Scoring Films On a Shoestring Budget

Efficient writing workflow

Writing a feature score (or even a short) can feel quite daunting. There are a lot of minutes of music to write, which can feel overwhelming. But there are things you can do to ease the load and make things go more quickly and efficiently.

I like to find key scenes where I need to use my themes and start with those. I try to pick the longest and/or most climactic or pivotal scenes and start there. Once I’ve done that, I can then copy/paste the cue to all the other spots that require that same theme and see how it works. Often there are at least a few cues where all I really need to do is edit the cue to fit picture and make some tweaks or rearrange or re-orchestrate. So instead of starting from scratch, I will simply save a copy of the cue as a new cue, and make the adjustments allowing me to create new cues very quickly. You may even be able to create an edit using audio stems and simply write a new intro our outro, or add an overlay to create something very fast. Below are some samples of what I mean.

1943 – this opening cue for the award-winning short film by the same name too me a few hours to write.

Fireside Chat – this shorter closing cue from 1943 took me about 20 minutes to create. I simply started with a copy of my 1943 opening cue which I lined up to where it needed to start near the end of the film. I then did some editing to make it fit the duration and then adjusted the arrangement and orchestration as needed.

Lost Time – this opening cue to the short film Lost Time took me about two hours to create the first version and another 2 or 3 hours working on revisions and adding the live violin.

Catch the Groove – the director wanted the music at the end of the Lost Time to bookend with the beginning. It only took me about half an hour to create this cue by re-using the opening cue, editing it to fit and then re-working the orchestration, arrangement and mix.

When working on longer cues that incorporate multiple themes, consider splitting them up into sections. That way you can use the above save-as method to quickly create the different sections and you may even only need to write some transition bars from one section to the next. Again this can be done using your DAW’s MIDI sequences or perhaps by re-using audio stems and not even bothering with the MIDI. Below is my end credit suite from Matt & Maya as a demo of this concept.

I was concerened that we might not have enough time to record the entire suite, so I intentionally wrote it using huge chunks from other cues. I made slight variations, but had we not had the time, I could have simply copy/pasted those sections from the other cues. On the score I indicated which bars corresponded to which bars in other cues, and which bars were a must to record in order to have the bits and pieces needed to create the suite. Thankfully we ended up being able to record the whole thing, but you can follow along with the score and see all my indications of how to build this suite if we couldn’t record it all. Click here for a PDF of the score so you can follow along with the audio below.

Note on page 4 I indicate I must record B43-57. On page 5 I indicate the corresponding bars from the cues that these bars are based on (basically copy/paste with slight variations). On page 6 again I indicate I must record B72-end. I could have simply recorded B43-57 & 72-end and edited the rest together from existing cues if I needed to.

If you have a great groove, background patter or percussive loop you’ve come up with, consider reusing them rather than re-creating them or writing new similar ones. Often you can just take something you’ve already done and build on it writing new material on top to quickly create a cue that’s related yet different and original.

#morning_jog – In my score to #follow_friday I wrote this groove-based cue for a cue fully intending to re-use that groove in an earlier cue. I wrote this cue first because it was longer.

#tweet_for_tat – After writing #morning_jog (above) I did a save-as, and quickly edited the groove to create the basis for this cue. I then simply reworked the arrangement a bit and finished it off (incidentally the latter part of the cue is also taken from another cue). I think it took me less than 20 minutes to create this one.

If you’re going to record live musicians, you can save a lot of time and expense by reusing material so you only have to record it once, and then you can edit the recording to fit within other cues as needed. Make sure the tempo is the same and keep the same key, though I’ve had success pitch-shifting recordings up or down up to a step (sometimes more) so I can use the material even if it’s in a different key. Here’s an examples where I only recorded guitars for the cue titled Archery Competition from the upcoming film The Message, but was able to re-use them by pitch-shifting at the end of the cue Let’s Cross Together.

Archery Competition – I recorded guitars for this track from The Message.

Let’s Cross Together – this cue required a rewrite for the ending after I had already recorded all the guitars. As you can hear the ending is based on the cue Archery Competition and I simply edited the guitars to fit and pitch-shifted them up a minor third.

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