I've been thinking a little about cues I've found difficult to write, and I'd love to hear other people's experiences on this one too! It could be for emotional or technical reasons, because of a tricky director, or any other reason whatsoever.
I'll go first. My most difficult cue was probably for an 8 minute, silent film I scored last year called Breathe, about domestic violence and sexual abuse. The writer-director is an incredibly brave survivor. The entire film needed wall to wall music. The trouble was, I just could not watch the last 30-60 seconds of the film without totally breaking down because the visuals were so powerful. And because there was a duality to the story, it was super difficult to score because it had to simultaneously be devestatingly sad but also gently hopeful. Eventually I put markers in the project to note cuts and beats, then closed the video and just wrote what felt right. Film turned out great, but I still can't watch it without tears.
Ok, who else has a difficult cue story? Let's share!
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My most difficult multi-minute to create was for a scene where there is a single actor making and then drinking coffee. No dialog. So what the heck is 'coffee music'? :) I decided to do a percolator thing which you older people may remember as the the famous 'maxwell house' jingle.
https://soundcloud.com/joelirwin/espresso
I’m extremely new to licensing. I now have 600 pieces of original music, mostly hip-hop / pop instrumental style music. Any suggestions as to where I should be looking to find opportunities? I had a publisher for 2 years who got me a few cues but the contract just ended. All of my music is exclusively mine and registered to ASCAP. Thanks ahead of time.
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Love it, Joel! Chad, I have some thoughts for you, but it might be best to move your comment into a new thread so people can see it and offer you advice as not many people will see it buried in a thread about a different subject and it'd be great to hear what the wider community think, hopefully including the expert music supervisors.
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Chad Reis I've answered some of your questions in a post. You can find it in this Lounge post 'What is Temp Music?"
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Wow, that must have been an emotional ride! My most difficult cue was while I was doing a romantic comedy. I lean more towards dramatic works so scoring a romantic comedy feature was very challenging. I really had to dig deep but I did it in the end! It was a challenging experience but I learned so much about my style and ethic as a composer.
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I will be working on a documentary film involving the 80s rock band Great White. They were playing, and the pyrotechnics caught the acoustic foam on fire behind them, and the fire spread rapidly. A few cues in this are hard to watch, especially seeing Dee Snyder (Twisted Sister) break down, and one of the victims who was severely burned describing his life today.
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I was working on a sound track for a Hawaii ocean film where one of the divers in the film had died recently from drowning making it real tough to watch and score to so I had to envision a more peaceful ocean scene in my mind to finish the track called SEA DREAM... Thanks for sharing your story...Aloha
Wow guys, these are some great stories, thanks for sharing. Scoring a rom com always sounds super difficult compared to drama Shanika, massive kudos for pulling it off! Kevin, that sounds like a really hard film to work on. Hope it goes ok. (it reminds me a little of the Oscar nom'd doc Collective). And Leslie, what a tragedy to have to deal with in your music, sounds like you did an incredible job.
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I wrote some other new songs to use for my independent movie that I'm filming this summer in Oahu Hawaii on the North Shore... You can check it out at - Tajaworld.com - I'm finding out sometimes a tragedy can inspire a tribute heart felt message kind of work though you must be prepared with a proper strong mindset... There's really good stories being shared here worthy of becoming a movie... Aloha