Music for Movies: How to Score a Scene Step By Step

Oscar nominated composer Javier Navarrete did a class a while ago for some of our top students. They just scored on a scene, then Javier gives them notes, they do the rewrites, they go back and forth a few times, but a couple of the students they were like, I've never scored a movie, I've never scored a scene, how do I do this? And so I did a live class explaining composing live music for a movie, for a scene. That's what you're going to see in this video. I'm going to start from scratch. Please don't look at my template. I'm going to load on a scene here that I've never scored. The goal is to hopefully explain the things that I'm thinking about when I'm scoring a scene. So let's get started. I think the least important part is the actual notes that you write. The most important thing is the concept itself. The scoring, like the writing the music to picture is not the hard part. That is the kind of like the mechanical or like it's just the craft. But truly the most important part is the concept. Let's do this. I'm going to load a scene here. Hey mom, what's up? Hi, you guys were in an accident. Do you remember? Baby, I'm so sorry. It's cool. I feel all right. A little headache, but I'm good. Whatever dope they gave me is totally working. I can barely feel my legs. The doctor said it was a lower spinal injury. It's something called a severed L5, which is why you're numb from the waist down. It's just temporary, right? Right. There's just no way of knowing at this time. But hopefully you'll improve. Step music. Sweetheart, it's okay. Okay, it's good. It's gonna be okay, sweetie. Come on, sweetheart. Come on. No, it's not right. Honey, come on. Come on. It's gonna be okay. What are you telling me? It's gonna be okay. My legs. Will you stop shushing me? Honey, I... So the most important part, come up with the concept. First of all, identify the style or emotion. It doesn't need to be like a style, a cliche. Just identify the emotion. What's going on, right? Just take a look at the scene. Try to understand what's going on. So identifying the style or the emotion is what is going to help us start thinking about what are we gonna do musically, right? So maybe the scene is very simple. There's a turn. It's like, okay, here's this emotion, right? This sadness. But then here there's a little bit of jealousy going on here, right? So there's a turn. So maybe musically is where the music can change. So that's very important, right? Because all these decisions that we are taking here is based on what we think. But also, depending on what the filmmaker wants, that can change everything, right? I generally tend to keep things very subtle, right? But sometimes they tell me, no, no, you know, more. So what would be the next step? First of all, getting rid of the temp track. Temp track, kind of like, I think it comes kind of like in the right place. Not exactly. When does it come in? When he realizes what's going on. There's just no way of knowing at this time. But hopefully you'll... I think it should come in a little bit later, in my opinion. To me, it's very important the... Generally, I look at the eyes. You know, it would be like right here. The music comes in at the cut. I would come in a little bit more subtle. So the first thing that I would do is I have the dialogue. And so I'm going to drag dialogue here. What you'll see here is that I also have the sound effects in this particular track. The only sound effect is the beep that we've got here that is not in the dialogue. So I'm not going to import it. Usually I like dividing Cubase in two. I can just this little button here and it's going to divide. Maybe out here I have my instruments and up here I will have the other stuff. What this allows me to do is to scroll down down here, which at the moment I don't need to because I just have one track. But I can scroll down and then here it always stays the same. The next thing that I like to have here is the markers, the tempo, the time signature and a few more things. Sometimes the notes or things like chord changes and things like this. Let's come up with the concept first. You guys were in an accident. Do you remember? Baby, I'm so sorry. It's cool. I feel all right. A little headache, but I'm good. When coming up with the concept, I also like to try things to make sure that this concept. So what I'm seeing so far is like it could be just one note, like texturally evolve as well for, you know, for following what's going on in the scene. And maybe kind of like come, you know, bringing the theme at the right time when he realizes or, you know, but I still don't know where the music would come in. Whatever they gave me is totally working. I can barely feel my legs. There's a point here where he says I can barely feel my legs. That could be a cue in as well. That's the moment where, you know, it's more obvious. We realize that. Oh, it's like, oh, man, he doesn't know. But we know we do. Like we feel like it's very easy to understand what's going on. And this is the moment where you understand how bad this is. They gave me. It's totally working. I can barely feel my legs. Here could be a good moment as well for the music to come in. All these things you've discussed with the director already in the spotting session, by the way, that you can change things. Or here you could also as well, because she's worried. Mom is like, man, you destroyed the life of, you know, my kid's life. And those are just, you know, we're just testing things. They're still coming up with the concept. I'm not even composing. I think I'm going to start earlier where the tempo starts. It's going to be very static. It's going to be either like a pad sound design, like a synth pad or like string sound like this. You're going to be textural development. There are two important moments when he realizes what just happened. And when he kind of like accepts what just happened, which is here towards the end after the stop shushing me. He stopped shushing me. And he's like, oh man. There exactly when he opens his eyes. So marker. So one marker here. Maybe we're going to where the music is going to come in. We still haven't decided. The doctor said it was a lower spinal injury. It's something called a severed L5. Look at this. See the eyes. The eyes, Chico. They never lie. The eyes. This is a cue for the music to come in. It's something called a severed L5, which is. I think a little bit later. That's when he was like, what? There, boom. I think we're going to come in there. So here's where we're going to set the marker. You see, boom. Severed L5, which is why you're numb from the waist down. It's just temporary, right? Right. There's just no way of knowing at this time, but hopefully you'll improve. You know, that kind of like worked. So I'm going to leave it there. Then kind of resolves. I still have to set the tempo. By the way, these type of scenes where there's not much motor going on. You don't even need to set the tempo. If you are not recording with an orchestra, just write a couple of lines here, there. Textural development and your, you know, your go. If you don't need any pulse or things like this. From the waist down. It's just temporary, right? These kind of like notes of the resolves here. It should resolve when we change, boom, here. It's just temporary, right? Right. This moment is very uncomfortable. We can make it a little bit more uncomfortable. Let's see. It's going to be okay, sweetie. Sweetheart. No, it's not. It's not right. Please stop. It's not. Come on. It's going to be okay. What are you telling me? It's going to be okay. My legs. Will you stop? It's not perfect. It's a little bit too dark. So more markers. At the stop, the music is on a stop. So we're going to have a marker here. Music stops. And here the music has to kind of like relax a little bit. So I don't think it's like compassion, but it's like coming. Here's where the theme would come in. I think we should be like, obviously we don't have a theme for the movie. Here's where the end. We're just setting the elements. Then we're going to work hard, but that's kind of like craftsmanship. What comes after this? This is like the, if you can come up with a good concept that works, then everything else is easy, right? What I'm doing here, maybe it's not genius, but I'm just kind of like emulating what, in my opinion, should be done before actually starting composing. All right. So we were here. Obviously it would come in a little bit earlier. I want it to come in when here, right? When we see here. So there will be a marker here as well. It's going to say theme. And these things are very important that they come in at the exact right time when syncing things, right? You know, setting the tempo. So the downbeat of the next bar, it syncs with the, with the marker, et cetera. If something has to come a little bit earlier than the other thing, generally the video, if the music comes in earlier, like a frame or two frames earlier, usually it feels a little bit weird. There are exceptions, but generally that's how it goes. Video comes in, the music hits two frames later. No problem. That's pretty common. It's like the music reacts to the picture kind of thing, but in a very subtle subconscious way. We're talking frames, not, it's not like a second. So we'd have the theme. So then, then I think the second note, if this was the theme, I think we would have to hit... Let's see. So what we're going to do, then the strings would do something like... Here, because here's where he realized that there are two emotions. Let's see if we can hit this, got the acceptance and then kind of like the rage or like the matter being very mad at what, you know, the girlfriend did. Transition. Right. And this could be very like TV stinger type of thing. Obviously a bit bigger than this. I'm just, again, doing the sketch. So I kind of like did the sketch. I did it to kind of like try the things of like the concept to see if the concept works. And it's like, okay, yes, this works. And now I could either get rid of this or print this to audio maybe. And then recompose the whole thing. There are different ways to approach this. Let's see the scene with this one more time. It was a lower spinal injury. It's something called a severed L5, which is why you're numb from the waist down. It's just temporary, right? Right. There's just no way of knowing at this time, but hopefully you'll improve. That's a mistake. Sweetheart, it's okay. Okay, it's gonna be okay, sweetie. So we're gonna need some music here. What I would do here is if we had a theme, which is... So if we had a theme, I would kind of like expand this theme in this section here. But hopefully you'll improve. That's a mistake. Sweetheart, it's okay. Okay, it's gonna be okay, sweetie. Sweetheart. No, it's not right. Please stop. Come on, it's gonna be okay. What are you telling me? It's gonna be okay. My leg's not... Will you stop shushing me? All right, so I see problems. Harmonically, I would keep all the themes in the same key all the time. I don't need to, you know, modulate or anything like that. So I don't have to change this. But I think structurally it works. What we need to have is kind of like a slow theme coming in. There's just no way of knowing at this time, but hopefully... Here, when he starts realizing basically he was a promising star, a promising athlete, and then his life is completely destroyed. So this is the first time where, you know, this happened. He realizes, oh, so here's the first time we're gonna have the theme. So the theme is gonna come in a little bit earlier. Not here, but actually here. So it's gonna come in here. I'm gonna have to do this marker here. So we've got these markers. We've got music in a slow theme because it's like the first time. Then we've got music stops here for the don't shush me. Then we've got the theme coming in again. And then acceptance. And then kind of like here stinger, right? And then end, boom. The next step would be to set the tempo. If I was working on this movie and, you know, this kind of like starts working, I would have to change things and start orchestrating and make it truly work. And then the production side of things. But it's very slow. I don't need tempo. This would slow me down. I would do this, you know, free tempo. I would add these musical elements on top. It's like if you have a drone, like a scene of the drone or like a scene from beginning to end, why do you need to set tempo, right? If it's textural and it's very slow, why do you need to set the perfect tempo? You just can't do it as a composer, right? And if that is the final sound, right? There's not going to be recording top or someone needs a click. Why do you need to do the tempo? What you need is the result. And the result is that you need to deliver the best music you can as fast as possible and spend as much time as possible to improve what the music needs to do for the movie. And so if instead of spending time on setting the perfect tempo for a scene like this, I can spend more time perfecting what the music is doing dramatically for this scene, then that's what I would spend the time on. And then also maybe saves me time so I can spend in a more complicated cue.