How I Won a Film Scoring Contest

hey what's up everyone welcome my name is jesse haugen i sit here in this broom closet of a studio all day just desperately trying not to rewrite john williams melodies and today i'm going to show you how i won a film scoring competition [Music] so i did something earlier this year that i never thought i would do which is i mustered up the courage to participate in a film scoring competition now i do this for a living but i'm still absolutely terrified at the idea of joining these i never was able to do it before but this one happened right around the time that quarantine happened and so everything kind of shut down a couple jobs fell through i had some extra time and i thought hey this would be a great opportunity if for no other reason that it would just be a lot of fun so i decided to participate in the indie film music contest this was its first ever competition and i thought it would be really fun to participate they had some awesome prizes so i decided to give it a go i had a great experience and ended up winning which is totally unexpected but really exciting and i've gotten a lot of messages from you guys because they're actually doing another competition already again this year so registration's open for that right now it's open until november 7th and then submissions are due by the 14th of november so you have about a month a little bit less to get your submissions in but the films they send are short and you can definitely do it in that amount of time so i thought it would be great for me to walk through my winning submission help you understand the decisions that i made the musical choices the deliberation and the thought that went into my score hopefully just to give you some confidence to participate yourself this video isn't sponsored by the indie film music contest but i really do believe in what they're doing and i've gotten a lot of messages from you guys asking what my experience was like asking if i think that you should participate the answer is absolutely yes it's super streamlined it's super straightforward it's great for composers of all stages whether you're just beginning or whether you do it for a living it's just really fun and the films they send at least if the indication from the first year was anything are amazing it's the type of films that even though i do this for a living i don't always get to work on something like an animated film because it just takes so much to get those things made and so that was it was such a valuable experience for me and for if for no other reason i would suggest doing this competition just to work on some really excellent films so what i thought i would do here is i'll just walk through my winning submission from that first year i'll show you why i made the decisions that i made how i went about scoring it in hopes to sort of walk you through what the experience was like for me and give you some confidence to do it yourself so let's jump into it the way that i thought we would do this is let's watch through the film actually dry so we're gonna watch with no music um no anything and when they sent this film what i didn't expect was that it's actually completely devoid of all dialogue all sound effects everything it is a completely silent film so the music was really going to have to carry a lot of weight and now that is both terrifying and exciting if you've scored a silent film before you know that you have more opportunity than usual to really write some music to really dig in but you also know that a lot of the the responsibility of this film working and the pacing and the landing falls on the shoulders of the composer and so for those two reasons this was an excellent film to score and really really a lot of fun so we're just gonna watch through without any of my music and i'm just gonna tell you when i watch through the things that popped out at me and the choices i made before i even wrote a note so let's jump into it so it opens up we get the indie film music contest logo these are not credits that were a part of the original film obviously and then right away we're into the credits of the opening film so it's some opening credits and then boom this beautiful shot of this little girl in the garden immediately i mean this is so musical already this landscape i'm hearing you know piano and strings and winds we get some conflict she feels like an outsider then we have this really poignant shot of her walking up this winding road and i knew already musically that was going to be a really important moment so i made note of that in my head continued watching see her she's sad and it was at this moment when that chair comes to life and kicks her off that i knew i was absolutely going to love this film i'm sold i'm in i cannot wait to write some music so this chair even though it's just an inanimate chair has a lot of personality as we can see and as i thought about scoring this i was thinking how can the music help give this inanimate object personality we don't get facial expressions all we get are the way that this chair interacts with the girl and the way that the chair moves and it's just all of these things come together and if the music can come together with it we can actually give the chair some personality and so i was hoping the music would do that so let's keep watching she's brave to sit down on that chair boom they're off to the races so i knew the first time that i watched this film that this moment right here that we're watching was gonna be a huge moment if you compare everything that's happened in the film so far we've already gotten an arc we have a conflict and now we have a total change of mood and pace with this running down that same winding road that she walked up sad before she's now being carried back down and she's joyful and so i knew that this moment really needed to land this was the first moment in the film that i really wanted musically to accentuate so let's keep watching she goes boom plot twist chair brings her to her friends how's it gonna go we don't know and boom look at that happy happy so already in the film we have such a story that's been told and now this takes us into this beautiful montage of her in the chair again this is like musical gold right here all of this stuff that's happening and then this moment i mean just visually her running on the chair with the horses in the same way that that scene with the chair taking her down the winding road i knew was going to be a really important really big moment i also wanted this moment to be exactly like that so i knew so far we have two hit points that i really want to land on musically first when the chair takes her down the road and now when the chair runs her through the forest with these horses so let's keep watching yeah just so much music like you can already hear it already as you watch more montage i like it so it's paced so well it's like musical even before there's music the colors oh the shot is beautiful oh chair breaks but chair is okay so again i'm making note every time the chair does these little things like the little waving of the legs which is something that it does a lot it's just a little way that the animators gave the chair personality and so with the music i don't want to discredit that i actually want to lean into that so i'm already starting to think when that chair does those little things those little personality quirks how can we actually play with that musically so let's continue snow she's getting older she's got a bigger chair now and i love that this is just this film is just so beautiful if you look the chair's going off to college with her so we know that the story's not quite over yet but again it's just all this montage this music is just it's just popping out already let's continue watching so this is definitely a tonal shift and if we watch this the first thing i noticed is the mood has changed drastically and she feels kind of like she's the odd one out again and that's continually shown to us through the interaction with these other students and so where my mind went when i first watched this was this parallels the beginning really significantly if we remember back to the beginning of the film she was looking off at a distance she didn't feel like she was included with this group of friends and then that led her up that winding road sad and alone and now we have the same thing at this new school as she sit in her dorm so i knew that in some way i wanted the beginning of the film and then this part of the film to parallel really significantly i don't know if that means the exact same music the same melodies i wasn't sure yet but i did know that i wanted those things i wanted to as the film takes us back to the beginning and where she was i wanted the music to do the same thing so i knew that that's what i wanted to do let's keep going but we know the chair's gonna save the day okay so chair picks her up boom we're off to the races now in the same way that those first two things hit me this was another moment i knew this one needed to land and this even actually visually takes us back to the horses so not only are we picking up thematically that this is what's happening so in the beginning she's sad the chair takes her down races her back to her friends in the middle we have this other shot of her racing through the horses and now here at the end we have this amazing sequence of the chair racing her through the city so those three moments i knew the first time i watched this film if those don't deliver musically it's the whole score is just not going to work it's all about how do we build up to and land on each of those moments so let's keep watching the other thing i noticed is that this one was by far the biggest it's the longest so every one of these moments gets longer every time if you've noticed and they also get a little more dramatic as this chair is sort of like a superhero racing through the city helping her get back to her friends so again such a parallel to the beginning of the film boom she drops down embarrassed just like she did with the jump rope they see her are they laughing at her no they're laughing with her boom chair breaks again another callback and that's the film so i mean as you can tell if you hadn't seen the film already it's just the second you watch it you just feel music it's so it just speaks so clearly it begs for for melodies and for textures and so i was inspired already but i didn't want to forget about those structural things so as i went back to score i played with a lot of different melodies i played with a lot of different ideas and i played with a lot of different instrumentation i i knew probably given that it's a competition and this is the same way i think about um demos when i'm demoing for a project against other composers um it's it's easy to fall into the trap of doing the same thing that everyone else is going to do and so i kind of always want to do something different and i knew that at this time everyone's going to do soft piano everyone's going to do strings everyone's going to do woodwinds that's just sort of what you expect in a film like this and so i tried a bunch of other things and it just wasn't landing it was because my musical instincts were telling me to do those things and this is something that i i hope is helpful for you guys what i've found over the years is that while it is important at times to do something unique if you're just doing something unique for the sake of doing something unique not because your musical instincts are telling you that that's what this film or this scene needs it's gonna fall a little bit flat if instead you follow your musical instincts because we all have different backgrounds we all have different things that make our musical voice ours even if you feel like you just need to write straight ahead 1920s jazz do that because that's your musical instinct leading you somewhere and if you follow that musical instinct more likely than not you're going to write music that's more compelling that's more emotive that's more empathetic to what's going on in the film and the scene so don't always do something different just for the sake of doing something different i would say more often than not try to follow your musical instinct and my musical instinct in this case told me just stick to that piano strings wins that thing that everyone is going to do it doesn't matter just write the best possible music that you can given that i also knew that i wanted it to get a little bit bigger so i didn't want it to be like this small kind of indie orchestra i did actually want it at some point especially by the end to kind of get full orchestra so i basically approached this like a pretty straight ahead orchestral score with some piano so i was thinking about music i was thinking about melody and what i came up with was this simple little four note motif and we start out with some sustained swelling strings and here's our motif so that's it just it's ambiguous enough that it doesn't say too much right off the bat but it's also emotive enough that we can take it somewhere and do something with it so let's keep watching and again here's this big moment it's a little bit more of a melody here so again already as i'm scrolling i'm thinking back to those plans i had i wanted that moment up the up the winding road to feel significant i didn't want it to be big but i wanted it to be emotionally significant so let's keep watching okay how do we again how do we give that chair personality right so all these little movements that all these little things that we just watched the chair on our first watch through we knew that there was personality because of these small movements let's lean into that musically let's help bring that to life let's bring that chair to life let's keep watching so now we're coming up on this first hit point remember that i really wanted to hit we get some motor rhythm things are moving things are picking up boom we land so it's really short it's really simple but it's by far the biggest part of the score up to this point so we have that simple just melody just four notes really big played in cellos flutes and french horns it's the biggest thing up to this point but i didn't want it to be too big because i knew we have two more of these coming so every one of them needs to feel the most significant thing that's happened but they all need to be relevant to each other so the second one needs to feel bigger than the first and the last one needs to feel bigger than both of them so you want each moment to feel as if it's the most significant but then you want each significant moment to feel more significant than the last so it's all about pacing and being patient musically so let's keep watching now when we get here to the montage instead of just the four note motif i thought this would be the place we actually develop it a bit so we start getting more of a melody it develops it grows and then here's our next hit point [Applause] [Music] okay so that is much bigger than the last one and we'll go back and compare each of them at the end but if you can tell it's longer it's more lush orchestration wise there's a lot more going on it's a lot thicker the harmony is richer we have more going on melodically in the beginning we just had those four notes now we have more of that developed theme so this is all how are we landing on each of these points let's keep watching [Music] now i treated this a little different i came back down and the reason i came back down here is that moment before is gonna feel bigger based on what happens around it so if i had gotten big on the horses and then just kept it big going into the montage that moment wouldn't feel as significant but if instead we build up to that moment with the horses and then we drop back down again now that's like a peak in that score it's going to help it stand out a little bit so that's another little trick [Music] wanted this to feel a little uncertain then let's give that chair personality again right i also put sleigh bells here because i'm basic and there's snow [Music] okay so now we're off to this part that parallels the beginning so if you remember the beginning we have these swelly strings and then we have our four note motif played really simply so this is exactly the same musical content as the beginning just orchestrated a little differently and then we have this other really poignant moment if you remember she walks up the road she's sad we haven't heard that melody again so let's bring that back now as she sits alone in her dorm but bigger so again richer orchestration a lot thicker a lot more intricate just we're saying the same melody we said before and it we haven't heard that melody yet since we heard it the first time so this should take us back to her walking up that winding road it should also help us remember but something happened after that so let's see what happens after that so here we go we're heading into that third big moment and i did this accelerondo which i really loved i it was a little bit cheesy but if you watch the animation this chair is like spinning out on the cobblestone just trying to get up to speed and so i really wanted the music to feel that way i didn't want the score to be mickey mousey but i did want it to be specific i did want it to follow what's going on so watch that again let's go let's go off to the races i didn't want it to land here i wanted it to grow here and boom we're back with the horses [Music] again you know this little like she flies through the air it's like how do you how do you give personality because this is serious but it's also it's light-hearted it's fun so we're building we're building we're building again this is all part of that those structural points that i'm talking about first one's short second one's longer third one this one's much bigger so let's let's take our time with it let's stretch it out let's grow it and then also i mentioned this on the first watch through this chair kind of feels like a superhero in this moment so i got a little superhero with it we have way thicker orchestration full brass now okay so that is so obviously so much bigger than any of the points that we've had up to this point right we haven't had a hit point that is landed quite that severely and so that really helps it feel like the story has gone somewhere the music has moved with the story it's grown as she's matured it's matured the orchestration is much thicker the melodies are much more sophisticated there's just a lot more going on but let's end it simple so let's kind of take us back to our opening motif she's a little embarrassed [Music] and again let's just think how do we give the chair personality and i'm kind of a humor now so that's basically the idea so i i'm not necessarily saying that this is the way to go about scoring something if you want to win a film scoring competition that title is a little bit click-baity but the point is is this is something to think about when you're scoring anything when you're scoring anything and you first watch through before you write a note think about where everything is headed if you have direction and you have purpose your music is gonna feel like it has momentum it's gonna feel purposeful and deliberate this film this animation is so deliberate that's one of the reasons i love animation is because it's so hard and frankly so expensive to make any part of a film like this it really requires them to be incredibly deliberate with every scene and every moment so if you can musically try to do that as well it's really gonna come alongside this well so let's look at each of these three hit points in a little bit more depth i'll just show you sort of how i orchestrated it how i thought about it and hopefully that'll help you think about how to approach scoring structure like this okay so we have this first one it's mostly melodic instruments we have um some motor rhythms and stuff going on so in the piano in the harp and in some staccato strings we have this so this is kind of the momentum the chair moving through and then we have in the melodies with violas and cello so really low totally unison strong and then in oboe and our flutes we have this this four note motif we have it in the french horns as well and if you just fill that out harmonically a little bit so it's really simple there's basically three elements there's chords there's that staccato rhythm and then there's melody now when we get to the next one we introduce percussion so we have some swells [Music] there's a lot more going on in the percussion if you listen to this it's really lush this is just the percussion for this section [Music] you know all of this again we have brass strings horns all filling this out now the other thing here that we have that we didn't have before is a counter melody so if you listen the horns let me take the horns out so this is just the melody which is cool by itself but let's add one more layer which is our four note motif if you're listening this is just some counterpoint some more interest and now when we get to the final one not only is it the thickest orchestrationally but we've also just added every possible melodic development and idea lots of staccato wins from harmony is a lot different we have this in the brass really thick you know we've had nothing [Music] this [Music] yeah so i don't know if that's helpful hopefully that's helpful it's it's a lot of straightforward ideas it's nothing complicated i'm sure it's things that you guys have all thought about before but it's just a good reminder for all of us when we sit down to score something whether it's for a competition or it's for a demo or a project that you've been hired for whatever it is to look through the whole either scene or the whole film even this is another great thing to do if you're scoring a feature think about where are the moments in the film that the music needs to deliver because the audience is expecting certain things to pay off and if you deliver on that it's really gonna help the film land emotionally and ultimately that's what we're trying to do with this music we're not just trying to write cool music we're trying to write music that serves the story serves the film that lands at the right times that takes us places that the filmmakers want us to go so i hope that's helpful again i would really encourage you to apply to the indie film music contest or just any of these awesome competitions that a lot of people are starting to do it's a great opportunity to score films that you otherwise might not be able to get your hands on it's just a great way to stretch your writing and to challenge yourself and so that's why i would recommend it i hope this was helpful it's a lot of fun for me to go back over this and watch through i genuinely do love the film i think that was the biggest takeaway from this competition for me was just how much of a joy it was to work on this film so if that was helpful or if you think i missed some things that i should have mentioned please just let me know in the comments below i'm hoping to make more videos like this to share some of the stuff that i have worked on that i am working on and that i'm going to be working on with you it's been really exciting for me to sort of start being a little more open with what i'm doing and share more stuff like this on youtube so if you want to see stuff like that please subscribe ring the bell so you'll be notified when i put a video up if you want to watch this film in its entirety for my winning submission that's also on my channel that'll be linked below so you can check that out and i hope to see you guys soon alright thanks so much [Applause] [Music] again you know this little like

Channel: Jesse Haugen

Views: 6,300

Rating: 4.9826841 out of 5

Keywords: composer, music, musician, studio, film, filmmusic, filmscore, score, soundtrack, indiefilmmusiccontest

Id: a-rqveOJ1qg

Length: 26min 40sec (1600 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 25 2020