As you know, my focus with Composing Academy is on writing 'Cinematic Music' - music, often orchestral based, that would typically accompany visual media such a Film, episodic TV or a Video game.

Music for each of these three different mediums share various similarities and differences, which I thought I would go through today.

🎞️ Film

Whether helping to heighten the magic of the bike riding scene in ET or creating excitement with the opening Brass chords at the beginning of Star Wars, the music's main role in Film is to help support the story and drama being told. Music will often help to create atmosphere, alongside guiding us, the audience, through the various emotions of a story.

Dialogue is often deemed the most important audio element of a film, so composers must be careful that their music compliments rather than obstructs the dialogue, in addition to working alongside sound effects as well.

The time a composer gets to score a film can vary wildly, from 6+ months, to sometimes even just a week! There are often large music budgets available (over $1million) to cover both the composer's fee, in addition to the costs of recording musicians etc.

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📺 Episodic Television

Music written for episodic TV shares a lot of similarities with music written for film. Both are linear in nature, with each scene consisting of a specific length of time. Like music for Film, Television also features dialogue and sound effects, which the composer has to navigate around.

TV music must also ensure that it is helping to support the story at all times, providing a musical narrative that reflects and compliments the visuals it is accompanying.

One of the main differences though is with the time the composer is given to score an episode. Production schedules are often extremely tight - a composer is often given only a week (or 10 days) to compose and deliver a score for an hour long episode, which could contain up to 40minutes of music. For multi episodic TV where there may be as many as 16+ episodes in a season, this can often turn into a relentless schedule of 'churning out' cues.

Music budgets are often smaller for episodic TV as well. Whereas most commercial Hollywood films feature budgets to record a score with live musicians, in the case of TV, this is the minority, with scores often being delivered 'in the box', using mostly samples. There are of course exceptions - the American show LOST recorded a live orchestra each week, along with the BBC series Call the Midwife (mostly live Strings and Woodwinds).

You'll also find that the melody component of music is less present in music for Television. Compared to the sweeping melodies you often find in Film (like the ET's Flying theme, or Jack Sparrow's theme from Pirates of the Caribbean), its often harder to find the equivalent in TV.

Finally, Films with a planned theatrical release will be able to often make use of impressive sound systems found in theatres. In contrast, TV (and Films that go straight to streaming services) will often be heard primarily through TV speakers. These offer vastly different technical capabilities, which will have an impact on elements such as the ability to play back or hear low frequencies.

Some of my favourite TV scores include House of Cards (Composed by Jeff Beal) and Call the Midwife (composed by Maurizio Malagnini).

🎮 Video Game Music

Out of the 3 mediums, music for Video games has the greatest differences.

Whereas music for Film and TV is written for a specific scene with a specific length, Video game music must be written so that it can seamlessly adapt, changing dynamically based on a player's actions. Imagine there is a player who is new to gaming - they may spend 10 minutes playing and navigating through a particular level, whereas a more advanced gamer might progress through the same level in 3 minutes. The music has to be composed and implemented in a way that enables it to be flexible, catering for the varying amount of time players may be in a particular situation, alongside being able to transform between one emotional state and another seamlessly. The interactive nature of the music can be achieved through a variety of techniques including the use of loops, horizontal resequencing and vertical remixing.

Due to the need for adaptability within the music, composers will often limit the use of some compositional techniques such as the use of modulating (changing keys) or changing tempos, in order that the music can loop as seamlessly as possible.

Because of the complexity in the development process of a game, composers are often afforded more time to work on the score, compared to Film and Television scores, often coming onboard a year or two before the game is released.

In terms of similarities between Video game and Film & Television music, Video games will often include various cut scenes, a short sequence which is not interactive. Composers will often score these much like any other Film or TV scene.

There are also other aspects such as the craft and technique that are involved in actually writing music, which overlap between the mediums. Knowing how to develop an idea into a more substantial piece or how to orchestrate effectively are all requirements for writing in all 3 mediums.

Although I am not an avid gamer myself, I will often watch walkthroughs or streams of someone playing a game on sites such as YouTube. Some of my favourite games for their music include Ori and the Blind Forest (composed by Gareth Coker) or Call of Duty:WWII (composed by Wilbert Roget)

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