5 Big New Trends in Film Scoring

5 Big New Trends in Film Scoring | ThinkSpace Education
5/14/16, 9:31 PM
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FILM SCORING
Things move fast in our business. Just when you think you have
got a handle on how it all works you find out the game has moved
somewhere else. You spend years getting good at something and
as you arrive at the party you find nobody is interested in that any
more, theyve all moved on to another venue. So heres a heads up,
as they say, of things weve noticed recently. Some of these are
reasonably obvious if you keep your eyes and ears open and
others are less so.
1. Sound design is the new scoring. Crafting new sounds out of
random wave forms like taking a chainsaw to a block of ice.
Producing new sonic textures that nobody has ever heard before
and then processing the hell out of them. Look at the rise of the
likes of Junkie XL, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, Stephen Prices
Gravity Oscar winning score and plenty more. And have you
noticed how Hans Zimmer a man who is extremely gifted at
So You Want To
Do Games?
(http://thinkspaceeducation.com
you-want-todo-games/)
ThinkSpace
Scoring Session
MA Student,
Sean Turner
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The Other Side

Of The Fence
otherside/)
Action Music
producing more sound design than anything else these days? Now
Real Time
Scoring Demo
when I say sound design it is not always pure waveform-
action/)
carving new paths and spotting where things are going is really
architecture, but more often than not blended with traditional

instruments or samples. The tools of choice are batteries of
plugins from waves, UAD, Fabfilter, Sound Toys and many others.
Ableton Live is an increasingly popular tool of choice with sound
How to
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Pedal Notes
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Page 1 of 6
designers working in film and games. Watch the likes of the

prodigiously talented sound designer and composer Daniel James
at work and youll see why.
5/14/16, 9:31 PM
Reversing Audio
reversingaudio/)
2. Samples are Dead. For those composers whove spent the last
ten years working out how to make samples sound like a real
orchestra this might be one of thoseoh so the partys gone
somewhere else moments. Its not entirely true but how many
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groundbreaking new libraries have come out recently? Sampling

as we know it is reaching the end of the road in that theres
nowhere else to go. Every instrument has been sampled and
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resampled. There are still one or two niches to be filled, a really

comprehensive solo strings library being one and we wait with
baited breath for 8Dios groundbreaking brass library but really,
the age when sampling is king is coming to an end. Theres nothing
wrong with samples. I have literally thousands of them and use
them every day, but it is increasingly difficult to sound different or
distinctive using the same tools as thousands of other musicians.
3. ..and so is Trailer Sound. OK, its still pretty ubiquitous but its
very generic nature tells you that this is not going to last for ever.
There are so many amazing composers writing brilliant and
innovative trailer music but the traditional big drums and string
ostinato thing cant go on forever. I always think when people start
producing construction kits and specialised sample libraries for an
idiom, then its had it. Weve been doing that for a while. Thats not
to say that its not popular its everywhere. I heard trailer-sound
all over a cooking reality show last week. Tell me thats not the kiss
of death? The point is not that people arent commissioning
trailer-sound, but that if you were looking for a place to get in and
get on, this is not it. Why go to a party which is winding down
when you can find one that is starting up?
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5/14/16, 9:31 PM
4. Goodbye Royalties. For many years the richest composers have

made their fortune from royalties. It represents probably 30-50%
of most composers incomes. Not for much longer. Royalties are
still there. Big films still pay really well, library income is still good
but the traditional royalty bread and butter, network television is
under great threat. Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and all the others pay
effectively no royalties at all. Zilch. Hardly enough to buy lunch let
alone a restaurant. This isnt the end of the world. Games
composers have shown us how you can still make a lot of money
on a rate per minute. Thats in part because there never were
royalties in games so the rate was set accordingly. TV will take a
long time to catch up, if ever. Royalties will continue to pay well
for top library music and film composers, but for average
composers it will become a smaller and smaller part of the
business.
5. Much Less Writing to Picture. There is a growing trend
towards writing the music first. TV, commercials and even top end
feature films are moving towards a world where the relationship
between the music and the picture is more fluid. A generation of
editors and directors who are used to having music to cut to now
run the industry and they like the aesthetic that it brings. Its also a
money thing in TV in particular where they like using custom
written libraries instead of scored to picture. See our Composer
Blueprints Training and Music for the Media courses for more
details on how this works.
So the bottom line is if you sit still the world will pass you by.
Seldom are these shifts quantum so it changes overnight, but if
you dont read the tea leaves and see where the industry is
heading youll be struggling to catch up. So if I were starting out
now what would I do? Write the best possible music and get real
honest feedback on your work. Brutal honesty. 15 years ago,
musical and technical competence was enough to get paid work.
Page 3 of 6
5/14/16, 9:31 PM
Nowadays the bar is much higher. Only the best get paid so you
have to work much harder at perfecting your craft, challenging
your own assumptions. If you merely want to write film music
because you love Zimmer, Williams and Elfman but you dont
really love film, you are doomed. I see a lot of aspiring composers
who tell me how they specialize in big epic orchestral. Thats
not a specialization thats a default setting.
So. Learn sound design. Get a demo reel that has plenty of live
instruments on and sounds fresh and different. Look much more
broadly at the industry and work out where there is fun to be had
and a living to be made. Library music is still a good financial
option for the best composers. Games are great and still a growing
market.
Ultimately, despite all this though there is one golden rule. Work
in an area of the industry you are passionate about. If you are
obsessed with film, become a film composer. You love games, work
in games. You cant fake passion and potential employers will spot
it a mile off so do what you love.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Guy Michelmore
Guy Michelmore is the company director of
ThinkSpace Education. He is also an Emmy
nominated composer, specializing in music for
television and film.
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3 Comments
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David Matthew Weese

CEO & Founder & President at Blended Planet Pictures
Well said, Guy Michelmore

Like Reply
1 Nov 6, 2015 5:54pm
Txema Cabria
So straight, as always, I appreciate.
Like Reply
1 Nov 7, 2015 2:24am
Nigel J. Merritt
University of Life
Thanks for this, Guy. I can happily confirm that both Cinematic
Orchestration and Music For The Media are GREAT courses.
I'm on them!
Like Reply
1 Dec 28, 2015 8:07pm
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5/14/16, 9:31 PM
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5 Big New Trends in Film Scoring | ThinkSpace Education

The Other Side

when I say sound design it is not always pure waveform-

architecture, but more often than not blended with traditional