Complete Guide to Film Scoring: The Art and Business of Writing Music for Movies and TV, and: Music for New Media: Composing for Videogames, Web Sites, Presentations and other Interactive Media (review) Karen Collins
Music, Sound, and the Moving Image, Volume 1, Issue 2, Autumn 2007, pp. 219-223 (Article) Published by Liverpool University Press DOI: 10.1353/msm.0.0021
For additional information about this article http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/msm/summary/v001/1.2.collins.html
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Richard Davis, Complete Guide to Film Scoring: The Art and Business
of Writing Music for Movies and TV , (Boston: Berklee Press, 1999), 378pp. Paul Hoffert, Music for New Media: Composing for Videogames, Web
Sites, Presentations and other Interactive Media , (Boston: Berklee Press, 2007), 216pp. + CD-Rom
review by Karen Collins
Berklee Press is known for publishing trade books in the area of music instruction, based on the teaching curriculum of the Berklee College of Music, a well-known private college in Boston. As such, the press publishes instructional books aimed at undergraduate or college-level courses in music performance, composition, arranging, production, business and technology. Industry trade books fall into an awkward space in the world of academe: while they can often be useful for the production aspects of courses, they are nearly always sorely missing in any theoretical grounding. As such, they may find a place as useful supplementary texts, or offer a practical overview for academics writing theoretically about these areas. For instance, an academic who would like to write a paper about games music would be wise to obtain an understanding of some of the practical, technological and industrial constraints that must be dealt with by composers. In terms of production, these books can be useful texts for students who wish to enter into a production-based area post graduation. Whereas in the past composers had to learn compositional methods through trial and error or internship programs, today many can obtain an understanding of the business and practice through texts such as these. Under review here are two books intended as introductions to music for moving image courses: Richard Davis’ Complete Guide to Film Scoring, focused on film music, and Paul Hoffert’s Music for New Media, which focuses on video games. Davis is a composer and Associate Professor at Berklee College. His book is divided into six basic component parts. The first section (consisting of six chapters) deals with a historical overview of the development of film music from ‘silent films’ through to today. With only four or five pages per chapter, though, the author inevitably skims over some key events in the development of film sound, rather loosely presenting the history. There is, for instance, no real discussion of sound design and
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its recent integration with music, and the coverage of technological innovations is superficial. While providing the novice with a general overview, then, the academic rigour needed for a university course (citations, complete details, important dates, for instance) is here lacking. Although his book is not comprehensive, Davis does manage to include many of the key innovators in twentieth-century film scoring, and very briefly to illustrate some of the important changes that have occurred in terms of technology and production over the last century. The second section of the book deals with film production methods and practice. Here, the reader is given an overview of pre-production, production and post-production processes, scheduling, spotting and an introduction to the roles involved in production. These chapters are generalized and geared more towards high-end production, which is likely to be impractical for newcomers that might use this text, as the low budget model of film production and digitization of film varies considerably from what is presented here. Nevertheless, it introduces students to some of the basic terminology they can be expected to know at any level of production. The third section discusses methods for scoring music for different genres and modes of distribution, including television, animation, and so on. The chapter on syncing music to picture is unfortunately outdated, as most methods he describes are now done completely digitally – certainly for low-budget pictures. For instance, there is no discussion of common film/audio synchronization software like Final Cut Pro or Pro Tools here (nor is there any mention of low-end software or production methods). The fourth section covers the business aspects of the industry, and introduces the reader to royalties and rights. This is an important area of film scoring that is often just touched on by other trade books, but is covered in some detail here. Students entering the field will find a useful overview that is written in easy-to-understand language that may save them time, money and frustration later. The final part of the book is perhaps the most useful for academics, as it contains a series of interviews with film composers such as Danny Elfman, Elliot Goldenthal, and Mark Snow. Here we are given a glimpse into the real workings of the industry and its composers, in terms of process, production and creativity. It is particularly interesting to compare how various composers got into the industry, their backgrounds, what methods they use, and so on. Interviewees also give tips to the newcomer: Elmer Bernstein for instance advises, ‘Learn everything you possibly can about all kinds of music – ethnic, pop, classical … everything’ (261). There are some frustratingly awkward questions posed by the author, such as ‘Do you know what to do about timings and all that
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stuff?’ (263), but for the most part this is the most useful part of the book in giving the reader an understanding of film. It is also notable that the author sought out a few female composers for inclusion (Shirley Walker and Lolita Ritmanis), reminding readers that although this remains a male-dominated field, there are role models for female students to follow. Davis broaches the gender question with Ritmanis, with a surprisingly positive response, although Ritmanis admits to receiving some backlash against her gender in the industry. In all, the Complete Guide to Film Scoring provides an admirable overview of the film scoring process, comparable to Jeff Rona’s excellent Reel World: Scoring for Pictures. As an undergraduate text, it would work well as a supplementary text to a course on music and the moving image, but, in trying to provide a complete overview, glosses over or omits some important areas that should ideally be taken up further. Its most blatant omission is the lack of discussion of digital production methods and software, making this less useful for a production-oriented class, and not theoretical enough for a more academic-style class. Hoffert is well known amongst the Canadian music scene, as founding director of the Canadian Independent Record Producers Association and the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. He is professor of Fine Arts at York University in Toronto and Faculty Fellow at Harvard Law School. Like Davis’ book, Hoffert’s Music for New Media is a similarly production-oriented text. He begins by defining and describing interactive media, with a focus on how linear media differs from interactive content, explaining that the ‘fundamental issue of how you use music to tell the story [in interactive composition] is completely different [from linear media]’ (15). Here, Hoffert provides some useful distinctions regarding how interactivity affects music composition, with a focus on temporal parameters. He informs us that, just as ‘verses, chorus and movements are the building blocks for songs and symphonic works’, ‘loops and sequences’ are the building blocks of interactive media (19), on which Hoffert focuses in Chapter Two. Here the reader is provided with an introduction to MIDI, to recent sequencing software and software synthesizers, as well as to the process of creating a loop. A valuable section on writing loop transitions is Hoffert’s most distinguishing trait from other books on composing for games and other interactive media. He defines seven key musical elements for transitions: volume, tempo, rhythm, key, harmony, texture and style, and proceeds to describe each in detail, discussing how to broach such transitions. In Chapter Three, Hoffert discusses the concepts of musical logos, earcons, themes and leitmotifs, in creating an identity or brand. Interesting insights into audio logos are provided, such as Werzowa’s
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production of the ‘Intel Inside’ four-note tune, which required no less than forty layers of synth tracks to orchestrate. These ideas are e xpanded on in Chapter Four, ‘Functional Music’, which discusses the ways in which music is used to convey a message in conjunction with the moving image. Hoffert organizes composition into several segments: drama, action, humour, characterization, creating a sense of place, reinforcing narrative, and so on, illustrating the main functions of music in media and providing examples and discussion of composing for each different genre and media form. Chapter Five explores music for Powerpoint-like slide presentations, from the basics of adding sound to Powerpoint, to treating slides like chapters in a story and using a dramatic arc to illustrate key ideas in presentations. While such music may not be appropriate for academic presentations, for the corporate world or other public demonstrations music may provide a welcome change from typically silent slideshows. Chapter Six goes into quite a lot of detail about incorporating music into websites, with markup and code provided for HTML and Flash based sites and a discussion of the special considerations one must take into account when composing for the web. He analyses websites and compares music for informational versus shopping and promotional websites. Although most people prefer a silent website, for advanced sites or music sites sound can be beneficial if done correctly – and Hoffert clearly delineates when and where to use composition on the web. Hoffert provides two chapters on scoring for video games, and it is unfortunate that this section of the book is so short, as it is clearly an area of increasing interest. We are first given a breakdown of the main structure of the video game, which provides us with an overview of key cue points. We can adapt the methods Hoffert has already shown regarding dramatic arc to this section. We are then presented with a summary of platforms and genres, and Hoffert briefly discusses the different requirements of each. Next the author describes mobile media audio – and here, again, the brevity of the work leaves the reader with far too many questions left unanswered. This is a very difficult area to compose music for, as compression technologies vary considerably and mobile phone technologies are widely varying, but the basic overview is adequate as an introduction. Finally, Hoffert delves into the question of ‘aesthetics’: do we use more or less? Do we use acoustic or synthetic instruments? How do we get the style right? These are, of course, a matter of personal taste, and Hoffert really just uses this section to get the reader to consider these issues, rather than express his own opinion. We are then given a very brief overview of the ‘working environment’: how to put together a demo disk,
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how to obtain work, and so on. There is no real detail here with regards to the various needs of different companies when it comes to demo disks. It is my experience, for instance, that larger games companies want to see one style done well so that when they need a composer in that style, they can call on you, while smaller companies prefer to see a range of styles so that the same composers can be used for a variety of games. The few pages presented here, therefore, are really just a brief guideline and serve only as an overview. Throughout and at the end of each of the chapters, the reader is provided with examples on CD-ROM and exercises to work through, providing a very useful course direction and introduction for the novice to a variety of interactive media assignments. What is particularly absent in this book is a discussion of sound effects or sound design, which is often the domain of the composer at smaller multimedia companies and therefore should ideally be covered in a text such as this. One of the most difficult problems with composition for new media is the integration of music and sound in a temporally unpredictable environment, and it is therefore a shame that Hoffert does not discuss approaches or mixing in even a cursory manner here. Although it is far too wide in scope for a course on any of the more specific areas discussed (web or game audio, for instance), this would serve as an excellent text for introductory courses in music production and applied composition.
