The Content
 
This introduction will cover aspects of music’s aesthetic role in film, how it can be commissioned, crucial relationships that a composer needs to develop, and a look at how it all fits and works together.  Key roles will be discussed including: broadcaster, production company, producer/ director, editor and composer. 
 
We’ll look at specific projects and investigate working practices in more detail, including developing initial musical ideas, interpreting temp tracks and working with script; we’ll investigate music as a tool for story-telling and there will be to-picture examples of key sequence types, both music-led and music as underscore. We’ll look into the film editing processes from treatment to picture lock and how music can evolve and develop from initial sketches to delivery. We’ll investigate working with electronic and live sound, and how a composer needs to incorporate high-level skills both as editor and engineer. We’ll discuss creativity, precision, collaboration and responding to commercial demands.
 
In the final part of the session we’ll look into business matters such as fees, contracts, copyright, publishing and royalties, with information about a variety of supportive industry bodies. We’ll also discuss the impact of library/ production music on the commissioning process and how this fast-developing strand can be useful for composers, creatively and financially.