Getting the Score

Alain Mayrand is now offering private on-on-one film composition lessons over Skype.
Alain has a master’s degree in composition, is composer in residence for the Vancouver Metropolitan Orchestra, has composed for over 20 productions including the full orchestral score for the animated feature film “The Legend of Silk Boy” starring international star Jackie Chan.
Find out more [...]

One thing that music can do is voice the reaction of a character or even the audience.
Generally speaking, whenever we experience an event it usually takes a second or so to register and then form a reaction.
Being scared has two steps: First we are startled and process the information, then we scream and run. These [...]

How many times do we state a theme in a film? Once? Twice? Most director really don’t pay attention to this, and that’s fine, because I do (and your film composer should, too) so they don’t have to.
Some films take more melody than others, such as fantasy films, animation and similar genres, but for the [...]

I was talking with a director and screenwriter I know, and for whatever reason the subject turned to temp tracks, and this is what he said about it:
“Dealing with a temp track is like writing a script by cutting and pasting from other scripts.”
Well, I started to laugh out loud! Perfect! That was exactly it! [...]

After the timing sheet is ready it is time to write the cue, but how does a composer make his music conform to those timings?
Here is how I do it, and it’s a pretty standard way.
First, I find the right musical idea for the scene along with what is the best tempo for the music. [...]

Choosing a composer is like casting an actor in many ways.
Music is a character in your film and you first must develop a “character description” for the music; what genre will the music be, will it require a rock band or a full orchestra.
The temp track often provides clues to that character description of the [...]