What materials to give a film composer:

What resources a film composer wants, will vary project to project, and person to person.

But, if you want to be a Director/ Producer that Composers are excited to work with again, then before asking what the composer wants, go ahead and share all these resources with them. Though what matters almost more than what you give them, is when you give it to them.

• Script

• Current picture cut

• Confirmation of picture-lock status

• Frame rate and timecode

• Temp music and reference tracks

• What the director likes and dislikes about each reference

• Emotional goal of each scene

• Spotting notes

• Deadline and revision schedule

• Expected deliverables

• Contact information for the editor and post-sound team

  
  

First off, have you even found a composer yet? what stage of production are you in? is the script still being written or are you 8 weeks out from your deadline to submit to a film festival. If its the later, you better be ready to pay a premium and have a stunning

finished film that motivates the composer like no other.

Far too often directors and producers see music as an additive, a cherry on top for their work of art that they just spent the past year plus writing, shooting, and editing. But doing so, you immensely miss out on the rhythmic reinforcements music can bring to the script. Emotion that could be delivered to actors, tones and sounds which can impact coloring, fast paced action music to drive editing sequences. Rather than building a house from the ground up and only deciding what you want to feel when you first step in to your empty home. You can contact an architect and interior designer, pick their brain's about building materials, architectural decisions, how high the windows should be to accommodate what curtains. Building a home to fit your dreams apposed to fitting your dreams into a prebuilt home.

A composer has a plethora of insight and emotional understanding which you could be utilizing. What is a film in simple terms, an emotional medium that uses images and sounds to tell a story. Don't be stuck in the past of silent films, we made advancements to deliver richer emotional impact by including sound for a reason. Very rarely do Music heads have a grasp on how a camera works, or color grading or video editing. And just as rare, do Film heads have an understanding of how mixing audio works, or sound design or music production. Both are intricate forms of art which merit a vast knowledge, intellectually and emotionally.

What a painter and a musician share in appreciation of art, they differ in how they consume it. Both see life beautifully and different from the non-creative person. For how wildly different sound is from visuals, they are both frequencies at the end of the day. I implore you to start treating the next composer you bring on, be it a friend a colleague or me ;) as a conduit of creative ideas. Though we are all fed creativity from the same source, the way in which, and distance that creativity makes its way from source to out our bodies differs widely. You never know, you might just find bringing on a composer at the writing stage for your next film was the best decision ever, or maybe they turned out to be a butt head know-it-all who dragged down the mood (couldn't be me). Either way, we're all walking life and learning, individually and collectively. "Alone we are weak, but together strong" - that monkey from Planet of the Apes.

So to rap this up, bring on a composer you trust. Then invite their emotional insight into a scene, an edit, or a draft of your script. We may not write scripts, rig lights or pull focus, but we appreciate the craft and care that go into telling a story. We might notice something you missed—or recognize exactly what you were hoping would come through. Give your composer a chance to contribute before music becomes the only thing left to add.