# Figuring out timings (pencil/paper sketching)



## MikeH (Mar 13, 2012)

I'm starting to gravitate more towards using pencil and paper for sketching and orchestration and then going into DP instead of just doing all my work in the sequencer. 

I thought about going ahead and syncing the scene to DP and figuring out my tempo map in there, and then writing down that tempo map on the sketch. 

What's the process like when just working with a stopwatch? Do you figure out a tempo first, and then decide on time signatures, and then time the scene and mark the hits? 

I know I'm making this much more complicated than it probably is 


Thanks all!


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## MikeH (Mar 16, 2012)

Ah, so no one works this way anymore it seems


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## José Herring (Mar 16, 2012)

You are correct. Hardly anybody does, but I wouldn't say nobody does.

You'll need a click book to figure out tempos. There use to be one in the book "On the Track" by Karlin and Wright. If you head over to a decently stocked library you'll be able to find it. Back when I was in college, I just copied the click book from that book and used that. I didn't have a computer.

But, if you use your sequencer it can also act like a click book. If you're using DP, I think a while back they incorporated the "cue" software. I don't know if its still in there. But that was a mac based software that you just put in your hit points and it figured the best tempos to hit those.

click book was nice though. It was a good system for figuring things out pretty well in advance. The only thing that sucked is, if you got it not quite right, then changing tempos was a bitch!

If you want to create a click book its pretty easy. But, it takes time. You basically have to go through a range of tempos say 50 to 200 to be safe and figure out what each tempo means in terms of real time. Click book figures it a little further than that, but you can do that on the fly per cue or project without too much difficulty. Its a little more involved than that, but its really easy. Just at the end of the day you not only have your click book, but you also have a guide chart literally counting each beat, then you put your hit points on that chart so when you write you refer to the chart to hit your marks.

That's if you really want to go old school.

José


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## MikeH (Mar 18, 2012)

Thanks Jose! I have the On the Track book but it's the newer edition so it's sans click book. Maybe I'll find one or make my own. Or maybe just stick to DAW-ing!

I'm guessing the film composers who still work with just pencil and paper like Christopher Young, John Williams, etc. use click books when they're writing?


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## José Herring (Mar 18, 2012)

MikeH @ Sun Mar 18 said:


> Thanks Jose! I have the On the Track book but it's the newer edition so it's sans click book. Maybe I'll find one or make my own. Or maybe just stick to DAW-ing!
> 
> I'm guessing the film composers who still work with just pencil and paper like Christopher Young, John Williams, etc. use click books when they're writing?



I don't know about JW, but I did recently (about a year ago) do a project with Chris Young, and yes he's pretty old school, but I don't think he's that old school. Click book isn't really that necessary. He kind of writes in a room with a video tape machine and as long as you have time code, then click booking it isn't crucial. But, since I was never in the room when he was writing, then I couldn't tell you for sure.

But, honestly, take it from somebody who did his first two short films using this method back in the day. It ain't all that. :lol: I still have nightmares sometimes about the amount of paper involved. It was horrible. Paper everywhere. After 15 minutes of music it looked like a paper bomb went off in my NY apartment. And in the end, it seemed like I lost the original reason for writing music in the first place having drowned in excessive paper. I was all to happy to get my little MacII CX with Vision to do the timings when I finally got it. I don't miss it. Didn't learn a thing about scoring, and needlessly got lost in it all. 

Not to discourage you in your pursuit or anything.


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## MikeH (Mar 18, 2012)

No problem! I'm just looking for a way to work in pencil and paper and still factor in timings. So just writing time code and/or using a stopwatch and marking hit points in the sketch is enough? Pretty much like using punches and streamers for sync?


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## bryla (Mar 18, 2012)

use your sequencer to figure out how many bars of what tempo can fit between two hit points.


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## Farkle (Mar 18, 2012)

I think you're thinking about it backwards.

First, this is my opinion, and my opinion only.  (Disclaimer now stated).

For me, this is how I do it.

1. I go through the scene 3-5 times, and drop markers (there's always a hot key for dropping markers), where I think important hit points and beats are. After 4-5 times, I have a list of... well, a LOT of beats.

2. Then, I lock the markers to SMPTE. That way, if I change tempo, the markers are going to stay in their chronological place.

3. Then, decide which markers you want to "hit" or "play" to. Not all markers are hit to. But, the ones that you want to hit to, keep. The others, either delete or ignore (I like to ignore, for reasons later).

4. Then, play through the piece, and conduct with your hand, each section of the piece you want to go with. Your conducting will give you an idea of how many "beats" to create. I.E., you have a section, and you're conducting, and you conduct 4 measures in 4/4, and one measure in 3/4.

5. Grab your metronome, and rough out the tempo for each section that you conducted. This will get you really close to the tempo for each section. It also takes care of the "do I do 2/4, 3/4, what"? thing. Your conducting tells you whether you're 3/4, 4/4, or 2/4 for rounding out a scene.

6. Input the tempo changes, roughly mapped to your conducting hand. Change the tempos slightly to align with what you envisioned for measure durations.

6. Get your short score, and block out the measures you conducted with your hand. If there are any hit points that you did not address, see where they show up. Maybe they hit on a quarter note, or an eighth note. Mark those beats with "x's". 

7. Now you have a tempo map. And, you have hit points that aren't always "on the beat", but still fit. AND, because you are writing it out, you can see how to "write to the hit point".

This is how I did a TV pilot about 2 months ago. Did it take more time? You betcha. Was my music MUCH tighter than if I hadn't done it that way? You betcha.

Again, my $.02.

Mike


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## Nick Batzdorf (Mar 18, 2012)

Man.

Back in the mid-'80s I published a book called "The Beats Per Minute Click Book."

It was just that: the same thing as the Knudsen click book, which was in frames per beat, in BPM for sequencers.

But nobody needs that anymore!


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## wst3 (Mar 18, 2012)

two words... "window" "burn"

ducking and running now...


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## dannthr (Apr 3, 2012)

For me, my rhythmic devices inform my time-signature.

My scene pacing informs my tempo.

But am I to infer that you are working on a film without time-code?

Or is the film also pencil/paper?

BPM = # Beats / Minute

OR

1M = 60s
BPM = B/60s

OR

BPM = 6*(B/10s)

It's pretty simple math.


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## EastWest Lurker (Apr 4, 2012)

Back in the day, Albert Harris taught me to figure out the timings with a calculator, but I have forgotten the formula.


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## David Story (Apr 4, 2012)

Use the computer to run the video and match the tempos that you tap or conduct. Then write on paper, using that tempo. 

The Hit points need to be marked, as several folks have said. Mark the timecode for each downbeat, based on the tempo. Then the hits. It's good to have a staff or space that's just for timceode and hits, even Prokofiev used that, and JW and CY, etc.


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## Jimbo 88 (Apr 4, 2012)

I use to know the furmula also, but it has been way toooo long.

You can always use your DAW to map out your time sigs and hits, then print a blank manuscript and head back to pencil and paper. I have done that multipe times and like it much.


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## Dotour (Jul 21, 2012)

Take the frame number and divide by the framerate, divide by sixty, multiply by your tempo, divide by the top number in your time signature and add one and the result is the measure number of the event. Round the decimal to the nearest beat. That assumes, of course, that you don't plan on changing your time signature. If your tempo changes, you have to run the numbers relative to the previous tempo change.

But yeah, there's not a lot of reasons to do it that way anymore.


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## Nick Batzdorf (Jul 21, 2012)

What Albert Harris taught was in frame clicks. You don't need to deal with those anymore*, in fact you don't need to calculate the timings (because the sequencer can do that for you).

In the mid-80s, when everyone started using sequencers, I published a book called The Beats Per Minute Click Book. It was like the Carroll Knudsen Project Tempo book, except in BPM. I probably have one somewhere, but it's not a whole lot of use to anyone.

If you really want to do it by hand - well, first of all you're in serious need of a life  - but the formula is very simple.

If my brain is working right:

Click number minus 1 of a timing (since beat 1 = 0) = timing divided by 60/tempo.

To hit :02 at 120 BPM:

60/120 = .05; 2/.5 = 4 +1, so it's beat #5.

The thing is, the timings you miss are usually more important than the ones you hit. That's why it's easier just to wing it in the sequencer, varying the tempo if necessary.


* Unless you're scoring to a projected film with streamers and punches, in which case your music editor will deal with that anyway.


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## UglyKitty (Jul 24, 2012)

Hey,

I wrote a simple little program to help figure this out. 

It's here at http://www.chasin.ca/filmscoringcalc.html

Hope this helps anyone who needs it


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