# Cue Conforming - What does it involve?



## daviddossett (May 17, 2014)

Could any of you enlighten me as to what is involved in conforming tracks/stems to picture changes? I'm trying to build a skillset to get an assistant position, and I frequently see this is a needed skill. I understand the concept, but are the standard practices involved, or is it just a "make it work" situation? I'm more concerned with the editing of other's music, not my own. The latter seems somewhat more sensitive given that you are tweaking another's work. Thoughts?


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## pkm (May 17, 2014)

A lot of times, you just follow the temp (edited from the composer's cue) from the music editor or sometimes film editor, and adjust any bad edits. When I was an assistant, I would sometimes run the edits by the composer if there were any executive decisions to be made that weren't my call to make.

The point is to keep the integrity of the cue as much as possible, making sure that all the deliberate hit points remain in the same places. Depending on your relationship with the composer, you might have to stretch out a cue and fill in any small gaps, or you just leave a gap and let the composer do his/her thing. Or keep the rhythm going in the cue, but leave certain elements up to the composer. There are a lot of judgement calls to be made. You'll find out very quickly if the composer wants you to let him do all the writing, or if he/she doesn't want to have to worry about the cue at all after the initial composition. It usually starts out with the former and becomes the latter as you gain trust.

No real standard practices, just make sure the cue still fits the scene as it's supposed to and the intention of the composer remains the same. You can review the spotting notes and any revision notes to make sure the conformed cue still does everything the director/producer wants if you don't remember them.


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## charlieclouser (May 18, 2014)

I just went through a batch of this on the series I'm working on - and the music editor did six out of seven cues right there on the stage by chopping and hacking away at the stems I had originally delivered. Even though I only delivered the score as three stems (drums, keys, orch) he was able to get everything to fit and sound smooth.

In most cases he would make the rough edits across all three stems in order to get the overall timing right, then go back and move the edit points and adjust crossfades individually for each stem - like, make the drum stem a quick cut right at the downbeat with a short crossfade, but make the orch stem have a longer crossfade that starts a bar before the edit point and is finished by the time the edit point hits, thereby creating a smoother transition than if the same edit point and crossfade from the drum stem was used.

He does this all the time - that's the music editor's gig after all - and he made these cuts in ProTools on his laptop and then exported them over to the music playback rig on the dub stage. I trust his judgement since he's been doing this for decades so I didn't even need to hear the edits - I just said, "fix it, make it good, don't fuck it up, tell me if I need to re-edit the source" and that's what he did.

For that one cue out of seven that he couldn't handle by chopping stems, I had to boot up the Logic song and make the changes by editing the audio and MIDI tracks inside it. This is might be more like what you're talking about. Sometimes I import the edited stereo music mix from the picture editors just to see what the hell they did, then move things around until it matches, then clean it all up - sometimes I just look at the cue against picture and get to chopping. Hopefully I don't need to create or edit any tempo changes and can just accommodate the changes by moving stuff without changing tempo as this can get messy, although in this case I did have to stick in a bar of 3/4 to lose a quarter note where the picture got shorter, and then create a hole in the drum parts with sustained notes holding across the gap to get back that quarter note where picture got longer. 

If my assistant was doing it and it got any more involved than that, I'd want to hear, approve, and possibly take the wheel - but in this case I was doing it myself, and anyway it only took half an hour or so and I just made the changes and printed the stems and that was it.

I will say this was a super-rare occurrence - working to unlocked (or "lock-ish") picture in tv is a big no-no, although it has happened a few times on the movies I've done. In this case it's a mini-series that won't air for six months, so the network execs are fiddling with it as much as they dare. I kind of prefer the weekly series stuff as there's no time to fart around like that - spot, score, mix, done!


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## wst3 (May 18, 2014)

it's no longer in fashion, but I really do miss the days of a stereo mix for music instead of stems. Even with tape I could make the necessary edits to conform the music to the picture quickly enough, and with digital audio?? It's a snap!

What Charlie described - where the music editor made different edits to each of the stems... that's the stuff that makes legends<G>. I've watched guys do that, and it's amazing to hear the results... sounds like the composer intended it that way... really, just mind bending stuff.

Anyway, it is much easier to work to a locked picture, and if you can't, well, then you are going to develop a whole new set of skills... and friends!


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## jamessizemore (May 18, 2014)

I find myself doing a lot of conforming on the larger more VFX driven films I work on, and I'm always eager to hear input from others on their approach. When I was working on Hugo, I was conforming the demos every 2 weeks, as Scorsese screens the film constantly as part of his process.

This work is often done by music editors after the recordings are completed, but I find if the composer (or arranger in my case) can make the conforms before the recording you can get better results. With late arriving VFX, I find that a scene can change drastically in a span of a week, and music editing can turn into hacking.

I use a product from Maggot software called Conformalizer. It's not cheap, but for Sound Effects guys and gals especially, in can be a huge time saver in tracking changes by inputting Avid's EDL file and automatically moving audio regions to achieve sync. I've had to put it to work conforming 500+ tracks of multitrack mix data in ProTools, where any help I can get is worth it.

In general, my advice is to spread the music edits from the picture cuts across a larger span of time rather than just lopping off the last 2 bars of the tune where the edit happens. In Hobbit 1, there is a theme for the trolls that was originally in 4/4 that I respelled in 7/4 to accommodate tightening up the cut, so I could lose 4 beats over each 8 bar section.

As mentioned above though, a good music editor can save you, and often the complexities of comforming orchestral scores & parts leaves no other option than editing the stems. I've seen music editors bring a whole new dramatic arc to the film by editing the music in creative ways to keep up with picture changes.


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## daviddossett (May 21, 2014)

charlieclouser @ Sun May 18 said:


> If my assistant was doing it and it got any more involved than that, I'd want to hear, approve, and possibly take the wheel - but in this case I was doing it myself, and anyway it only took half an hour or so and I just made the changes and printed the stems and that was it.
> 
> !


Is your assistant are they expected to know how to chop up stuff cleanly then, just perhaps not to the level of a full time music editor? 

By the way, big fan of your music!


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## charlieclouser (May 21, 2014)

daviddossett @ Wed May 21 said:


> Is your assistant are they expected to know how to chop up stuff cleanly then, just perhaps not to the level of a full time music editor?
> 
> By the way, big fan of your music!



Why thank you….

I actually don't have an assistant, so the music editor on the gig just makes the chops on the audio stems right on the dub stage. The last two assistants I had were good guys and pretty swift with Logic but it's just sooooo much faster for me to do it. Even my good buddy, who's an expert programmer and I've known since 1986 when we were both using Performer v1.22 on Mac Plus computers, can't move at my speed. As with most things, it takes less time for me to do it than it would to explain what I want to someone else, wait for them to do it, then evaluate the results. 

When it's just me, I know what tracks are crucial and which are just fluff, so I know at a glance what needs to be done and which tracks are making up the body of the parts and need to be carefully edited with respect to time signature, number of bars in a phrase, etc. - and which tracks are just diddling random little high notes and ornaments and can be brutally hacked and slid back and forth with less precision.

I also remember how much hassle I originally had making each cue, so I know whether it was a pain to get it right in the first place or whether it was just a quickie, so that helps me decide whether I need to get fancy with tempo changes or I can just hack up something mid-phrase. An assistant might get all sweaty trying to fix stuff that just doesn't need to be fixed, because they don't know if a track or whatever is precious or just a piss-take.

Also, the music editors I've worked with are mostly audio and ProTools guys, not so much MIDI programmers and Logic guys - so I wouldn't want them mucking around with the source sequence in Logic anyway. There's pretty much nobody I'd trust with that job so I just do it myself. I have all sorts of tricks that I use to get things to sound the way I want, and it would take years to bring anyone up to speed on that stuff.

To be fair, I'm working in an all-ITB setup, with no orchestral slave computers, and it's all just one big Logic sequence with a few tracks of audio and a shedload of EXS instances. Guys using big templates, lots of slaves, or real orchestral multitrack recordings might need some help to wrangle a project with lots of editorial changes. I've been pretty fortunate that this rarely happens on the gigs I do, and when it does I am not afraid to tell them I'm not really going to start work on the music until they give me a locked cut. 

The changes on this thing I'm doing now were pretty major but the music editor handled six out of seven changes right on the spot. When they inserted a scene from a different episode he found the cue that went with that scene and brought it over and sewed up the transitions. A couple of times I've been given a rough cut to start writing themes, and I fiddled around a little bit and wrote some sketches but mostly I just procrastinated and messed with the template for that project while waiting for a locked cut to come in….


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## pkm (May 21, 2014)

I'm not Charlie, but when I was an assistant, I would be held to the same standard as the music editor, because a lot of the time it was me making the edits. Depending on where in the process we were, I would do most of the conforms in our Pro Tools session (the composer wrote in PT), based on the music editor's edits for that cut of the film up until the final delivery, at which time the music editor would take over any final edits at the dub. Sometimes I would be combining several cues from several Pro Tools sessions into one big cue to match what the music editor had done so the composer could have access to all the MIDI he needed in case he wanted to do any additional work on the cue after they were combined/conformed.

Occasionally I would even be asked to do the edits on the dub stage because of my familiarity with the music in the interest of time. The music editors were perfectly capable, but I made the stems, I had been working with these cues for months, I knew exactly where each sound was, so I could edit them very quickly.

So if you're looking for an assistant job, I would hold yourself to the same standard you would hold a music editor. I'd also hold yourself to the same standard as the composer, as the mixer, as the engineer, as the best programmers, etc. You want to be the expert at everything so you'll be totally indispensable to the composer. Obviously you can't be as good at all those things as the seasoned pros all at the same time, but it's something to strive for so you're always learning and growing and getting better.


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## JaikumarS (Dec 8, 2018)

charlieclouser said:


> I just went through a batch of this on the series I'm working on - and the music editor did six out of seven cues right there on the stage by chopping and hacking away at the stems I had originally delivered. Even though I only delivered the score as three stems (drums, keys, orch) he was able to get everything to fit and sound smooth.
> 
> In most cases he would make the rough edits across all three stems in order to get the overall timing right, then go back and move the edit points and adjust crossfades individually for each stem - like, make the drum stem a quick cut right at the downbeat with a short crossfade, but make the orch stem have a longer crossfade that starts a bar before the edit point and is finished by the time the edit point hits, thereby creating a smoother transition than if the same edit point and crossfade from the drum stem was used.
> 
> ...


Hello Charlie, May I know what your workflow is especially when there's is a new video edit? What are the requirements or files (OMF, XML, EDL) are given to the music composer along with the new video edit from the edit team? 
Thank you.


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## The Darris (Dec 8, 2018)

What I'm reading here so far is that it's different for every composer. The conforming I've done is a mix of reworking cues that were already written to picture to fit different scenes or fixing cues to fit new picture edits. We have a music editor on some projects where they only come in if we've recorded the scores already or the mock-ups were already approved by the production so any new picture edits will require the music editor to fix. 

I haven't worked on Television projects yet but I would assume the job is very similar. However, on series gigs, I can see how many cues from Episode 1 will probably carry over to the following episodes which means the composer can focus more on new material each week and have an assistant or editor chop previous cues to fit the new scenes. Or, just simply pull up the midi from previous cues and rework them into new variations. Every composer is different and has their own specific workflow so conforming can mean a variety of different things. For me it's mostly been about taking what has already been done and redoing it in a slightly different way to keep it interesting whilst fitting to the specific scene.


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## charlieclouser (Dec 8, 2018)

JaikumarS said:


> Hello Charlie, May I know what your workflow is especially when there's is a new video edit? What are the requirements or files (OMF, XML, EDL) are given to the music composer along with the new video edit from the edit team?
> Thank you.



Maybe I have just been lucky, but I only have to deal with picture changes VERY rarely. But when it does happen it's usually very minor changes - like seven frames removed from this shot, one second and three frames removed from this shot, and fifteen frames added to this shot. The horror stories I hear about some films where they completely re-arrange the thing halfway through scoring have never happened to me.

But when it does happen I usually have a brief discussion with the picture editor or their assistant, and sometimes they just tell me the few shots that have changed and I just write it down or they send me an email detailing the changes, something like this:

- at 02.06.22.07 REMOVE 00.00.00.07
- at 03.11.04.12 REMOVE 00.00.01.03
- at 04.03.11.22 ADD 00.00.00.15

Then I just manually make the changes to the cues. For the cues that are playing at the moment the change happens I make adjustments to the tempo and meter map, and for all cues after that I add or subtract time from their start positions as needed. I sometimes use a timecode calculator to give me the total amount to add / subtract from those start positions.


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## JaikumarS (Dec 8, 2018)

charlieclouser said:


> Maybe I have just been lucky, but I only have to deal with picture changes VERY rarely. But when it does happen it's usually very minor changes - like seven frames removed from this shot, one second and three frames removed from this shot, and fifteen frames added to this shot. The horror stories I hear about some films where they completely re-arrange the thing halfway through scoring have never happened to me.
> 
> But when it does happen I usually have a brief discussion with the picture editor or their assistant, and sometimes they just tell me the few shots that have changed and I just write it down or they send me an email detailing the changes, something like this:
> 
> ...


Thank you Charlie for taking time and writing back. The current project that I'm working on has no music editor so I am doing everything. Would you recommend a tool which would help me to deal with video edits like (a new scenes inserted, scene completely removed) 

Thank you again.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Dec 10, 2018)

JaikumarS said:


> The current project that I'm working on has no music editor so I am doing everything



I would ask the video editor to send you an updated reel, including the time code burnt into the picture.


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## merlinhimself (Dec 10, 2018)

Too many good responses that I'd just be repeating!


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## charlieclouser (Dec 10, 2018)

JaikumarS said:


> Thank you Charlie for taking time and writing back. The current project that I'm working on has no music editor so I am doing everything. Would you recommend a tool which would help me to deal with video edits like (a new scenes inserted, scene completely removed)
> 
> Thank you again.



The only external tools / apps that I use is a simple timecode calculator. There are tons of them out there, but here's one for iOS:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/simple-timecode-calculator/id994683052?mt=8

Still, even with one of these at hand I always sort of feel like I can't just blindly rely on the numbers but need to get to that mental state where I "understand" what needs to happen, and the timecode calculator is just confirming that my mental math is not wrong. So the procedure winds up being very much "not quick" as I make changes to a tempo/meter map, test playback, make further changes, etc.

Of course, this is assuming we're talking about making changes to the actual DAW project, and not the mixed / bounced / rendered / printed audio files resulting from a "finished" cue. If we're talking about THAT, everything is much easier - just chop, grab, slide, crossfade, and you're done.

If I'm still working inside the DAW, sometimes this means I need to put temporary "dummy" markers into my Logic timeline to indicate an added piece of time, but often I don't bother, and my process looks something like this:

- Lock all markers so that they stay at fixed timecode positions while I edit the tempo/meter maps.

- Choose a marker (one that occurs after the changed area) that should fall exactly on a bar line.

- Edit that marker's name from "Door Slam" to "Door Slam = bar 96" or whatever.

- Open the marker list in a separate window that displays bar number locations for the markers. (I don't need to see timecode numbers for markers at this point because they are all locked and those numbers will not change until I unlock them).

- Begin editing the tempo and meter maps while watching the marker list to see what bar numbers the markers fall at as I make the changes.

- What I'm really watching for in the marker list is for "Door Slam = bar 96" to occur exactly at a bar line, even if that bar line is now "bar 98" or whatever. I just know that it needs to occur at a bar line and not in the middle of a bar somewhere. If it's exactly on a bar line but that bar number is 98 instead of 96 then I know I need to insert more music to fill in the gap. If it's now at bar 94 instead of 96 then I need to remove music somewhere.

- Continue fiddling with the tempo and meter until all of the markers after the changed area fall at the same rhythmic positions they did originally, even if the bar numbers are a little off.

- Once I have the tempo and meter map set up to play the grid in sync with the newly changed picture, I start moving MIDI and audio around so that the music lays on that grid as it should.

This approach really only works easily when the cue has no tempo / meter changes that occur after the changed area, and is just a solid brick with one time signature and a constant tempo.

In practice this can get very messy as you can imagine, and there seems to be no difference in the amount of hassle depending on whether time was added or removed - both are equally disastrous, just in different ways. If I have complex tempo/meter changes that occur AFTER the changed area I will sometimes use the DAWs "Insert/Remove Time" feature to make a global edit across all tracks, including the tempo/meter tracks, and then try to repair the damage done to the MIDI+audio tracks.

Sometimes accommodating picture changes requires inserting a tempo change to a slower/faster tempo for a couple of bars, or doing a gradual speed-up or slow-down so that a desired end point "lands" exactly at the desired timecode point, but sometimes it's as simple as changing one bar from 4/4 to 7/8 or something like that, and then changing the existing music so that doesn't sound awkward.

Basically each scenario is different depending on how complex the DAW project is in terms of tempo/meter maps that occur after the changed area, and how complex the changes are of course. If I ever try to just type in some numbers into a timecode calculator and blindly make the changes I always completely wreck the DAW project and have to "Revert To Saved" - so I am always very careful about when and if I do a "save" and also having duplicate, "virgin" versions of the cue saved so that I can go back to them once I completely wreck things.

If I have really long, complex cues, and changes need to be made, I will often just split the cue into multiple pieces, each as a separate DAW project, and then I can wreak havoc on section A (where the changes occur) without totally destroying sections B, C, and D. Those can then just be left intact and moved earlier or later to accommodate the time that was added / removed. Basically I duplicate the cue so that there's a separate DAW project for each area that a change occurs in, so that I can make the mess as contained as possible. But I don't always do this - it's only when I have a huge long cue and there's two tiny sections that need to be changed for instance.

If I then had to print out scores for live recording, I'd attempt to stitch them back together once the changes were made, or just forget about splitting the cue into multiple parts and just be extra careful while making the changes.

Good luck!


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## Jeremy Spencer (Dec 11, 2018)

Unlike many composers, I prefer to set up each cue as its own projects file, as opposed to potential (and inevitable) problems of having one project for the entire film. As Charlie mentioned, this can royally screw up your session if there's even one small change by the editor....especially if you have tempo maps. With a one-project-per-cue approach, it's a simple fix.


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## charlieclouser (Dec 11, 2018)

Wolfie2112 said:


> Unlike many composers, I prefer to set up each cue as its own projects file, as opposed to potential (and inevitable) problems of having one project for the entire film. As Charlie mentioned, this can royally screw up your session if there's even one small change by the editor....especially if you have tempo maps. With a one-project-per-cue approach, it's a simple fix.



Absolutely. I have between 40 and 80 individual DAW projects in a tv episode or film. One per cue, definitely. I was referring to dividing up a long (4 minutes?) cue into even smaller pieces, which I do even when the music / scene is more or less continuous but I want to be able to experiment with a complex tempo / meter map that only involves one section of the cue.

Like, if I have a cue that has a floaty ambient section, followed by a wild percussion section with tempo changes, followed by another floaty section, finishing up with a second wild aggressive section - that might be four DAW projects right from the start. 

Sometimes I'll get exhausted with making all those separate DAW projects for each 40-second chunk and think I can get away with bridging it all into one longer project, and about half the time I wind up splitting it into individual files just so I can experiment with each piece separately.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Dec 12, 2018)

charlieclouser said:


> Sometimes I'll get exhausted with making all those separate DAW projects for each 40-second chunk and think I can get away with bridging it all into one longer project, and about half the time I wind up splitting it into individual files just so I can experiment with each piece separately.



Great idea! I'm going to try this.


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## JaikumarS (Dec 13, 2018)

charlieclouser said:


> The only external tools / apps that I use is a simple timecode calculator. There are tons of them out there, but here's one for iOS:
> 
> https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/simple-timecode-calculator/id994683052?mt=8
> 
> ...


Thank you Charlie for taking time and writing back. Yes, I'll definitely follow the workflow you had mentioned here.


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