The Role of Music in Film
For someone who spent from the age of about 14 to 27 working towards, and then having, a career as a professional musician and composer, music is one of the subjects I’ve written the least about on this blog. It’s also an area that I’ve probably spent the least amount of time training my teams on over the years.
The simplest explanation for this is that it’s just often been easier for me to personally do all the music composition, music supervision & editing, and music producing when I’ve worked with other composers, instead of teaching other people what I know and allowing them to do it themselves. Admittedly, I’d have probably been a better team lead over the years had I imparted more of this information, but my goal with the next series of posts on the “How to Create” Blog is to remedy this oversight.
I’ll lay out some of the most important aspects of composing or selecting music for film and how to edit that music to fit perfectly into your project.
We’ll get into the technical details and I’ll offer a lot of practical advice on both of those subjects over the next few posts, but first let’s start at the beginning and talk about the incredibly powerful role music plays in cinema and why it works (or doesn’t work) to enhance a story.
A Brief History of Film Music
There are a number of fantastic books and documentaries that cover this subject in far more detail than I need to get into here, but even before the advent of synchronized sound and magnetic strips embedded into film prints, music was always a part of cinema.
To an extent, the use of music in the earliest movies was just an outgrowth of the way music had been used to accentuate the drama of live theater — especially operas, light opera & operettas, music dramas, and so on — for a couple centuries. In fact, most of the music used during the Silent Era from around 1895 to 1928 (ie. The General, Nosferatu, Metropolis) was repurposed from existing compositions.
Books like Erno Rapee’s “Motion Picture Moods” (1924) featured sheet music for pianists or organists to use as accompaniment to various types of silent film scenes — mostly selected compositions from composers such as Beethoven, Grieg, Schumann, Wagner, Chopin, etc. That book also contains a number of children’s songs, folk songs, and national anthems, to account for other kinds of dramatic situations likely to pop up in movies.
“Motion Picture Moods” is incredible because Rapee carefully indexed the sheet music by the type of action or mood he thought it would be most useful for, and each page of the book replicates that index in the margins so finding appropriate music for an upcoming scene would be easy for the house musician working at a movie theater.
For example, if you were a pianist who needed to accompany a scene involving a railroad, you might turn to page 612 and find Wagner’s “Spinning Song” from Der Fliegende Holländer.
Or if you wanted something “sinister”, you’d be directed to Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture on page 663.
Of course, this approach gave a ton of autonomy to the individual pianists and organists working at silent theaters, which meant that the viewing experience for audiences could vary massively — not only from theater to theater, but even from day to day, depending on which musician was performing with the film at a given screening.
So in order to combat this problem, filmmakers started sending out recommended music cues to accompany their films and eventually commissioned composers to write music explicitly for their films — such as Gottfried Huppertz’ Wagnerian score for Fritz Lang’s 1927 masterpiece, Metropolis.
But that score was only performed in sync with the film publicly one time, at its premiere.
For the most part, people who saw Metropolis when it was first released saw it with whatever music their local movie-house pianist wanted to play, and because it’s officially considered a “silent movie”, there are a number of other quasi-official scores people have created to be displayed with the film since it was released nearly a century ago.
Fortunately, once Warner Brothers released the first official “talkie” — The Jazz Singer (1927), starring Al Jolson — they ushered in the era of sound film, which created new possibilities for filmmakers to take more control over the music associated with their films.
For the next few decades, a small number of composers created the scores to some of the most important and popular films of the 1930s-1950s — Alfred Newman (Wuthering Heights, Tin Pan Alley, The Mark of Zorro), Erich Korngold (The Adventures of Robin Hood, Captain Blood), Franz Waxman (Sunset Blvd., The Bride of Frankenstein), Max Steiner (Gone with the Wind, King Kong, Casablanca), Miklós Rózsa (Ben Hur, Double Indemity, Madam Bovary), and so on.
A lot of the music from this “Golden Age of Hollywood” sounds about like what you’d expect from composers who were usually classically trained and heavily influenced by late Romantic-era orchestral music and opera.
While it’s frequently melodic and very well orchestrated, it’s also (in many cases) extremely reminiscent of the overtures and dramatic music written by the composers I mentioned above, whose work dominated the silent era.
Listening back on a lot of the scores by early Hollywood composers (eg. Max Steiner) with modern ears can, in my opinion, be challenging for a lot of people because of how “in your face” the music tends to be. Much of it would have made more sense in the context of a concert hall or live theatrical performance, and — like a lot of the on-screen acting from the same time period — it can feel a little bit melodramatic.
But it all set the stage for what we think of as “movie music”, today. And as we get into the 1950s and 60s, film music starts to loosen up in the same way that the films themselves did — drawing on more diverse influences and innovating new techniques.
Take, for example, Leonard Bernstein’s percussive and jazz-influenced score to On the Waterfront (1954):
Or Bernard Hermann’s amazing, Igor Stravinski-like score to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1959 classic, North by Northwest:
Over time, filmmakers, actors, and composers alike all started to realize that cinema could afford to be more nuanced and subtle than the stage-performances and vaudevillian shows the first generation of movies were modeled on, and by the later part of mid-20th century the cinematic arts really started to mature.
Actors could convey emotion with a look or a gesture; writers started to think about movies very differently from plays; and composers moved away from their European operatic roots, now incorporating elements from modernist and minimalist aesthetics, jazz and pop music, ethnic and folk music, and generally started to take a looser approach to form.
Film composers’ focus shifted away from classical, formal rules of composition towards adopting techniques that were more effective at supporting the characters’ emotions and the plot beats in the stories they were helping to tell.
Since this isn’t meant to be an essay on the history of film music, I’m not going to continue going through the decades in any particularly detailed way, but I will say that from the 1960s through the 1990s, film music evolved into a completely unique art — in part due to shifts in the ways composers thought about how they should be writing for film (chalk up a rare victory for postmodernism here), but also due to substantial developments in technology.
Global trade and international travel played a role, as it not only opened the door to more affordable and available orchestras around the world, broadened composers’ knowledge of musical styles from around the world, and improved their access to unique performers specializing in rare instruments… It also made the equipment composers often use — computers, synthesizers & sequencers, non-linear / digital editing software, microphones, instruments, etc. — a lot cheaper and better.
But most of all, the competition among composers and the dramatic increase in opportunities coming from an explosion in film production no longer limited to a small number of “Major studios” (now including Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures / Fox, and Sony / Columbia Pictures) created a wealth of new ideas and techniques that got copied and adapted by composers throughout the industry.
If you are interested in listening to some of my favorite film composers, roughly organized chronologically, I’d encourage you to check out:
Erich Korngold
Bernard Hermann
Henry Mancini
John Barry
Ennio Morricone
Jerry Goldsmith
John Williams
Ira Newborn
Randy Newman
James Horner
Danny Elfman
Randy Edelman
Joe Hisaishi
Yoko Kanno
Hans Zimmer
Howard Shore
Alan Silvestri
Alexandre Desplat
Marco Beltrami
Bear McCreary
Michael Giacchino
Ludwig Göransson
Austin Wintory
And with that… Let’s talk about how and why music is important to cinematic storytelling.
The Purpose of Music
In addition to simply sounding nice and adding aural interest to a motion picture, music has several practical uses in the context of cinema. It can:
Convey time & place
Reinforce and shape the emotion in scenes
Communicate emotional intensity to the audience
Help provide structure to the story
What’s more, music does all of this without taking up any of a film’s visual real estate; it’s abstract, so there are no significant language barriers and few cultural limitations preventing audiences from having an essentially universal experience; and because of the nature of our brains and how we process language and music separately, it doesn’t interfere with audiences’ ability to understand the dialogue or verbal parts of a film.
Like many other technical aspects of film making — cinematography, sound recording & mixing, editing — great scores are basically “invisible”, and yet at the same time, they are an exceptionally powerful tool in telling an incredible cinematic story.
So let’s get into how this actually works, starting with…
Time & Place
Since music is so intertwined with human culture, dating back (at least) tens of thousands of years; because every expression of music is a product of culture & history; and because most of us — no matter who we are or where we live — are immersed in music to one degree or another from birth, the music we hear in a film can be an amazing, near-instantaneous short cut to conveying specific context that audiences need to understand about a scene or an entire film.
The second you hear certain instruments, certain styles of music or types of sounds, or the moment you hear a specific song, you can often know exactly where and when the story is meant to take place.
Want your audience to feel like they’ve been instantly transported back to 18th-Century Austria or, alternatively, that they’re in a modern country club or fancy restaurant filled with snobby rich people?
Try Mozart.
Did somebody on screen just step off the plane on their way to a beautiful Hawaiian vacation?
The sweet sound of a ukulele should do the trick.
Are we visiting a mosque in Saudi Arabia?
It would make a lot of sense to hear an Islamic Call to Prayer, wouldn’t it?
The Old West in America?
How about some classic cowboy songs accompanied by an acoustic guitar and maybe a fiddle?
A lot of the time, all you need are the right instruments and sonic textures. For example, are the characters in your film navigating the Australian outback?
It might make sense to hear a Digeridoo.
Visiting Japan? China? Puerto Rico?
Taiko Drums. Erhus. Congas & Timbales.
Did we just step into a underground nightclub in the 90s?
I bet you’d expect to hear some cool techno or industrial tracks, right?
I’m sure you get the idea.
As a filmmaker, the more you can find or create music that is synonymous with the time and place you’re trying to convey in a scene, the less work you’ll need to do establishing the setting in other — often much more expensive — ways (ie. cars, clothes, architecture). It can also help you avoid the use of dialogue or on-screen title cards.
But this only works if you get it right. The wrong music will only confuse your audience, establishing a setting that conflicts with the one you intend.
The point is, having a broad understanding of music across cultures and at least a decent sense of music history is incredibly beneficial as a filmmaker, so if you don’t have those skills (and unless you’ve spent a lot of time attaining them, you probably don’t), then find a composer and / or a music supervisor who does — and listen to their advice.
“Film music, over the years, has taken from everybody.”
Shape & Emotion
It should go without saying that music can have a powerful affect on people’s emotions.
Sadness, angst, joy, sorrow, love… We’ve all felt the pull of these feelings while listening to music. Many people create playlists to get themselves psyched up for a challenging workout or to get over the pain of a breakup. We make mixed-tapes for our friends and loved ones to cheer them up or just to let them know how we feel about them.
Music — especially when combined with moving images, empathetic characters, and great dialogue — can reinforce the exactly feeling you want your audiences to feel.
Should they be terrified of a dangerous monster from the deep?
Should they feel the thrill of an action-packed chase?
Should they experience the feeling of falling in love?
Whatever you want your audience to feel, music — or in some cases carefully timed silence — can get them there.
But once again, there’s a trade-off.
If what’s on screen doesn’t live up to the emotional promises made by the music, what you’ll likely end up with will either be melodramatic or worse… Unintentionally funny.
In fact, composers who specialize in comedic music like Ira Newborn (who I studied with in graduate school) or Marc Shaiman deliberately use this kind of incongruity to create intentional comedy. For example, in a classic scene from the Naked Gun Two and a Half, Leslie Nielson’s bumbling police-detective character Frank Drebin is assigned to the President’s protection detail. As is fitting of such a situation, we hear James Sanderson’s “Hail to the Chief” while the President and his entourage makes its way down the White House halls. Of course, in the middle of all this pomp and circumstance, Lt. Drebin is making a mess of everything while trying to maintain his composure.
The music is effectively playing the role of the “straight man” in this scene. It reinforces the obvious gravitas of the overall scenario while Frank is busy wrecking it with silliness. It works both because of its nature (military march) and because of its cultural significance (most everyone knows the piece and knows its standard association with the US presidency).
Given the nature of the setting, the music selection is important to creating a more “serious” environment, thus deepening the contrast between the set up (a very important situation involving one of the most impressive political institutions) and the punchline (Frank’s utter ridiculousness).
Almost any other musical choice would have been less effective.
If the music chosen or written for the scene was as silly as Frank’s actions — say, if it used the Benny Hill Theme instead of “Hail to the Chief” — the goofy music would undercut that contrast, weakening the joke. It would also be the musical equivalent of a laugh track, clumsily prodding the audience to react instead of allowing them to decide for themselves how funny the scene is.
Similarly, if the rest of the scene didn’t live up to “Hail to the Chief”… If, for example, the White House set didn’t look real, the costumes weren’t accurate, and the actors weren’t believable as White House staff and guests… The music would only draw attention to how fake the setting was.
That might still get a laugh, but not the one the filmmaker intends.
The same thing can easily happen with dramatic scenes, so the lesson here is to be very careful about the music you select. It should match and reinforce, or deliberately offset, the intended emotion of a scene such that it helps the audience feel the right emotion at the right time. This is a lot of power, and if used incorrectly, it can really ruin a movie.
“When I make film music, I’m a filmmaker first and foremost. It’s about serving the needs of the film. You’re telling a story; in a way, you stop becoming a composer and become a storyteller instead. You tell the story with the most appropriate themes. How you approach these things is a very personal matter, but your goal is to tell the story first.”
Emotional Intensity
In addition to shaping the emotional mood of a scene, music — and the way it’s mixed in the film — can communicate the relative intensity of feeling to an audience better than almost any other aspect of a film.
Music can create a low-grade sense of dread in audiences, or a high-intensity sense of panic. There are innumerable examples of this throughout most film scores, but there are a few scores that play with emotional intensity to an extreme degree.
John Williams’ score for Jaws is a great example of this, but I think perhaps the best of all time is Hans Zimmers’ score for Interstellar.
What’s incredible about this score is that it is largely built on a fairly limited set of thematic elements, drones, and Shepard tones. In some ways, it’s not a “complicated” score. But what it does do is drive the emotional intensity throughout each scene, building to an impressive crescendo of tension and anxiety that not only matches the plot of the film, but enhances it tremendously.
Structure
The last practical application of music in cinema I want to highlight here is its ability to help with macro-level editing, providing clearly demarcated points at which a scene begins and ends. This is not only a benefit to the audience, as it helps them understand the sequence of events and their relative importance better — reinforcing and strengthening the transitions from one plot beat to another — it’s also often a good way to help improve the rhythmic pacing of a film.
Without music, it’s easy for scenes to bleed together and for audiences to get lost without an easy way to break up the information in the story.
One way to think about music cues in a film is like invisible chapter markings in a book.
Each cue marks the beginning and end of a single “chapter” of the film. This usually means an individual scene, but not always. Sometimes there are multiple cues in a single scene depending on shifts in perspective or the emotional content, and the music is there (in part, obviously) to help the audience keep track of the action. Moments of silence that contrast with the parts of a film that have an underscore can serve the same structural function.
Note that there are a few films out there, such as the Coen Brothers’ intense thriller No Country for Old Men, that have no (or almost no) score at all, but they’re rare and very hard to pull off.
“I’ll get a hold of a film and look at it 20 times. I’ll spend one week just looking at the time, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, until the film tells me what to do.”
Final Thoughts
As someone who’s done a lot of work not just as a film maker, but also as a “content creator” for platforms like YouTube, my observation is that many people fail to think about the practical effect of music in a very intelligent way.
It’s easy to find videos on social media that use one track, looped endlessly, for 20-30 minutes at a time, or — alternatively — videos that change music rapidly with no thought or attention paid to whether or not the change is necessary or what it’s conveying in terms of structure or emotion.
In general, I think this is a result of people not only failing to understand the power music has in the context of cinema, but also people lacking technical knowledge of music editing. They grab some free (or inexpensive) stock music from a website like Premium Beat, slap it on a video they’re editing and just let the track play until it’s over, at which point they just restart it or grab another track and run out the clock again.
This is tragic, and it’s a big factor in why so many videos you’ll find on the internet are so bad.
The key here is to think carefully about the music going into your film or video project. Ask yourself the following questions, and takes some time to come up with good, intentional answers:
What do you want the overall aesthetic of your film to be? Where (and when) is it set? Who are its core characters? What themes and emotions are most important to the story? How do you want your audience to feel in general about your film?
Looking at the film as a whole, could you draw a diagram showing the level of emotional “intensity” that an audience should feel throughout its runtime? Where are the peaks? Where are the (intended) lulls? When is it at its most intense?
For any specific scene, what is the core emotion that you want an audience to feel? Who are the characters and what are they feeling? Does that emotion change and shift over the course of the scene? If so, how and at what moment?
When does the scene truly start? When does it end? Be specific, and provide timecodes.
Where are the quiet, silent moments?
Do you intend to use source music (ie. pre-existing tracks)? If so, where in the film will those be and how are they being used?
How should the various cues all written for the score fit together to reinforce the overall narrative flow leading to a climactic point in the film itself?
Composers working for most motion pictures will go through what’s called a “spotting session”, where they sit with the director and / or producers of a film and take notes with the intent of discussing these kinds of questions in detail. This is a crucial part of the process, as it dedicates time to thinking about the needs of the film. A good spotting session should result in producers and composers agreeing on a vision for the musical language that will eventually become integral to the finished motion picture.
Done right, music can be a huge benefit to filmmakers — providing them with the sonic tools they need to shape a story, pace it well, and subtly let the audience know where the characters and story are headed without needing to hit them over the head with clunky exposition and intrusive title cards.
Most filmmakers — including most editors — don’t really understand cinematic music very well, and unless you’ve trained as a composer or have developed a wealth of experience in that world, my guess is that you probably don’t either.
That’s ok.
As with anything else in life, it’s no crime not to know that much about a specialized skillset as long as you have the humility to recognize your limitations and seek out help from people who do know what they’re doing. Music can make a massive difference to the quality of your film, so if you’re already a filmmaker or you just aspire to create more content, I hope you’ll take it every bit as seriously as you take the writing, design, production, and post-production.