5 Elements to Writing Better Cues

There was a raging debate yesterday in our SCOREcast: London Facebook group about whether a person needs to know how to read or write music to execute a functional film score. Truth be told, it was one of those threads that I hate, because, really, it’s a pointless conversation. On one side, you have people arguing against “hummers” — people who cannot read but still create amazing scores. On the opposite side, you have folks arguing against “traditionalists” who tend to be out of touch with the way the business is inevitably heading, and are still holding tight to the craft part of the business as their measuring stick for quality writing. Both opinions hold merit, but neither is all that productive as a basis for argument, as you can imagine. Sort of like arguing about whether Van Halen is better than Van Hagar. It’s entirely subjective. Personally, I like Van Hagar (better songwriting), and I’m ready to get lynched just saying that… so don’t get me started on film music!

Instead of participating in the bloodbath, I was content to just watch from the sidelines. Some of the comments I wholeheartedly agreed with, while others left me completely flabbergasted. But all of it forced me to think. What I thought about most is not whether you need to be able to put dots on a page to be a film composer, but rather how film music — no matter who is creating it — could stand to be made better on a general scale. For all of us.

Speaking completely composer and stylistically agnostic here, I’ll offer what I believe are five elements that are lacking in most modern film music, and how, if revived and applied tastefully to your writing, could potentially grow you as a technician. Understand that this is not an indictment or observation of any one composer, as much as it is on one type of composer — a lazy one.

1. Motion

A lot of film music you hear these days consists of long drones punctuated occasionally by action pulses or a horror stabs. (And that’s just by the people who know what they are doing!)

The “hold down this key” shortcut has become a staple feature in a lot of scoring tools since sampling companies started developing for Kontakt toward the middle of this last decade. Don’t fall for that. It’s lazy. Instead, purposefully write your music to ebb and flow with the drama onscreen. After all, that’s what you’ve been hired to do in the first place. Rather than just wallpaper the scene with a synth pad and a few cryptic piano notes past C5, contour the music to the photographic topography that the camera is offering up. Allow the score to breathe. Let it linger when it needs a moment, and rush when it needs to build tension. Anybody can do the “pad and stab” thing, and passably so, given the available tools. But not just anybody can read a scene and support it with music that really flows well, spilling out across the screen in a way that invisibly holds the emotion of the viewer and enhances the entire movie-going experience. That takes a special understanding.

2. Contrast

One thing I love to work into my own scores are moments where I can write the music to counter against the action or mood that’s unfolding before me. When the music contrasts against the visual. For example, if the scene involves two people kissing, but the score is awkward or unusual and not emotive or lovey-dovey, that’s a pretty ballsy move on the part of the composer. But if you take that leap of faith, it works in a very unique way. Of course, it isn’t always what’s called for, I’m just saying that when it happens appropriately, it can be incredibly effective. Unfortunately, it’s also a forgotten art in modern scoring. It used to be done all the time, but it rarely happens anymore. I believe we see this less and less now because, overall, directors are not the kind of dramatists they were ten years ago, in that they don’t necessarily allow their actors to “act” more than they expect them to explain their arcs. But if you happen to get to work with something or someone who really gets how to use shadow against light, humor against hurt, and love against loss, then use that to your advantage and work that same kind of contrast into your score. It’s a difficult thing to do sometimes, but your music will support so much more effectively for it.

3. Pacing

As a percussionist, nothing takes me out of a scene quicker than poor pacing. I pay attention to rhythm just as a general instinct of my human existence, so when something is out of time I tend to notice before most other people do. Musically rushing a scene or moving through one too slowly is a rookie mistake that, unfortunately, even some of the A-list composers who are working quite regularly are still making. There’s really no excuse for it, and it’s easily rectified by understanding the directorial make-up of a scene and the motivation behind the set-up from the characters’ points of view. That comes from one thing: study. If you are a cinematic nerd, then you probably already inherently have the skill of pacing from watching tons of movies. There is no other way to learn, really. You have to be a student of cinema to understand the speed at which a certain situation should play out. In order for a viewer to comprehend all the unspoken feeling of the actors, the pacing of the music needs to be dead on. If it isn’t, you lose things. You lose power. You lose feeling, emotion, and purpose. Ultimately, you lose your audience because now you’ve taken them out of the scene and they are no longer emotionally invested. Pacing is one of the things that can make or break a film. It’s up to you as the composer to help reign things in when they are running away too quickly, and run away quicker when they’ve been reigned in too tightly. Pacing is always a “the music will fix it” type of problem, so it’s up to you to know the difference.

4. Range

Some cues go nowhere. Other cues go everywhere. The best cues are balanced between those two extremes, and it’s your job to find that place. Production-wise, it’s easier to trim away than it is to add things. I almost always over-orchestrate everything. In the end, I wind up stripping away 50-60% of what I do to strike a dynamic balance for a score that serves the picture first, and not itself. You don’t have to go very far these days to find a score that is monotonous in tone or progression. It just doesn’t go anywhere. Again, sometimes that is what is called for, but most often, composers either get lazy or they straight up run dry of ideas. In both cases, the knee-jerk reaction is to grab a loop to add some spice or do the one-note/one-finger instant cue thing. Try to avoid both of those. Try your damnedest to thread natural dynamics by using different instrumentation or by writing in such a way that keeps the viewer guessing, not anticipating. Swap the instrumentation up on a reprise of your main theme to make it larger than life at the end of an act. Switch between your motifs in an alternate way in order to add some “surprise” to the proceedings. Whatever you do, get yourself out of doing what comes naturally or what comes to mind first. That’s when dynamics tend to go out the window, and everything flattens out sonically. Think outside of the confines of your own “first moves”. Do something new and unique, something bold and brilliant. The least the director can do is say, “No.”

5. Color

One of John Williams’ scores that is up for an Oscar this week makes brilliant use of woodwinds. When was the last time you heard somebody use winds as the lead ensemble in a score? (Hint: Probably the last time John Williams used them… That’s when!!!)

Color in scoring is being paid attention to so little these days, that to introduce an instrument as a solo figure is almost enough to push your sound out of the norm and into “Wow, who is this composer?” territory. Don’t get happy — that’s fuckin’ pathetic! The greatest and most memorable themes have a very memorable melody… Played by a very memorable color. Whether its oboe (Morricone’s The Mission), clarinet (Zimmer’s Driving Miss Daisy), trumpet (Williams’ Raiders of the Lost Ark or Star Wars), violin (Howard’s The Village), or percussion (Goldsmith’s Planet of the Apes), scoring with a specific color as an extension of a character, situation, or tonal focus within the film can be an incredibly effective way to highlight certain elements in the story. The best time to experiment around with color is during those few days of pre-production when you are still familiarizing yourself with your film. While you are getting to know these characters you will be spending the next three to six weeks with. Begin to visualize and assign colors to people, places, or things in the script that really beg to be identified and set apart. As you move through the project, you’ll figure out what doesn’t need a color and what does — what’s important and what’s not. Then you can really hone in on the most necessary part of your score, and focus on that color without everything else getting in the way.

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The bottom line to all this, and the element that I keep coming back to — is the picture. Your job… Your only job… Is to support the picture. Every one of these things, if used correctly, can turn a mediocre cue into a great cue, but no cue can ever be truly amazing and perfect unless the composer writes it correctly to brace the action onscreen. Even if you cannot figure out how to incorporate a single one of my suggestions in the preceding paragraphs… At least support the picture well. That’s all any director wants, anyway. The rest of this stuff is just personal growth and knowing in your heart that you gave your very best to be you.