Composing Music for Film

Themes

Themes are one of the most important factors in the composing of music for film. Curiously,
it’s not anything that is in every film. Sometimes - as well as the disclosure of music can be
vital – the disclosure of a theme in it can be vital as well. In other cases the composer just
chooses to work without obvious themes. Considering that I started with telling that it is one
of the most important factors in the score, this might seem odd, but in fact, using all of the
important factors is not necessarily necessary. Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, contains no
music at all. It is much more usual that the themes are disclosed than that all music is, but I
want to defend my statement so far as to say that - with reservation for exceptions - being in a
film, the themes become one of the most important factors in it.

There are more than one kind of themes. What’s normally referred to is the short melody,
written for one or a few characters, a place or for a film/-series - the leitmotif. The Star Wars
Main Theme is one of, if not the most famous motif, and can easily measure up to Für Elise or
Moonlight Sonata without any problem. The themes from Harry Potter and The Lord of the
Rings are also very well-known, and it’s funny that I as a kid saw these three series as the
ultimate films and during a period watched nothing else!
The Pirates of the Caribbean motif is also one that many can recognise. I was given a
lecture once, and the reader played a short piece of this soundtrack and as soon as the motif
came, a recognising murmur rose among the audience. I don’t remember exactly what it was
that he wanted to prove, but he pointed out that almost everybody knew what it was he had
played. It’s worth mentioning that I could hear and suspect what was coming even before the
melody started, and I think I was not alone, but I will get back to that later.

As I stated above, the use of themes and leitmotifs, is not always necessary, but why choose
to have it or not to have it? Some experts claim that themes are needless always, but could
that be? The music’s main purpose is to enhance the feeling in the pictures that we see, but do
not the themes have a purpose as well? If we take a look at the series I mentioned; Harry
Potter, Star Wars, Pirates and the LOTR trilogy, they are all remembered much thanks to
their themes, so as soon as you hear them play, you think of the movie. The same goes for
Psycho and Jaws, where 2 seconds of the themes often are superfluous for the audience to
detect them.
Thus, the music, through the leitmotif, is also used to bring e.g. a person to mind, even if the
person in question is not in the picture. When, for example, the captain in King Kong (1933)
thinks about the main character Anne, Anne’s theme plays to let the audience know it without
anybody needing to tell, as the viewers will think of her as well. The audience are tricked to
think of Anne, and will thus believe that the captain does as well. John Williams made an
extraordinary example of placing a theme right to lead the audience’s minds in one direction.
When he scored Star Wars: episode I, he had the luck that the last three films already were
made, so he knew that the young Anakin - for whom he composed a sweet innocent flute-
based theme - would eventually become Darth Vader, and let strings slowly mix into the
melody and end it with three dark tones, directly taken from the Imperial March, which is the
Darth Vader’s theme.
 However, although the motifs are perfect in this matter, and could very possibly have
contributed many films greatness, filmmakers often choose not to have them in the film.
When scoring The Golden Compass, Alexandre Desplat considered whether to use motifs or
not, but decided to do as it is about a child, and as the journey that she is making would be
easier to understand if there were themes for the different cultures she meets, and for her own
development. Lyra, as her name is, has actually three different themes in the film for her
childhood and innocence, for her journey and for her courage to stand up to those superior to
her. In difference to this, Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard chose to have a more
consisting theme on the music, a certain style that goes through the whole film, when scoring
Batman Begins. Therefore they do not make use of motifs the way I have written about above.
This soundtrack contains melodies that recurrence through the film, but it focuses more on the
through-all style. Probably they didn’t feel it was necessary to have motifs in it, and chose to
let the whole universe of the film have one kind of music instead.
It’s usual that films have such through-all styles along with the motifs. It makes it feel as the
film hangs together all the way through. It’s especially good for film series like the
aforementioned LOTR trilogy, for the films to feel connected. In the Harry Potter-films the
lack of a going-through theme is probably a contributing factor to them being very secluded to
each other. As I mentioned before, there is a special style like this in the Pirates of the
Caribbean films, which is the reason to why I was able to detect it before the theme started
that time during the lecture. In the same way, I recognised the music from Batman after
hearing only one, albeit rather long, tone, because of the unique mix of instruments.

When you create a style like this, it is most often made for the first film in the series. When
the first Pirates was made, the sequels were not yet planned, likewise with Batman Begins.
So, in order to score the sequels, the music will probably have to be expanded not to become a
boring copy, but at the same time it will have to go along well with the original style. When
The Lord of the Rings were made, of course all three films were planned, which could have
made it easier, but that was an unusual occasion and the technique wasn’t really very
different. As the adventure expands, already in the second half of the first film, the music
changes, although keeping it’s spirit and uniqueness.
When The Dark Knight, the sequel to Batman Begins, was being planned, Nolan said to H.
Zimmer that really it was no need to do a very different score for this film, as the one for BB
was so good already. Zimmer gave him a ”we’ll see”-look and started asking about the things
that were new for this film. To the heroic yet emotional themes that he did reuse, he - along
with Newton Howard - created a sort of piercing scratchy sound as theme for one character,
and a smooth beautiful tune for another, which both worked perfectly with the rest of the
music, though not being very alike at all.
A film in which the score also develops a lot is the third Pirates of the Caribbean, At
Worlds End it’s In this film the main characters are travelling much, exploring many other
parts of their world, and this makes the music change a lot, but - as is the case also with
previously mentioned The Golden Compass - it still manages to keep its own special style. So,
maybe there is no greater need for a certain theme that goes through the whole film, as long as
the music finds the core of the film and expresses it well. The music in the japanese anime
series Death Note, mixes guitar-based band music, epic Gregorian chores, alien sounds and
classic symphonic music in the soundtrack, and it still works quite well, odd as it may sound.

That music often is used for different cultures and peoples may come very natural to you, but
everyone might not think of it when scoring a movie. When John Williams e.g. composed the
score for The Terminal he wanted to give the main character, Viktor Navorski, who is played
by Tom Hanks, and who comes from a fictive land near Russia, a theme that sounded like it
came from Eastern Europe. The main theme is therefore played on clarinet, which is an
instrument common among Eastern and Southern European peoples, and supported by
cimbalom and accordion. Cimbalom comes from the neighbourhood of Hungary.
Williams is also the composer of Memoirs of a Geisha, which has a very Japanese score. I
have listened to a lot of Japanese music and I think it’s wonderful to hear that he has managed
to write a score that both sound Japanese and keeps William’s personal style. Many of his
fans will be able to hear who has written the music, but it is not at all damaging the Japanese
feeling of it. Hans Zimmer composed a score for The Last Samurai, hat got much credits
when he brought it to Japan, but which I think sounds a little too much like his usual scores. It
has many Japanese melodies, but in general it doesn’t quite make it.
Williams used strings like violins - often played solo - and harps to give an Asian sound.
These instruments are very common in Japanese and Asian music, as well as piano. Joe
Hisaishi - composer of films like Spirited Away, My Neighbour Totoro, Princess Mononoke
and recently awarded Departures - is often using these instruments. He is one of Japan’s most
famous composers of film score and has worked with many of the greatest filmmakers in
Japan. Many of Hayao Miyazaki’s (Spirited Away, Totoro, Mononoke) films have very
Japanese themes, as films like Hana-Bi by Takeshi Kitano mixes Japanese and Western music
styles.
The piano is also very much used by Nobuo Uematsu, who has made all music in the Final
Fantasy game series. In the movie Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children he uses solo piano in
both calm flashback scenes and threatening semi-action scenes. (For the reader’s interest I can
add that the film does not contain any leitmotif but the main theme of the games which is play
once or twice, and that the score also mixes the piano tracks with fateful gregorian tracks, like
those in Death Note, and with instrumental hard rock.)

There is a lot more that can be told about film music, however the intensions of this article
was not that everything about it should be told. Its purpose is to explain and sort out some
basics in the composing of a film score, without making a too deep analysis. For deeper
knowledge check out the book Filmmusik - det komponerade miraklet (2006), by Peter
Bryngelsson, which has helped me in the writing of this text. It has also an excellent list of
literature, in English, about this subject.
Also - as I myself did - do check out the music itself on Youtube or Spotify or CD’s or
downloaded mp3. That is really the best way of learning and learning to understand music.
Hans Zimmer said that when he was composing for Samurai he tried to read a lot about
Japanese music, but the more he read the less he felt he knew. I haven’t read a lot, but instead
I have listened to it, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I think I know more now than he thought he
did back then. Yet, I’ll let him do the composing for now.

By Simon