film/tv track length

[tcaddigan]

Speaking strictly for tracks composed for the purpose of sitting in a library, I have the following question(s).Is it a good practice to construct tracks to fit 60, 90, and 120 second lengths, or should one focus more on the tracks individual feel and let track length be damned?Discuss...My thinking is that it's easier to lengthen a short track that edit a longer one, but thats a completely un-educated opinion from someone who has not broken into the industry (yet).Sorry if this post is in the wrong place.

[slideboardouts]

Hey tcaddiganI would just keep them between 2 and 3 minutes and focus mostly on the feel of the cue. In my experience, unless you are doing custom work where the library is asking for something like bumpers ( 3-30 second interlude type pieces), they will usually ask for tracks in the 2-3 minute range. They might ask for 30 and 60 second edits but they will want the original cue to be 2-3 minutes. Also, I think that doing an instrumental TV cue that is much longer than 3 minutes is sort of a waste of time. Unless you are asked specifically to do something like a 7 minute piece, you probably aren't going to get your cue played for even a full 3 minutes. Next time you watch TV pay attention to how long they play each cue. Most probably hover around the 15-30 second range.If I did orchestral music I might be more inclined to write pieces that are over 3 minutes. Sometimes the History channel seems to go with one piece for a segment and play it for a while. But, I don't do orchestral music so I'm really not sure about that.HTHSteve