# Question for Trailer Composers



## Dave Connor (Jan 4, 2011)

Thanks, I sort of figured that. I think I will just keep things musical so big drums will go with big orchestral big grooves and synth sounds/textures will be a part of the musical fabric.

I've been listening to trailers and it just seems like everything is being thrown in: lots of sound design. So I have been trying to gauge what is the original cue and what isn't and it's a challenge.

Thanks!


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## gsilbers (Jan 4, 2011)

check inmediate music and see their demos. 
they do a bunch of trailer music tracks. 
itll give u some idea of how they are doing.


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## Dave Connor (Jan 4, 2011)

Will do gs thanks.


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## EMPscoring (Jan 5, 2011)

Hey Dave,

Having done trailer music for my editor friends at several of the top trailer houses, I've learned that to get the best bang for your buck (or I guess it's buck for your bang!) is to compose cues that can be separated and nudged by the editor if they need to rework it. IE nice 4, 8 or 16 bar intro's, themes, vamps and a nice rise at the end with a big finish. Also helps to switch keys a few times so the editors can play around and increase tension or extend sections or whatnot. 

As for the sound design, my friends have huge libraries for that, but are ALWAYS asking me for that coveted new sound to distinguish the trailer so if you have the time, lay down a separate cue that meshes with the musical one, but have it only contain the sound design (drones, hits, stabs, stings, epic drums). That way you can charge for sfx on top of the music. And really, the sound design can be used much more broadly in ways your music cue might not. Just my 2 cents


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## Dave Connor (Jan 5, 2011)

Thanks EMP, all makes sense. Trailers have become a form in themselves obviously. It seems you sort of create puzzle pieces for the editors to cut together which requires they have certain musical attributes such as clean endings, crescendos, sus chords, percussive and other elements that can be layered etc. 

Very interesting and thanks for all that good info!


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## Ed (Jan 5, 2011)

Dave Connor @ Tue Jan 04 said:


> Thanks, I sort of figured that. I think I will just keep things musical so big drums will go with big orchestral big grooves and synth sounds/textures will be a part of the musical fabric.
> 
> I've been listening to trailers and it just seems like everything is being thrown in: lots of sound design. So I have been trying to gauge what is the original cue and what isn't and it's a challenge.
> 
> Thanks!



Dont just listen to the trailers, go listen to individual tracks. See what they do. Go look up some latest Immediate Music or Two Steps from Hell tracks.


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## Dave Connor (Jan 5, 2011)

Will do Ed. I know you have to or you really can't tell exactly what the music is doing.


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## EMPscoring (Jan 5, 2011)

NP! You're absolutely right - it's totally just about getting the editor the elements for them to arrange to fit the trailer. 

Although a few of my musical cues were featured or got very close, most of my trailer work comes from doing intro's or outro's and sound design on top of other music cues from the big boys who can afford a live orchestra (and have been established and writing fantastic trailer music for many more years than me).


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## Lex (Jan 6, 2011)

One thing I find useful is not only to listen to the trailer music track itself, but listen to those tracks that actually ended up in a trailer (typical trailer music cd has anywhere from 15 to 40 tracks, and not all of them see trailer usage). Then listen and compare which parts of the track got used and why, this will also make very clear how much of sfx was in the track itself.

cheers

Alex


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## Dave Connor (Jan 6, 2011)

Lex @ Thu Jan 06 said:


> One thing I find useful is not only to listen to the trailer music track itself, but listen to those tracks that actually ended up in a trailer (typical trailer music cd has anywhere from 15 to 40 tracks, and not all of them see trailer usage). Then listen and compare which parts of the track got used and why, this will also make very clear how much of sfx was in the track itself.



How do you know who did a specific trailer so you can listen to it as is?


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## Steve W. (Jan 6, 2011)

Hi Dave,

Just google for example
movie trailer music

It shows several websites were people name the music from specific movie trailers


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## EMPscoring (Jan 6, 2011)

Guy,

From my experiences, while it's important to create variations on your theme and such for your trailer track, it's very hard to write complete mood changes to anticipate how the editor will be cutting the trailer (since they usually present a lot of different cuts for the producer/client). 

A good trailer track (in my opinion of course) will be written broadly to allow those big dramatic starts and stops and stick with a main theme and several variations. It doesn't have to be super long because the editor will usually chop it up anyway. The mood changes are happening when the editor switches to a different cue entirely (and they typically have several licensed for the finished trailer).

So in short- I'd say your hunch is correct


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## Markus S (Jan 7, 2011)

Dave Connor @ Tue Jan 04 said:


> I have recently been asked to create some trailer cues. My question is: how much are composer adding in as far as synths or fx type hits etc. It's obvious to me the editors are putting in all kinds of things and even pulling the music almost completely out while their FX/PercHits etc., take over.
> 
> Is it just a matter of keeping things musical and not adding too many elements that would be the editors choice?
> 
> ...



You mostly want to keep the result as musical as possible. No need to add drum hit or sound fx louder than anything to cut off the music at someplace, as those are done afterwards with specific FX libraries. Of course you will be adding a lot of hits and stuff (after all the world is ending.. again..), but not louder than you would for a "normal" ultra epic, ultra huge music title.


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## Lex (Jan 7, 2011)

Dave Connor @ Fri Jan 07 said:


> How about this question: Are orchestral cues done with samples getting much play out there? Would they play in theaters?



They do if they sound good. Live will always sound better, but a lot of the stuff you hear out there now days are live/sample hybrids or 100% samples.

Alex


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## madbulk (Jan 7, 2011)

I go to the actual movies not so often, and my wife endures the trailers on DVD's even less often, so my sample set is pretty unreliable, but when I DO get to the theater, I usually find myself muttering throughout the trailers, "TJ wrote that." "TJ wrote that too." "Damn that gets used a lot." "Damn they should've mixed that so I could hear TJ's theme better."

Go listen to what TJ does and then do that. Couldn't be simpler really.


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## Ed (Jan 7, 2011)

noiseboyuk @ Thu Jan 06 said:


> Just checked Immediate Music... lots of generic stuff, but anything specifically designed for trailers? Likewise any full-length Two Steps tracks out there?



i suggest you try youtube, there's bazillions of cues on there.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... +hell&aq=f

How did you not think of that? :lol:

Not hard to find the original cues. I wouldn't listen to stuff trailer companies have released on cd commercially since that has usually been mixed differently like Immediate Music and Globus and so won't be an accurate picture of how they market to trailer houses (I would guess)


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## Dave Connor (Jan 7, 2011)

Thanks you guys I'm checking all this stuff out.

Also thanks to Steve - I did the search and found the trailers with credits.


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## noiseboyuk (Jan 7, 2011)

Ed @ Fri Jan 07 said:


> How did you not think of that? :lol:



Doh! Of course...

Have to say not hearing key changes much (or at all, in fact, for the first half a dozen I've played). It's kinda just build, build, build in terms of orchestration and rhythm, but not key. And the obvious explanation is that it really cuts down your editing choices otherwise. Oh, and always give 'em a coda after the big finish. Actually, structurally I was pretty good with my effort I think.... its problems aren't really structural!

But... point taken, this probably isn't what trailer houses get sent anyway. There's probably stems, variations, suspended moments and alternative endings all over the place I guess... more than anything else, it would seem logical to me to have trailer music delivered as kits.


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## Dave Connor (Jan 7, 2011)

Yeah tons on youtube - so far all epic with big rhythm and choirs but obviously there's all kinds of styles out there.


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## Ed (Jan 8, 2011)

noiseboyuk @ Fri Jan 07 said:


> Ed @ Fri Jan 07 said:
> 
> 
> > How did you not think of that? :lol:
> ...



hehe, you really are new to this :wink: 

Most trailer cues are about 2 mins long, usually the arrangement is something along these lines. *intro - break - main bulk - break - end climax * - All the time you keep building and the end, you know, like trailer. I think its a good template to stick roughly to for a few tracks until you're more comfortable. 

Two Steps do things slightly differently and their concept was it seems different from the start, which tried to provide more of a score concept to trailer music. This meant longer cues which is why you'll find many of their tracks can be 3 mins long. Typically this is quite long for a trailer cue. They may also not always follow quite so much the somewhat typical formulaic trailer structure. Not all of them are like this of course, but I think its quite atypical. I couldn't tell you if this approach is the one you should take, but I think its worth pointing out. Only they could tell you if their less formulaic structured pieces have been more or less popular, so I would stick to more formulaic than not just to be on the safe side.

I will add a note here about "ES Posthumus". Look search on youtube for some of their tracks. They are actually part of the Pfeifer Broz. Music and seems to be their commercial outlet and sounds quite different from their Pfeifer Broz work. So the ES Posthumus their tracks are longer, don't always follow the typical structure and are less (frankly) generic a lot of the time. These guys are very successful so I think its intentional. For example compare this from ES Posthumus to thisfrom Pfeifer Broz. It is in fact the exact same track more or less, but one is extended and remixed - presumably because it was released under ES Posthumus they were able to make it a full track. To me Pfeifer Broz stuff sounds very much like "production music" very tailored to be as functional as possible. 

I think its worth looking at Two Steps from the point of view of what else trailer music can be and ideas on how to do it differently both in terms of what music can be considered "trailer music" and arrangement wise. The Devil Wears Nada is a brilliant collection, from what I've heard on youtube and their montage on their website. Also the Dreams and Imaginationscollection also contains some very interesting pieces which are very different from what you might think of as "trailer music", if what you think of as trailer music is always the big action orchestral screaming choirs thing. There's a few other interesting tracks in some of their other libraries like this one called Fountain of Life. 

Another really good company is AudioMachine, though I can't find very many tracks on youtube their showreels are long. I think you can listen to some of their tracks on Facebook but as of several months ago I havent been able to stream any music from the music application on Facebook but maybe you can have more luck. 

This is what they present to the ad agencies and also breakdowns like versions without choir, percussion only etc. But I really think you shouldn't get hung up on what sound effects like whooshes you should put on your music, first and foremost you need strong *musical *idea conceptually that will work well with trailers and then work on the _arrangement_. 

All that additional fluff they will add on top anyway, or you can provide another track with that if you really want as I think someone else suggested. The music is the most important thing and then presenting it in a a way so that the arrangement makes editors happy.


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## noiseboyuk (Jan 8, 2011)

Cheers Ed, I'll listen to EW Posthumus later, as I'm just off out. The structure you mention though - no coda? Don't tell me 2 Steps invented it?! And re sound design being separate - of course (though I do that too... and weddings... and bah Mitzvahs....)

FWIW I'm personally not bothered about trying to do real trailers, the market's way too crowded and it's not my thing. But I do definitely need a few fake trailers as it were (kind of parodies I guess), so I need to understand the genre a little better.


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## Ed (Jan 8, 2011)

hey guy,

Yes sure you can have a bit at the end like you said. No two steps didnt "invent" it  

One further thing about ES Posthumus, their whole thing is pretending they arent the pfeiffer brosand they have a whole silly fake background but they are the same.


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## noiseboyuk (Jan 30, 2011)

Well whaddaya know? The studio I'm working in at the moment has a 3-DVD Two Steps From Hell set - not a commercial release. So I thought - purely in the interests of research - I'd have a rummage.

The discs are first divided into genres - action, adventure etc, then subdivided into full versions and alternates. The alternates seem to be mainly without choir. Occasionally there are cues with or without beats or a particular instrument, medium / full intensity options or the very rare alternate ending. Most full cues are between 2 and 4 minutes.

Interesting, I'm kinda surprised there aren't more endings, suspended moments or intro variations. Obviously it works though, given as they seem to have three quarters of the business sown up.

EDIT - forgot to say that they do also have a Trailer Toolbox folder, which has hits, stabs, risers, rumbles, textures, drones etc, which would help stitching different things together.


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