scoring Vs. Dof low bugdet!!!

I've been playing, writing music for around 40 years now. Scoring for film is still a specialized field set apart from song. I'm not skilled in it. Can it be done? yes, how well? it depends upon who decides what's "good." 99.9 % of our projects will go nowhere, so if this is the case do your own score, but don't expect a miracle. If by chance your project has legs, strip off the score track and have someone put a real piece to it.
 
10s said:
I've been playing, writing music for around 40 years now. Scoring for film is still a specialized field set apart from song. I'm not skilled in it. Can it be done? yes, how well? it depends upon who decides what's "good." 99.9 % of our projects will go nowhere, so if this is the case do your own score, but don't expect a miracle. If by chance your project has legs, strip off the score track and have someone put a real piece to it.
Click to expand...


I like that advice... most projects due end up no where... maybe a few film festivals for it but that could be as far as it goes.. that's why I was thinking about scoring it myself .. colaborating could be a great thing but it also could go horribly wrong and become a head ache , or sometimes you just don't see eye to eye with some people and you don't want to waist their time , I've had other people score my film in the past ( they were not pros) and I always thought to myself " I would have done it differently"


Its just like if you had someone else edit your film and it didn't come out as good as you hoped .... you always think to yourself "I would have done it differntly"
 
The simple question is this, whats your music like? Do you have some demos? If you've never scored a film before don't do it. Even someone with lots of musical experience, their first film score is usually not as good as you'd think. I score my own films but I have scored around 20 short films, 2 video games, and a feature. The only reason I do it is not because I want to do everything myself, it's just I love doing it, and I was a composer before I got into filmmaking.

A good writer might not necessarily write a good screenplay first up either. But it's 10 times harder for someone who's never written a thing to write a screenplay.

Get a composer.You'll find someone who can do it for free or cheap! Listen to the others. Put up an ad on mandy etc. I think you'd be surprised just how many composers would work for free.

Composer-directors score their own films. If you are not a composer...then don't score it.

Honestly, if your project has a good chance of getting anywhere - a bad score and bad sound will just ruin it.

You need to talk with the composer before you start. Have long chats. Good composers like to talk through ideas, share samples, etc. before work gets done.

You are basically saying, in the past that people scored your film and you just kind of accepted it the way it was, not what you intended, and that's it. That's not how this works. If your actor gives you a bad performance on set, you don't keep going and then after the film was released say "my actors didn't do what I wanted".
 
Last edited:
I am alittle confused... if you score your own films and love it , why are you telling me not to do it?... I would think you at one time had the exact idea that I'm having... I understand that I'm not going to compose one of the greatest film scores of all time right now.. but it is a good time to start learning it.. and just as filmmaking was frustrating in the begining it got easier and I learned to love it.
 
I'm saying I score my own films but ONLY because I have spent the last 5 years practicing how to do it. On top of that I've been playing piano for 10 years, guitar, drums, bass, etc. I started making films after I was scoring them.

I wouldn't try and be the lead VFX artist on my film after only a few months of after effects. Because it'd make my film look bad...instead I find someone who has been doing it for a few years, isn't a pro but can do it way better than I can, and in the end I get a better result.

If you think you are capable of doing the score yourself, by all means, do it! I'm totally for that. But I'm just saying, if you don't have any music under your belt then I think you are making a mistake.

Let's say you buy the software, and some good sound samples. You still have the learning curve of mastering the software, learning about your sample library and all the things you need to do to really make it sing (this can take months, years, who knows!), and then you have to learn how to write it for a film which is a completely different thing altogether.

I wasn't in the same situation as you, in that, I'd already spent a few years just writing music for fun, for practice, then I decided to do my first film score. And it wasn't that great...even though I'd been doing it for a few years...it would have been terrible if it was the first music I'd ever written as well as my first film score (two different things).

But anyway, if you can do it -- then go ahead, I'm just saying there's nothing wrong with getting a composer to do it for you, while you learn the craft a bit, then later on, after writing some music, you can start scoring your own films.

Completely up to you though - for all we know you could pull together something really great, and I'm sure you can! I don't want to be the skeptic coming in and saying what you need to do, but I'm just saying for something as sensitive as audio and music, you want to make sure you can make it good...Of course it depends what this film is for, and how many people will see it, etc. if you feel you can do a good job, then do it yourself, it will save you a lot of hassle and time dealing with a composer. Just be realistic and know that if you're doing it yourself and it's not working out -- then there's always that option for you.
 
Last edited:
Well I appreciate the advice... I maybe working with a composer on this one for now , but I still want to learn to score film.. It is one of the most usefull skills to have... Any suggestions on good software ( other than pro tools) good beginer software?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top