# Beginner questions on composing for video. How are you working?



## Mr Greg G (Sep 7, 2010)

Hey guys,

I'm about to work on the music for a short movie, but even though I already wrote orchestrations for many music artists, this is the first time I'll compose for a picture. I already did some tests within Cubase to see how I can plan my work and read the 2 articles I could find on google on the subject.

1/ So what are the main things, basic things you do when you begin to work on a motion picture? (defining marker? Splitting the project into several parts?...)
2/ Are you working on only one project and set markers or do you split the movie into several projects? Why?
3/ And the most important question: How do you sync hit points together? How do you calculate/set the tempo so the track hit precisely hit points. Are you setting a tempo manually and pray it hits turning points (and you help your prayers with time warp tools) or do you calculate a tempo between 2 hit points and work with this tempo?

Thanks!


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## Jimbo 88 (Sep 7, 2010)

Hey, Here is how I work to picture. I work in Sonar and more for TV so maybe some of my procedures might not apply. I have a unique way of doing things.

The 1st thing I do is throw the video into Sony Vegas and find where music is suppose to go and all the cues. I place the 1st frame where music starts in a cue :10 into Vegas. I do this because if I recieve updated versions of the same scene I won't have to re-sync the start of the music cue. I then will create "streamers". A streamer is a colored bar that runs across the screen left to right. When the bar gets to the far right it dissappears on the frame that something is suppose to happen. I make mine all :02 long. Green tells me music starts, yellow--slow down, Blue indicated change, white--hit, red -stop...etc. I create the streamers in Vegas with "Page Roll" transitions. It might take an hour to create all the streamers in a 10 minute music cue, but this allows me to become familiar with the material and speeds up the composing time 10 fold. It helps tremedously when you have live musicians playing to your picture, especially people like guitarists who might not be reading music, but improvising to pic. It is fun to have a group playing to picture without a click. You can do this with streamers.
I then can create a picture file in a format that I know will work fine in my DAW. I recieve picture files in many formats. Some work better than others.

Getting Hits to line up is easy in todays DAWs. Find a tempo you'd like. Then see how things line up. You might create a crazy meter for a bar 5/4, or 1/8 if a hit falls in the middle of a beat. The trick is learning to compose with crazy meters. If i need to get a tempo to line things up, I just use trial and error. There are features that will allow you to do this in Sonar, but I can do it faster with a couple of guesses. 

I also create a template in my DAW for the project that makes creating stems easy and quick. I group things into folders, all perc, high strings, etc...I will consult with whoever is doing the final mixing on how they want the stems laid out.


that reminds me...It will do you well to be on good terms with whoever is editing and whoever is mixing. Get to know them. Buy them lunch or something.

Congrats! Good Luck!


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## JohnG (Sep 7, 2010)

Consider buying a copy of a book, "On the Track." It addresses a lot of questions for someone new to composing for picture.

You also can look into the manual for your DAW for details like timing or sync to picture. If it doesn't cover any of these things, maybe use Digital Performer or perhaps Logic instead. DP has a lot of film-related technology in it.


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## David Story (Sep 7, 2010)

Mr Pringles
Find a mentor to ask questions, though this forum is a good resource also. 

1. What's your time frame for the score? How you work is influenced by how much time you have. Allow time to spot, sketch, send cues to director for notes, make adjustments, add live, mix and deliver.
+1 on communicating with the editor and mixer.

2. It's increasingly common for film and tv to be scored in one long session. Though breaking it up into reels and separate cues also is useful, espescialy for live players.

3. I believe Cubase can calculate a tempo based on hitpoint markers. DP can for sure. There's also a seperate program called Cue, etc. The textbook method is to make a list of hits, and find a tempo that catches as many as possible.

IMO, your first task is to keep the story moving. Hits will follow from that. Find a tempo that feels right through the scene. Experiment, by taping tempi or adjusting click tempo. The picture will come to life when you're find it's tempo.
Timestretching is a last resort, to catch something important that is not on a 1/4 or 1/8th. Or to deal with a new edit.
This is simplified, but will work.


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## Mr Greg G (Sep 7, 2010)

Jimbo 88, thanks for your answer, that's very interesting to read how you work on such projects! You're confirming what I thought about the "crazy meters"  I saw on a post on VI Control that some people were using a tempo calculator to determine what tempo would fit hit points best. But it seems there are 2 schools here: those who are using this tool and are calling it fabulous, and others that find it completely crazy and can't work with a predetermined tempo.

JohnG, thanks for the book recommendation, I'm going to buy it, definitely. I already read Cubase manual about using video but it's a very brief passage and I didn't learn anything. I found an article on Soundonsoud that helped me more even though it was quite outdated as it was referring to Cubase SX3. But I'm not going to change my DAW, I know Cubase very well, it's just that I don't know how to work easily with it on a score with timecodes and so on.

David Story, thanks for your answer too. I don't have any mentor or whatsoever because I don't know personally any musician doing film scoring. That's why I'm asking my questions on this forum  I wish I had a mentor though, as this is the fastest way to learn something. My time frame is one week for a 40 minutes motion picture. You're saying it's common to have only one project for one movie but I read in other posts that some composers were dividing the project into several project files. I really would like to know if film scorers on VI are working with only one project file or not. When you say that "The textbook method is to make a list of hits, and find a tempo that catches as many as possible. " you're suggesting it's beter to work with a tempo calculator instead of composing with a "random" tempo and then adjust bars with some odd meters?


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## Jimbo 88 (Sep 7, 2010)

Hey Mr Pringles,

Having one project for 40 minutes is not too bad, but you can run into trouble if you are not experienced at this. Say you scored 25 music cues and the director loves everything but cue #7 and cue #11...and cue # 12 is diferrent because they replaced 2-3 shots. You run the risk of throwing things into a technical tail spin if you mess up your sync (tempo) trying to fix things and you are not careful with your edits. If you have divided your project up you will limit the amount of trouble you can get into. On the other hand, having 1 project file can make the final mixing go way faster. I personally dont like having a project longer than 15 minutes and like to stay under 10. I highly reccommend saving multiple versions along the way. 

Getting things to hit is really not that hard and just a matter of a little practice. As someone mentioned--watch a scene couple of times and you will start hearing a melody or beat inyour head (If you don't it's time to learn how to sell insurance/realestate). Input your tempo and tweak a little bit. Nudge a meter here--nudge the tempo there..A little common sense goes a long way. Using a beat calcutator is overkill and for me, not so musical.


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## Jimbo 88 (Sep 7, 2010)

And by the way... 1 week for 40 minutes of music is a little tight. I hope you able to prepare themes and such looking at rough cuts before your week begins.


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## David Story (Sep 7, 2010)

I agree with Jimbo 88. You will probably like tweaking the tempo better than calculating it from hit points. 

Practice working quickly. Thinking will slow you down, be ready to respond.
Start viewing a rough cut, setting up a template of sounds, get themes approved.

For hits, adding or subtracting a beat or small tempo adjustments can line up almost anything. Avoid hitting right on the frame, it will feel early. Working this fast, you might want to set the tone more than hit a lot of specific events.

Split this into 4 sequences of 10min each. Ask the editor to burn in a time code window. Set the counter in Cubase to read timecode, and make sure it's in sync with the burn in.

You can find a mentor by seeking out people whose work you admire. For busy people, ask for 10 minutes of advice. For mentors willing to spend more time, find something you can do in return. You may need to ask 50 before 1 says yes. Start now, you'll have lots of questions before you master film scoring.


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## cc64 (Sep 18, 2010)

I'm with Jimbo in saying that 40 minutes in 1 week is a bit quick(Euphemism). Especially if it's your first film. Will it be wall to wall music or we're looking at 15-20 minutes of music?

Don't forget, you will need to do approvals with the director/producers, what if they make you rewrite half the cues? Even a seasoned pro film composer would have to skate pretty fast to make it, especially if it's the type of gig that you have to do everything by yourself...

If you break it down, monday tuesday you write and record the music, wednesday you meet with the director/producers, wednesday night you go to the pub and get drunk because they rejected 1/2 your cues, thursday friday you do your corrections and mix and send the corrections for final approval friday 4PM.., etc...

I'm exagerating but not really ; )

Seriously, try to find a solution with the filmmakers to help you make your deadline.

HTH

Claude


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## David Story (Sep 22, 2010)

One way of working, adjust to fit.






1. Quicktime. Ask for standard, not HD. 640x480 48kz is good. Split channel, temp L, dia and fx R. With a burn in VTC window. Speak with the editor, they can be an ally or an issue.

2. QT Pro, iMovie, or FCP.

3. I have video in my DAW, on a separate drive, but not a Canopus box. That can be a mixed blessing, causing crashes, or freeing processors/memory.

4. Layback has many solutions. When recording each cue as a separate file, I name the cue by VTC, eg 00:00:00:00, plus a dialogue or visual cue, and a version number. Your editor, or dub mix engineer, might work by reel numbers, eg 1M1 v1 Sounds like your getting one file, so talk with who's doing the layback.

Hope that helps.


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## bryla (Sep 23, 2010)

Neds website www.youshootiscore.com I think, has a great FAQ


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