Dilg, a director with whom I have collaborated many times, is a Berklee-trained classical pianist and an accomplished jazz musician — yet he has always avoided discussing our scores in musical terms. He speaks about the film, the emotion, the characters, and lets the music answer. Two other long-time collaborators, directors Slawomir Milewski and Eva Depoorter, resist the temptation to control and don’t say one word about music until they hear my first drafts.

The same applies in reverse. As a composer, resist describing your cue before the director hears it. Do not say "at 43:15 I added a crescendo in the French horns." Just play it — in sync with the images. The moment you describe your music, the director evaluates the description rather than listening — and can be actively misled by it. And always present ideas with the picture. A director hearing a cue without images is not hearing the score — they are hearing music, which is an entirely different experience. The music should not be judged in the abstract. The dress needs to be tried on!

Avoid being influenced by the temp track, if possible.

Directors feel profound responsibility toward their film, and so it is natural that they often wish to control every detail, including the music. That is why so many directors reach for a temp track. It is also worth noting that it is often the editor — not the director — who selects the temp music, chosen primarily to make the cut watchable for the post-production team. The result may reflect editorial rhythm rather than directorial vision.

If you are a filmmaker, avoid it, if possible. You will fall in love with the temp, and nothing your composer writes will sound quite right by comparison — a phenomenon so well known it has its own name: "temp love." If you are the composer and a temp track exists, try not to be influenced by it, if possible. In other words, take it with a grain of salt. The score you discover together will almost certainly surpass anything borrowed from another film.

Do not be afraid of silence.

Silence is one of the most powerful and underused tools in film scoring. A sudden absence of music precisely where the audience expects it can be electrifying. But more broadly, it is part of the composer's job — and requires real courage — to tell a filmmaker that a particular scene does not need music. Silence is not the absence of a score. Sometimes it is the score. Avoid adding music to the film as some chefs add heavy cream to a sauce: that is too easy a solution! The music should not be a band-aid to a scene that is simply not working, although very often the composer is called upon to provide just that!

Stay fluid and beware of syllogisms.

Resist the impulse to declare victory too soon. A cue that seems perfect in isolation may need to change once the entire film has been scored. Stay fluid until you are genuinely convinced you have found the right idea — while remaining realistic about the schedule.

And beware of syllogistic thinking about what the music should express. There is no necessary logical correspondence between narrative events and musical gesture. A protagonist's descent into depression does not require a descending string line. The music's job is not to illustrate the story but to illuminate it — and those are very different things.

What do these principles have in common? They all require the willingness to resist the obvious, stay open longer than feels comfortable, and trust a process that cannot be fully controlled. This is what pragmatism looks like in the service of art: not the imposition of a plan, but the disciplined cultivation of conditions in which something true can emerge. When composer and filmmaker manage this together — learning the film in tandem, resisting the temp track, speaking in images rather than musical terminology — the result is a score that feels as though it could not have been otherwise. That feeling of inevitability is the goal. Everything here is in service of it.

For a behind-the-scenes account of the creative process behind Giovanni's solo electric guitar score for F.W. Murnau's Sunrise, read this feature by Shari Kizirian published by the San Francisco Silent Film Festival — a portrait of the collaboration between a curator and a composer in search of new music for an old masterpiece.

The Curator and the Composer — San Francisco Silent Film Festival