Scoring a scene

[mazz]

I've been asked to score a scene from an indie film as a kind of audition. I'd really like to land this gig for a lot of reasons.Thought I'd put it out there to see how those of you that have scored films or want to would approach it.I won't get in to specifics but the film is a psychological thriller. The scene has no sound or dialog whatsoever, although it will have sound (foley) for the bulk of it and dialog at the end, probably after the music ends. It's about 2 minutes long.What is your strategy when watching a scene like this? Do you watch it over and over or do you start writing immediately? How do you get your ideas? Do you do a tempo map? Mark out hit points? What else.........?Thought it might be fun to see how different composers deal with this situation.Cheers!!Mazz

[zink]

Hey Mazz,I usually watch the scene a bunch of times before I play a note, just trying to get an overall impression. I'll also sit at the piano while I'm watching the scene, and play along, getting my ideas together, and deciding on what i want to hit, (and/or deciding on how I'm going to hit the spots that the director pointed out). As far as actually mapping out the tempos, hits, etc. early, that depends on what kind of music I'm writing. If it's something with a lot of space and rubato, then I don't worry too much about it too early. If it's something with more a beat, then I approach it early. There's no right or wrong way- whatever works for you.Something else that is really useful (to me at least) is to think about who's perspective you're scoring. The same scene could have totally different music depending on who's eye's your looking through.... A good example of this is the scene in AI when the mother is leaving the robot kid in the woods. From her perspective it would be heart-breaking, but the story's about the kid, so the music is frantic and confused.Hope this is useful.Good luckZ.