How I Won a Film Scoring Contest

Let's dive in to my winning submission from the Indie Film Music Contest earlier this year! In it, I'll explain how I structured the score to best fit the story of the film.

If you're short on time and want to get to the nitty gritty:

03:35 - Walkthrough of the video without music and my thoughts

13:04 - Walkthrough of the video with my music

21:22 - In depth look at orchestration of main hit points

Huge thanks to Zac Prosser for the edit and helping a YouTube newb like me actually make something!

[jessehaugen]

Watch through to the end for a surprise!

[iamfrankbiesta]

Hi Jesse. Just a quick update two years after watching this youtube video by you. This is the one video that inspired me to try my hand at film scoring. And over the past two years I have scored about 15 short films and documentairies. If it wasn't for your video this would never have happened. So a really big thank you for allowing me a glimpse into your scoring process. I absolutely love scoring films and - from what I hear from others - my writing and orchestration skills have vastly improved over the past 2 years. So thanks again for starting me on this incredible journey of writing music.

[QuinnAden]

You had me at the John Williams joke in the beginning, watched until the last second. Incredible work, bravo...well deserved first place!

[romulus_music]

Even though the story's not necessarily sad, you definitely had me tearing up at some parts. That was incredible. The heroic horns gave me HTTYD vibes, while the strings and piano totally had that Ghibli feel! Thank you for breaking down your scoring process too. Learned quite a bit!

[sonnenreinmusic]

This was the most inspiring and the most helpful tutorial I've seen for a long time. What a beautiful piece of music you wrote there!
Thank 's for this video!

[kerserzthescientist]

Love this - definitely has Indie/ Ghibli vibes .❤

[virgilebeats]

so many great lessons from this video, especially making the high points purposefully smaller to allow the next ones to be bigger. Thank you

[fishoscine]

Just wanted to say. This is my 3rd time watching this, this year!
It's so incredibly informative. There's so little tutorials online about spotting for emotional storying writing.
Thank you so much. I know this isn't my last time watching this either.

[billellis]

"Because I'm basic and there's snow." Delightful 😅

[FrankBrickle]

YouTube videos of this kind usually have waaay too much talking and not enough music, however crude or fragmentary. This one is a real exception. It's very informative to get a blow-by-blow of your thinking.

[andikasavana]

i've been watching hans zimmer masterclass but its different, so emotional and very amazing session, thanks man!

[Liquidhun]

Well, Jesse...it was amazing. I would see more in depth details about layering, and building up harmonicly the peaks, each instrumental section one by one. You showed it, but it was too short for me. Amazing structure, and musicly light. Hope we'll hear about You and your scores more.

[caitlinwillismusic]

Really awesome Jesse! "I also put sleigh-bells here because I'm basic and their's snow" BUT IT WORKS SO WELL haha!

[pigtowndanzee]

Genuinely excellent work on this. Such an inspirational example of using music elements to complement and tell a story. Honestly I think better than like 90% of main stream film scores I hear today.

[kiphenderson]

Dude this is great. Love hearing about your process.

[sielsounds]

This tear jerked me!! Beautiful writing! And I really enjoyed hearinf you talk through your thoughts.

[JMnyJohns]

Very helpful. Especially seeing that you add complexity and movement with additions and subtraction of timbres - you aren't throwing complex meter or runs at it. Perfectly executed yet fairly straightforward. Appreciated.

[koopylupa]

Wow this is so great. Made me smile the whole way through and just enforced my feeling of wanting to become a composer. Thank you so much. Great work!!!

[DJayFreeDoo]

I couldn't imagine this soundtrack any better. I'm in a competition myself now and im not experienced in scoring at all. I just make regular electronic four to the floor stuff and some experiments. I hope i don't have to compete with someone on your level. You need more views! :P

[elektronlp]

I love to come back to this video from time to time ... ah the music and how you explain your choices on how to tell the story is so amazing...realy great