Film Scoring For Beginners E01 - Spotting, Tempo & Arranging

Welcome to Film Scoring For Beginners episode 1. In this episode I show you the steps in scoring a film. We talk about the first step, which is - Spotting. We define the pace and tempo of the cues and finally talk about templates and sounds. Finally we talk a little bit about arranging and instrumentation.

Episode #5 in the Film Scoring for beginners is out!

Episode #4 in the Film Scoring for beginners is out!

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// Mattias (Gelhein) Holmgren
Morningdew Media AB

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Chapters
00:00 Welcome
00:53 WHAT DAW?
01:28 Importing Film
01:36 Introduction - First Timer.
01:52 SPOTTING
02:20 Spotting Point - Dark & Brooding music
04:32 TEMPO & PACE
06:40 Changing film clip preview-size
07:10 TEMPLATE & SOUNDS (Selecting Instruments)
07:52 Uniqueness - Add your own personal character (audio) to the film music cues.
08:42 Less is more, leave space in your arrangements.
09:26 Melancholic / Sad / Nostalgic / Reflecting atmosphere.
11:46 Talking about Spectrasonic libraries, yes they are invaluable for a film composer.
14:56 Recording specific cues outside the main project to save up CPU. It helps to keep your main project clean.
16:08 Mysterious cue
16:16 Ending cue, wrapping it up.
17:15 Why it's important to add your own audio recordings to a project with sampled instruments!
17:38 Ask me questions! Thanks!

[CameronGentryMusic]

Awesome! I really struggle with going over the top when I score short films. I tend to want to make the music at the forefront but you showed me how to keep it simply driving the emotion

[chrisnella]

Just scored my FIRST feature film 🎉…this video was GOLD!!! I subscribed😊

[aMessvv]

I've been composing films for a couple of years now. This is fantastic! Thank you.

[MattiasHolmgren]

TABLE OF CONTENTS
00:00 Welcome
00:53 WHAT DAW?
01:28 Importing Film
01:36 Introduction - First Timer
01:52 SPOTTING
02:20 Spotting Point - Dark & Brooding music
04:32 TEMPO & PACE
06:40 Changing film clip preview-size
07:10 TEMPLATE & SOUNDS (Selecting Instruments)
07:52 Uniqueness - Add your own personal character (audio) to the film music cues.
08:42 Less is more, leave space in your arrangements.
09:26 Melancholic / Sad / Nostalgic / Reflecting atmosphere.
11:46 Talking about Spectrasonic libraries, yes they are invaluable for a film composer.
14:56 Recording specific cues outside the main project to save up CPU. It helps to keep your main project clean.
16:08 Mysterious cue
16:16 Ending cue, wrapping it up.
17:15 Why it's important to add your own audio recordings to a project with sampled instruments!
17:38 Ask me questions! Thanks!

[MattiasHolmgren]

Even if you are not scoring traditional films and shows, these tricks is kinda universal and can be applied to your You Tube videos, Instagram posts / stories, TikTok, indie games etc. So I think it's important topic for anyone creating content. But what do YOU think?
* What do you think about this first pilot episode?
* Is film / game scoring something that resonates with you?
* Was the length of the film ok?
* Is the specific DAW important to you in the video?
* Is a release schedule important for you to be able to watch the series?
* What kind of content would you like me to do next?

[PERFRMANCEMUSIC]

Thanks for this Mattias. I'm a veteran composer with more than 60 years of experience, now getting up-to-date with 'modern' methods (7 years on Logic, plus MuseScore, Finale and Encore notation software 30 years). You make no mention of your decision not to use scene markers? You might also comment on the fact that your music doesn't line up with the bars which I've been struggling to achieve in my practice sessions. But, thanks again.

[mrpuppette]

Came to learn what "spotting is", most informative, thank Mattias

[MattiasHolmgren]

In this video, Film scoring for Beginners E01, you learn the basics of film scoring. We walk through the steps of film composing. The film featured in the video is "First Timer" produced by Aurelien Laine / directed by Daeryun Chang). It was a film I scored in 2017. It's a 10 min short film with some nice variation in the cues, so it's a perfect match for this film scoring beginners episode.


Common Film Scoring process:
1. Spotting - Where and what music to place.
2. Tempo & Pace - Outlining the tempo for the music cue spots.
3. Template & Sounds - Selecting sounds for your score. Personalizing the template with your own unique audio recordings.
4. Composing
5. Orchestrating and arranging the music


With this film scoring video I wanted to introduce you to the process of film scoring and how you can get started.
Part 4 & 5 (scoring) will be discussed in upcoming videos.


Hope you enjoy this film scoring episode!


Please subscribe, hit the bell notification button and write your questions on feedback in the comments field.


Thanks,
Mattias / Morningdew Media

[iamshunaji]

First soundtrack here, 45+ minutes. I thought this video was very accessible. Subscribed. I'm going to look at more in depth workflows eventually, but as a producer I found this introduction relatable and straightforward. Definitely less intimidated by the process. Thanks!

[Shadowz]

That scene with the guy prepping food is perfect. So hilarious.

[averylegendre]

I am obsessed with the Errand Boy song. Thank you for sharing this video - wow

[joemi]

Thanks for your video! Very well done! Detailed, straight to the point and so usefull!
Grt from Barcelona!

[fabiovsroque]

Hi, I was told once that It would be better, for a scene where there is a lot of talking, to put soft music in order to not interfere with the speech. What do you think about this? Since you put a lot of percussions in this excerpt.

[JasonFerguson]

I love this! The 3/4 time is my favorite! Great guitar sound there! Thanks very much for this video!

[heymusiclovers]

Thank you very much, Mattias! I am a beginner in film scoring, and your explanation in the video is very clear and inspired me to become a great film composer like you! <3 looking forward to your videos! Thank you again! Have a nice day and stay safe... :D

[aclexvideo]

Thank you for this course, Mattias! So interesting process of choosing the music, the genre, for particular scene or mood in the film described. Pretty much adding a little of new sense to it. It's obviously not of my professional interest, never even tried to create film scoring, it looks like very complex process for me, but very interesting to see it outside and notice useful ideas for creativity in other genres. Now it looks for me as very imagination-demanding process, as you're creating a kind of soundtrack for the life as a musician (if we can said it this way :)), and here you need to imagine the whole picture in the film to create proper music for it. And, I think, it's very well done here — when you let us see some snippets of the film with the music, I found myself watching it with interest, rather than concentrating on certain parts, this means for me that the music is very naturally in the consistent setting of the film.


So yes, thanks again for sharing it, to part two now :) I have another day off for music today (well, evening :)), so will try to work on my new track a little. Have a nice rest of the weekend, too! I hope all your plans go right, and the weather is fine) Luckily it's still winter here :)

[mnieuwhof]

I'm a great fan of the filmscoring/trailerscoring genre... really educational to view this.... thank you!

[Neagnosis]

Excellent series Matthias, thank you for walking us through this process!

[oumkaarrs]

I am glad to know that you are going to make a tutorial video about it.

I kindly request you to include tricks / hacks or proper way to manage project Regarding music production for subsequent Reels.

As some Music in Early Reels needs to be repeated in next ones.
Some times we need to tweak it / adjust it to suit duration of next scene.

How do u do it in a proper way ?

Do u bounce it ? and then use it ? ?


Or make instruments clusters ( templates ) and reopen same VSTs and copy midi data in next reels ?

Or Make a copy of project
Rename it into next reel and use the readymade canvas for the next reel ?

( If possible )How to copy midi data from one project to another for selected instruments ?

( one thing i noticed,
When i increase project tempo Some sounds get affected but some doesn't. I think the sounds in jingles section has no effect of Project tempo change or Key change on it. )

Sorry too many questions in an unorganised way. but i am glad you are making video for it.

[TheJTK]

I just want to know where there are short films or anything really that I can download to practice scoring. I prefer darker, more dramatic types of emotions but I am completely new to this. I do compose music in a few bands though and am an experienced musician but film scoring is new to me. I love it though