When to use music in film

J

Josiah

New member
Hey guys! I have a quick question. Is there a rule of thumb when adding music to a film? Like when good times would be to not have music vs when to have music? I'm transitioning from just making promos to making short films. Promos just have one piece of music, so its a totally new thing for me to transition between pieces. How is that for films with hardly any dialogue? I just want to keep from having too much music in the film? What do you guys do?

I appreciate any tips or suggestions you guys can offer. Thanks so much for your time! You guys are AMAZING!
All the best,
Josiah
 
It's all personal/subjective taste. Some movies have a music bed ALL THE TIME in every scene, basically telling you how to feel every moment for everything on screen, some have no music at all, some have music intermittently, and I specifically remember some interview about the Godfather where whoever it was (Walter Murch, the editor maybe?) talking about how they chose to put the music AFTER the thing happened that it was underscoring. For example someone gets murdered or something, and then the music comes in after. No rules. I prefer not having a bed all the time as I think it's heavy handed and trying to hard (e.g. "30 Rock").
 
Most big budget films don't score constantly through a film. I find it really distracting when there is a LOT of music and especially when it's loud. This is almost always low budget films where they are trying to cover the lack of sound post or some really dodgy production sound.

I edit (sound) with out the music playing at all. Once the film works with no score then I will bring in the score. If you have a composer then you should try to get them and your sound editor in a room and talk about the sound plot of the film. Other wise both will be covering everything and it's a "battle" in the mix. Much better if they pick their spots and don't step on each others toes. If you have the time you may want to do the sound edit before sending it to the composer so they know what it sounds like filled in.

David Lynch said once that he liked to use sound for scary and tense situations but found that sound alone had a really hard time with joy and happy, so that is where he tended to use more score.

But in the end it's completely your call. There are great films packed with score and great ones with no score at all.
 
Noiz2 said:
This is almost always low budget films where they are trying to cover the lack of sound post or some really dodgy production sound.
There are great films packed with score and great ones with no score at all.
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1) That's something we see often indeed. Usually, the music is louder than the dialog and it's pretty boring. I, personally, find it boring as Engish isn't my native language, so I'm having hard times to understand the dialog...
2) I totally second that. I'd add: if the music adds to the picture while not stealing anything, then go for it. Otherwise, drop the idea.
 
Josiah said:
Is there a rule of thumb when adding music to a film?
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You use music - either score or source music - when it's needed. Unfortunately, everyone has a different opinion as to when music is needed.

One of the things that I have seen all too often is filmmakers using score/music to correct and/or substitute for any number of problems with the project - poor acting, or a loose script, or ___________ (fill in the blank), etc., etc., etc. Music is supposed to enhance the film, not be a bandaid to fix problems.
 
My main rule is to use less than I want to. I love movie music and used to put in too much. It didn't hit me till I noticed others using too much. It's hard to see it in your own baby. "Yuck, they used way too much music in this. Hey, wait a minute. . . ."

Another thing that tipped me off was movies that I liked that suddenly I noticed that there was no music in scenes where I would have put it. Like in a terrific fight scene or harrowing confession. They could have put music in it, but it works fine without. You don't even notice unless you're analyzing the movie for film technique. And even for the movie itself, it has music in other scenes just like this one. In the other action scene, there was music, but in this one there isn't. It's like they're flipping a coin.

And I think flipping a coin is not too far off. I think one pattern I was getting from it all is simple alternation. If you had music in the last scene, don't have it in this one. Contrast. If there has been no music and then some fades up, especially at the right moment, it's more powerful. If it's music from beginning to end, it can be tiring.

I had trouble deciding to answer this post, because I would normally not ask such a question. But maybe that's me. I don't ask other people's opinions about decisions that are artistic. I do what I like. I'll ask technical questions like "Hey how do I light the person so that they're in silhouette while the people around them aren't?" But here's how I learned filmmaking. I did this just naturally. I didn't plan it. Maybe it will work for you, maybe it won't:

1. Watch movies I like over and over.
2. Notice which scenes are my favorites, and watch them over and over. Do it for fun, don't try to analyze them, but if anything about them strikes you, that's okay, file it away.
3. When the scenes start to feel stale, get more analytical and try to figure out why they work so well.
4. Try the techniques in your own movies. Or don't. By now they are so much a part of you that you'll imitate them unconsciously.
 
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A couple of things that also factor in.

A lot of picture editors like to cut to music. They will put in temp score to kind of set the pace and use it to help them with the flow. It is actually really useful. Then directors get used to seeing the film with music everywhere, so it can be hard to get them to let go of that when going into sound. That is why I try to have no score in the mix till late. I will send them temp mixes with no score. That way they get to hear it with out a few times. There will always be scenes where they really miss the emotion that some piece of music gives a scene but they also usually find some they like with out score.

But if you don't use score you do need to do a decent job on the sound post. The production tracks on their own will never sound "finished" unless you are going for a real grungy indi sound. If I sent then edited production tracks they would be running to the music library.

And there is score and then there is practical music. Technically I believe American Graffiti has no "score", but the film has near constant practical music. The upside to practical music is that you can always have a character turn it off or on and it can seem less heavy handed since they are naturally going to play something that emotionally relates to their feelings.

Personally I don't like music on fight scenes, or big action sequences. For one thing those are the times a sound editor really gets to go for it, but I also find it almost always heavy handed. It's a scene where you really don't need to tell the audience what is going on so why use it?

but I think composers feel a bit the same way. It's also a place where they can let out all the stops. I did work on a film where they kind of did both. There was music that kind of set up the battle and some after but the big action part was all FX. That worked really well I thought.
 
The Hunt for Red October is, I think, a good one to study. While most movies, if they have music anywhere, have it at the very beginning, The Hunt for Red October does not.


The movie begins in near silence. Nevertheless there is music: the blow of the wind, the splash of the sea, the low hum of the sub motor, the slow discussion of the captain and his officer. If you listen carefully, these sounds are in fact arranged as music. The horn of the tug boat comes in as punctuation. Music finally does come in, but it shows what I said before, that if you start without it in a scene, it is more powerful when it finally does come in.

In another scene from the same film, it also begins without music, and then music comes in. This time, though, there is already a bit of noise. The repeating sonar pings have the same effect as heartbeats in the soundtrack. It adds tension. This is loosely connected to the practical music Noiz2 was talking about.


This scene has so many other things going on, unrelated to this thread, but I want to mention them here. First, it shows how a scene has a beginning, middle, and end, just as a whole film does. Just as a film has a build-up, climax, and resolution, so does this scene. Second, this scene shows how camera work, music, and editing can work together. At the beginning, the shots are static. At a certain point, there is a turn, the beginning of the climax. Notice how not only the music comes in then but also the style of camerawork changes. The music is moving you, and the camera is moving you, you are literally flying all around the set. You are soaring physically just as the director wants you also to be soaring emotionally.
 
Well to be fair while I agree that the first one is mostly scored with FX the music and choir are in virtually from the start, they are just low. You can start to hear the music at 12 sec and the choir is pretty clear by 19 sec.

Interesting in the second. You hear heartbeat and I read that as prop wash, doesn't really matter it is doing the same thing. And notice that it slowly grows in volume. That with the speed up in the pings starts to make your heart beat faster, giving the audience a physical reaction that you really can't get otherwise.

The poster child "scored with sound" film is Once Upon a Time in the West, that opens with a long scene with no dialog or music. Actually the sister film Once Upon a Time in America also has a fantastic opening sequence that is all about sound, though there maybe some music in the sequence.
 
It's a recipe that is unique for each situation. There can be no absolute rule, only guidelines to ignore if you are an expert.
 
No country had no score but it did have some practical music. I was thinking "There Will be Blood", but it is scored it just has no dialog for the first 20 min. or so. In the opening section it's actually really hard to tell what is score and what was sound design. It's scored mainly in "sound" but I'm not sure who did it. I have seen sections like that what were all sound design, but it might have been the composer adding the tonal bits? Once Upon A Time in the West was "scored" in that opening but the composer used sounds that fit to do the scoring. So it's sound design but done by the composer.

The line when you start bring in things like that into the scoring gets very blurry between what is sound design and what is score.
 
One of my favorite movies, "Day of the Jackal" (the original 1973 version with Edward Fox) has long stretches with no music (and no dialog, either, for that matter).
 
I'll have to check but I think Grand Prix also has just sounds in the race sequences.

Things go in and out of style so it's a moving target. When I was doing a lot of Ad's we were getting hired because the "full Hollywood soundtrack" was the big thing and a lot of our national spots had no music except maybe if there was a logo snippet. Then they all got cheap and moved production to overseas, and cut way back on post and started covering everything in music again.
 
My favorite 'TV' series, HBO's Deadwood, most episodes had no music, except in the opening intro titles and closing credits. And many of the closing songs were from that time period (circa l870).
 
I never noticed but your right.

Also many TV shows in the 70's that were "live" on a stage like All in the Family didn't use any score.
 
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