Re: [Harp-L] Re film scoring

[info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Quoting David Priestley <drmidnight@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>   I tried to take this off list but I couldn't get it to work that way -
> sorry

If you like, you can reach me directly at info *at* texasmusicforge dot com.

> So here are some questions:
> In an ideal world at what point would you involve your score writer ?

Let's leave the "ideal world" part of it out of the equation since that never
happens in the "real world."  You'll wind up getting too little info too late
in the process and it is often because there is more inattention than 
money put
into scoring.  It may be different for major films, but I've got no experience
there.

The play I'm working on right now is pretty typical:  I'm taking musical
directions from a director with *zero* musical education.  I get vague
directions which sometimes conflict and have to read the director's 
mind to get
a handle on where we're going.  The score has undergone morphing from ragtime
piano to gypsy violin to blues/gospel and is currently resting more or less
solidly in the nylon string guitar bossa nova/samba area.  I currently have 24
hours to *write* the rest of the score, record it and get it to the CD maker
(we're selling CDs of the score as a *large* part of my pay for this gig) in
time for an opening on Thursday night.

> When writing to moving picks how important is it to get you're timing
> sync right in terms of frames per second from the start?

Oh, I don't know, how important is it for your car's engine to be timed
correctly in order to function properly? Slop in = slop out, my friend.

> Did you get the dalies, rushes, A or B real print to work from or from
> the first difinitive edit?

What you get to look at is going to vary hugely from production to production.
The rest of the questions you're asking don't have one single, definitive
answer and are much better answered by doing some Internet research and 
reading
up on the subject.  One good piece of advice I received from a professional
music director is worth passing along:  Make sure you have the gear to
accomplish the job you've said you can do - a director already stressed out
about the millions of moving parts he/she has to contend with isn't going to
have any patience with tech excuses.  Film scoring is not cheap to get into -
make sure you've got a good computer, proper video monitoring and the sonic
tools before you leap into things.

Best regards,

Tio Ed
Just another guitar player in Austin