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A film score is the music in a film, generally written for the film and often used to heighten emotions provoked by the imagery on the screen or by the dialogue. Film Score Monthly was a magazine founded by Lukas Kendall in June 1990 as The Soundtrack Correspondence List. ...
For other uses, see Music (disambiguation). ...
Film is a term that encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. ...
For other uses, see Emotion (disambiguation). ...
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In many instances, film scores are performed by orchestras, which vary in size from a small chamber ensemble to a large ensemble, sometimes including a choir. The orchestra is either a studio orchestra made up of contracted musicians such as the Hollywood Studio Symphony or a performing orchestra such as the London Symphony Orchestra. However, TV, video games, and films with even smaller budgets, often utilize sampling technology to re-create the sound of an orchestra. This is generally much cheaper, although most film-makers try to avoid this. This article cites very few or no references or sources. ...
A musical ensemble is a group of two or more musicians who gather to perform music. ...
This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...
The Hollywood Studio Symphony is the credited name of the symphony orchestra behind many major soundtracks, including The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Spider-Man 2, and Lost (TV series). ...
The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is one of the major orchestras of the United Kingdom. ...
For other uses, see Television (disambiguation). ...
Namcos Pac-Man was a hit, and became a universe phenomenon. ...
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Some films use popular music as the primary musical component, but an orchestral score is more often preferred. An orchestral score can be much more closely adapted to a film while popular music is most often based upon a strong and repetitive rhythm that is inflexible and cannot be easily adapted to a scene. Popular genres of music also tend to date quickly as styles rapidly evolve while orchestral music tends to age much more gracefully. Instead, popular music may be included for special occasions where more attention must be diverted to the music. In these cases, songs are usually not written specifically for the film (see soundtrack). Popular music is music belonging to any of a number of musical styles that are accessible to the general public and are disseminated by one or more of the mass media. ...
For the popular Tamil film, see Rhythm (film) Rhythm (Greek = flow, or in Modern Greek, style) is the variation of the length and accentuation of a series of sounds or other events. ...
// In film formats, the sound track is the physical area of the film which records the synchronized sound. ...
Process of creation
Usually, after the film has been shot (or has completed some shooting), the composer is shown an unpolished "rough cut" of the film (or of the scenes partially finished), and talks to the director about what sort of music (styles, themes, etc.) should be used — this process is called "spotting." More rarely, the director will talk to the composer before starting shooting, as to give more time to the composer or because the director needs to shoot scenes (namely song or dance scenes) according to the final score. Sometimes the director will have edited the film using "temp (temporary) music": already published pieces that are similar to what the director wants. Most film composers strongly dislike temp music, as directors often become accustomed to it and push the composers to be imitators rather than creators. On certain occasions, directors have become so attached to the temp score that they decided to use it and reject the score custom-made by a composer. One of the most famous cases is Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, where Kubrick opted for existing recordings of classical works rather than the score by Alex North, which eventually led to a law suit by composer György Ligeti when he was surprised to hear his compositions in a motion film. Stanley Kubrick (July 26, 1928 – March 7, 1999) was an influential and acclaimed American film director and producer. ...
Alex North (December 4, 1910 - September 8, 1991) was an American composer responsible for the first jazz based film score (A Streetcar Named Desire) and the first truly modernist film score (Viva Zapata!). Born Isadore Soifer in Chester, Pennsylvania, Alex North was an original composer probably even by the classical...
György Sándor Ligeti (May 28, 1923 – June 12, 2006) was a Jewish Hungarian composer born in Romania who later became an Austrian citizen. ...
Once a composer has the film, they will then work on creating the score. While some composers prefer to work with traditional paper scores, many film composers write in a computer-based environment. This allows the composer and orchestrator to create MIDI-based demos of themes and cues, called MIDI mockups, for review by the filmmaker prior to the final orchestral recording. Some films are then re-edited to better fit the music. Instances of this include the collaborations between filmmaker Godfrey Reggio and composer Philip Glass, where over several years the score and film are edited multiple times to better suit each other. Arguably the most successful instances of these are the associations between Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone. In the finale of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Morricone had prepared the score used before and Leone edited the scenes to match it. His other two famous films, Once Upon a Time in the West and Once Upon a Time in America, were completely edited to Morricone's score as the composer had prepared it months before the film's production. Another example is the famous "flying" scene in Steven Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. The score, composed by long-time collaborator John Williams, proved so difficult to synchronize in this specific scene during the recording sessions that, as recounted in a companion documentary on the DVD, Spielberg gave Williams a blank check so to speak and asked him to record the cue without picture, freely; Spielberg then re-edited the scene later on to perfectly match the music. Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for orchestra (or, more loosely, for any musical ensemble) or of adapting for orchestra music composed for another medium. ...
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Polaroid by Michael Dare Godfrey Reggio (born March 29, 1940) is an American director of experimental documentary films. ...
This article does not cite its references or sources. ...
Sergio Leone (January 3, 1929 – April 30, 1989) was an Italian film director who is considered by many to be on the short list of the greatest film directors of all time. ...
Ennio Morricone (born November 10, 1928; sometimes also credited as Dan Savio or Leo Nichols) is an Italian composer especially noted for his film scores. ...
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Italian: ) is a 1966 Italian epic spaghetti Western directed by Sergio Leone and starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach in the title roles. ...
The references in this article would be clearer with a different and/or consistent style of citation, footnoting or external linking. ...
Once Upon a Time in America (Italian title Cera una volta in America) (1984) is the last film by director Sergio Leone, and features Robert De Niro and James Woods as Jewish ghetto youths who rise to prominence in New York Citys world of organized crime. ...
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE (born December 18, 1946)[1] is an American film director and producer. ...
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a 1982 science fiction film directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore, Dee Wallace and Peter Coyote. ...
John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932) is an American composer and conductor. ...
When the music has been composed and orchestrated, the orchestra or ensemble then perform it, often with the composer conducting. Musicians for these ensembles are often uncredited in the film or on the album and are contracted individually (and if so, the orchestra contractor is credited in the film or the soundtrack album). However, some films have recently begun crediting the contracted musicians on the albums under the name Hollywood Studio Symphony after an agreement with the American Federation of Musicians. Other performing ensembles that are often employed include the London Symphony Orchestra, the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra (an orchestra dedicated exclusively to recording), and the Northwest Sinfonia. Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for orchestra (or, more loosely, for any musical ensemble) or of adapting for orchestra music composed for another medium. ...
The Hollywood Studio Symphony is the credited name of the symphony orchestra behind many major soundtracks, including The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Spider-Man 2, and Lost (TV series). ...
The American Federation of Musicians (AFM) is a labor union of professional musicians in the United States and Canada. ...
The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is one of the major orchestras of the United Kingdom. ...
The orchestra performs in front of a large screen depicting the movie, and sometimes to a series of clicks called a "click-track" that changes with meter and tempo, assisting the conductor to synchronize the music with the film. Metre or meter (US) is the measurement of a musical line into measures of stressed and unstressed beats, indicated in Western music notation by a symbol called a time signature. ...
Films often have different themes for important characters, events, ideas or objects, taking the idea from Wagner's use of leitmotif. These may be played in different variations depending on the situation they represent, scattered amongst incidental music. A famous example of this technique is John Williams' score for the Star Wars saga, and the numerous themes associated with characters like Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, and Princess Leia (see Star Wars music for more details). Wilhelm Richard Wagner (May 22, 1813 – February 13, 1883) was a German composer, conductor, music theorist, and essayist, primarily known for his operas (or music dramas as he later came to call them). ...
This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...
Williams conducting the London Symphony Orchestra during the recording of the score for Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. ...
Darth Vader is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe. ...
Luke Skywalker is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe, portrayed by Mark Hamill in the films Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, and Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. ...
Her Royal Highness, Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan (born in 19 BBY), born Leia Amidala Skywalker, is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe played by Aiden Barton in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, actress Carrie Fisher in Star Wars: Episodes IV-VI, and by Ann...
Recent re-release of John Williams compositions for A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. ...
Most films have between forty and seventy-five minutes of music. However, some films have very little or no music; others may feature a score that plays almost continuously throughout. Dogme 95 is a genre that has music only from sources within a film, such as from a radio or television. This is called "source music" because it comes from an on screen source that can actually be seen or that can be inferred (in academic film theory such music is called "diegetic" music, as it emanates from the "diegesis" or "story world"). Dogme 95 (in English: Dogma 95) is an avant-garde filmmaking movement started in 1995 by the Danish directors Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg, Kristian Levring, and Søren Kragh-Jacobsen. ...
Film theory debates the essence of the cinema and provides conceptual frameworks for analyzing, among other things, the film image, narrative structure, the function of film artists, the relationship of film to reality, and the film spectators position in the cinematic experience. ...
In diegesis the author tells the story. ...
According to Gerald Prince in A Dictionary of Narratology, diegesis is (1) The (fictional) world in which the situations and events narrated occur; (2) Telling, recounting, as opposed to showing, enacting. ...
In 1983 a non-profit organization, the Society for the Preservation of Film Music, was actually formed to preserve the "byproducts" of creating a film score: The music manuscripts (written music) and other documents and studio recordings generated in the process of composing and recording scores which, in some instances, have been discarded by the movie studios. The written music must be kept in order to perform the music on concert programs and to make new recordings of it. Sometimes only after decades has an archival recording of a film score been released on CD. The Society for the Preservation of Film Music, Inc. ...
Artistic merit The artistic merits of film music are frequently debated. Some critics value it highly, pointing to music such as that written by Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Aaron Copland, Bernard Herrmann, and others. Some consider film music to be a defining genre of classical music in the late 20th century, if only because it is the brand of classical music heard more often than any other. In some cases, film themes have become accepted into the canon of classical music. These are mostly works from already noted composers who have done scores, for instance Sergei Prokofiev's score to Alexander Nevsky or Vaughan Williams' score to Scott of the Antarctic. Others see the great bulk of film music as meritless. They consider that much film music is derivative, borrowing heavily from previous works. Composers of film scores typically can produce about three or four per year. The most popular works by composers such as John Williams and Danny Elfman are still far from entering the accepted canon. Even so, considering they are often the most popular modern compositions of classical music known to the general public, major orchestras sometimes perform concerts of such music. Erich Wolfgang Korngold (May 29, 1897 – November 29, 1957) was a composer. ...
Aaron Copland Aaron Copland (November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990) was an American composer of concert and film music. ...
Bernard Herrmann (June 29, 1911 – December 24, 1975) was an Academy Award-winning composer and is today generally regarded as one of the greatest of all film composers. ...
(19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999...
Classical music is a broad, somewhat imprecise term, referring to music produced in, or rooted in the traditions of, European art, ecclesiastical and concert music, encompassing a broad period from roughly 1000 to the present day. ...
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (Russian: , Sergej SergeeviÄ Prokof(i)ev; April 121, 1891–June 28, 1953) was a Russian and Soviet composer who mastered numerous musical genres and came to be admired as one of the greatest composers of the 20th century. ...
Alexander Nevsky is a film directed by Sergei Eisenstein and Dmitry Vasiliev released in 1938, during the Stalin era, with Nikolai Cherkasov in the title role. ...
Ralph Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams, OM (October 12, 1872 – August 26, 1958) was an influential English composer. ...
Scott of the Antarctic was a 1948 film about Robert Falcon Scotts explorations of Antartica. ...
John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932) is an American composer and conductor. ...
Daniel Robert Elfman (born May 29, 1953 in Los Angeles, California) is an American singer-songwriter who led the rock band Oingo Boingo from 1978 until its breakup in 1995, and has since gone on to become one of the most sought-after film score composers working in Hollywood today. ...
Historical notes Before the age of sound motion pictures, great effort was taken to provide suitable music for films, usually through the services of an in-house pianist or organist, and, in some case, entire orchestras, typically given cue sheets as a guide. In 1914, The Oz Film Manufacturing Company sent full-length scores by Louis F. Gottschalk for their films. Other examples of this include Victor Herbert's score in 1915 to Fall of a Nation (a sequel to Birth of a Nation) and Camille Saint-Saëns' music for L'Assassinat du duc de Guise in 1908 — arguably the very first in movie history. It was preceded by Nathaniel D. Mann's score for The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays by four months, but that was a mixture of interrelated stage and film performance in the tradition of old magic lantern shows. Most accompaniments at this time, these examples notwithstanding, comprised pieces by famous composers, also including studies. These were often used to form catalogues of film music, which had different subsections broken down by 'mood' and/or genre: dark, sad, suspense, action, chase, etc. This made things much easier for the in-house pianists and orchestras to pick pieces that fitted the particular feel of a movie and its scenes. Louis Ferdinand Gottschalk (October 7, 1864 - July 15, 1934) was an American composer born in St. ...
Victor August Herbert (February 1, 1859–May 26, 1924) was a popular composer of light opera. ...
Charles Camille Saint-Saëns () (9 October 1835 – 16 December 1921) was a French composer and performer, best known for his orchestral works The Carnival of the Animals, Danse Macabre, and Symphony No. ...
The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays was an early attempt to bring L. Frank Baums Oz books to the screen. ...
The magic lantern or Laterna Magica was the ancestor of the modern slide projector. ...
A full film score widely regarded as the first made by a popular artist came in 1973 with the film Pat Garret and Billy the Kid, by Bob Dylan. However the album received very little critical acclaim. This had not been done before in popular film history: any featured band had films written around the music (notably The Beatles with Yellow Submarine). Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is a Grammy, Golden Globe and Academy Award-winning American singer-songwriter, author, musician, and poet who has been a major figure in popular music for five decades. ...
The Beatles were an English rock band from Liverpool whose members were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. ...
Orchestral soundtracks This list includes soundtracks that are mostly or entirely orchestral, with few songs. Notable composers of orchestral soundtracks include Nino Rota, John Williams, Bernard Herrmann, Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner, Alan Silvestri, Howard Shore, Michael Giacchino, Randy Newman, Michael Kamen, Alan Menken, Hans Zimmer, John Barry, Elmer Bernstein, Bill Conti, Ennio Morricone, Trevor Rabin and Danny Elfman. Composers Philip Glass and Prokofiev are also noted for their film music. Image File history File links Unbalanced_scales. ...
Image File history File links Circle-question-red. ...
A film soundtrack is the music that is from or inspired by a feature film. ...
Nino Rota (December 3, 1911 – April 10, 1979) was an Italian composer best known for his work on film scores, notably The Godfather series and the films of Federico Fellini. ...
John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932) is an American composer and conductor. ...
Bernard Herrmann (June 29, 1911 – December 24, 1975) was an Academy Award-winning composer and is today generally regarded as one of the greatest of all film composers. ...
Jerrald King Goldsmith (February 10, 1929 – July 21, 2004) was a famous American film score composer from Los Angeles, California. ...
James Roy Horner (born August 14, 1953) is an American composer of orchestral and film music. ...
Alan Silvestri (b. ...
Howard Leslie Shore (born October 18, 1946) is an Oscar, Golden Globe and Grammy Award-winning Canadian film composer, best known for composing the scores to The Lord of the Rings film trilogy and films of David Cronenberg. ...
Michael Giacchino Michael Giacchino (pronounced juh-kee-no) (born in Riverside, New Jersey) is an American soundtrack composer who has composed several multi-award winning scores for many popular movies, television series and video games. ...
This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...
Michael Kamen (April 15, 1948 – November 18, 2003) was an American composer (especially of film scores), orchestral arranger, orchestral conductor, song writer, and session musician. ...
Alan Menken (born July 22, 1949) is an American Broadway and Academy Award winning film score composer. ...
Hans Florian Zimmer (born September 12, 1957) is an Academy Award, Grammy, and Golden Globe award-winning film score composer. ...
People called John Barry include: John Barry (1745-1803), an officer in the Continental Navy. ...
Elmer Bernstein (pronounced Bern-steen[1]) (April 4, 1922 – August 18, 2004) was an Academy and two-time Golden Globe award winning film score composer. ...
To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...
Ennio Morricone (born November 10, 1928; sometimes also credited as Dan Savio or Leo Nichols) is an Italian composer especially noted for his film scores. ...
Trevor Rabin onstage with Yes, 1995 Trevor Rabin (born Trevor Charles Rabin on January 13, 1954) is a South African guitarist and film composer, best known for being the guitarist and songwriter for the progressive rock band Yes from 1983 - 1995, and since then, as a film composer. ...
Daniel Robert Elfman (born May 29, 1953 in Los Angeles, California) is an American singer-songwriter who led the rock band Oingo Boingo from 1978 until its breakup in 1995, and has since gone on to become one of the most sought-after film score composers working in Hollywood today. ...
This article does not cite its references or sources. ...
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (Серге́й Серге́евич Проко́фьев) (April 271, 1891 – March 5, 1953) was one of the Soviet Unions greatest composers. ...
Some well-known orchestral soundtracks include:
The Godfather is a three-time Academy Award-winning 1972 crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Mario Puzo — Puzo and Coppola collaborated on the screenplay. ...
Opening logo to the Star Wars films Star Wars is an epic science fantasy saga and fictional universe created by writer/producer/director George Lucas during the late 1970s. ...
Titanic is the soundtrack to the movie by the same name composed by James Horner. ...
The current Star Trek franchise logo Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment series. ...
The Lord of the Rings is an epic high fantasy novel written by the British academic J. R. R. Tolkien. ...
Gone with the Wind is a 1939 film adapted from Margaret Mitchells 1936 novel of the same name. ...
ET (or et) is Latin for and; it can also refer to: Estonian language (ISO 639 alpha-2, et) E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the 1982 film, or the related video game extraterrestrials in general Eastern Time, both in standard time and daylight time Entertainment Tonight engineering technology elapsed time...
This article is about the film; for the a definition of the UFO related phenomenon, see Close encounter. ...
Back to the Future is a 1985 science fiction/comedy film directed by Robert Zemeckis and written by Bob Gale and Zemeckis. ...
This article is about the Harry Potter series of novels. ...
The Dollars Trilogy, also known as The Man with No Name Trilogy, refers to the three Spaghetti Westerns starring Clint Eastwood and directed by Sergio Leone: A Fistful of Dollars (1964) For a Few Dollars More (1965) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) Although it was not Leone...
Casablanca is a 1943 romantic film set during World War II in the Vichy-controlled Moroccan city of Casablanca. ...
Lawrence of Arabia is an award-winning 1962 film based on the life of T. E. Lawrence. ...
Flemings commissioned image of James Bond to aid the Daily Express comic strip artists. ...
Dr. Henry Indiana Jones, Jr. ...
This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...
This article is about the novel and the movies based on it. ...
Jaws is a 1975 horror–thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg, based on Peter Benchleys best-selling novel of the same name, which was inspired in turn by the Jersey Shore Shark Attacks of 1916. ...
The Great Escape, written by James Clavell, W.R. Burnett, and Walter Newman (uncredited), and directed by John Sturges is a popular 1963 World War II film, based on a true story about Allied prisoners of war with a record for escaping from German prisoner-of-war camps. ...
See also The following is a list of people who predominantly (or most famously) compose soundtrack music for film (i. ...
External links News and reviews The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online database of information about movies, actors, television shows, production crew personnel, and video games. ...
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