Writing, recording, and producing music is a long and tedious task. Some composers are fast writers, some composers are very proficient in their instruments and this helps speed up the recording processes. One task that does take a long time is mixing and mastering. Of course the more you practice, the faster and more efficient your workflow becomes. But one way of delivering the best quality possible with a faster turnover is outsourcing. When you only have a few weeks to deliver a full original soundtrack for a feature film, you may need to outsource your mixing/mastering to a professional mixing/mastering house or engineer. This will cost extra money though. So the composer will have to ask for extra money, or work it out in the official contract as a packaged deal. Mixing/mastering houses tend to take 10%-15% of what the composer makes, or have a flat rate (example: $100 for 1 minute of finished music). If you want your film to be professional, it will need sound professional.
Filmmaking / Directing : Film From a Composer's Perspective (Part 5)- Outsourcing by Bryan Dusseau
Other topics in Filmmaking / Directing:
Check out Trending Discussions
Register / Log In
1 person likes this
Bryan - Thank you for the insight. This helps for budgeting and pre-production. Regards, William
You are most welcome William. I am glad I can help.
2 people like this
Totally agree, you need to have a second pair of ears on any film! Just curious, are you talking about the final dub of a film (Mixing Dialog, FX, Music)? Or just the Music Mixing? Also, we usually talk about two different kinds of budgets, "Package" Deals, that rely on the composer to do all the budgeting, or "Composer Fee" and the rest of the "Music Budget." I usually prefer the latter, so a composer knows what they are making and don't have a threat of that diminishing, and that way the Music Budget can be spent on Musicians, Orchestrators, Mixers, Editors, etc, to help support the composer and ultimately make a better film.
1 person likes this
I am talking about just mixing and mastering the music itself. I prefer the latter as well Samuel, but I tend to run into package deals a lot.
Hi very informative. :) what if a director ask you to compose for a feature film in 1 month ??
1 person likes this
Thank you Blair. It depends on a few different factors for your film. What genre of film is it? Do you know how much music you want? Do you know what style or emotion you want the music to portray? Do you have a budget for music? 1 month is definitely achievable.
Bryan - Is there a genre that you are most comfortable with? Similarly, is there a genre you are looking forward to composing?
william, do you mean the genre of the film, or the genre of the music?
Bryan - My original thought was genre of the film but genre of the music is probably more accurate.
1 person likes this
Sometimes composers get stuck in a certain genre of film, because that is what their past projects have been. For example, I have worked on Sci -i films. I would finish a film, then a different director would contact me about his/her film, which happened to be sci-fi. Then the same thing happened after that. I thought I was going to be stuck in sci-fi. Then I finally was able to break into a different genre. For music genres, every composer starts off on one genre, and slowly perfects that genre, and branch off to learn a new genre. For me, I grew up playing guitar. I was in bands, and did singer/songwriter work. Then I learned jazz, flamenco, blues, folk, classical, ect. Then I branched off and started writing for full orchestra, and really synth heavy music. If a composer has years of experience, he/she tends to learn a lot. They never stop learning either. I've always dreamed of writing music for a superhero movie or show (live action or animated). I also really want a shot at horror film or a really tense thriller like Sicario. I have written. For a student film that was technically a thriller. A genre of music i would like to learn, hmmm I have been so focused lately, I haven't thought about that for a little bit. Two years ago I wrote several lullabies for my boy on piano. I'd like to do that again, but fully orchestrated and using synths and guitar.