Creative Strategies in Film Scoring Audio and Video Access Included | Berklee Guide for Composers and Filmmakers | Learn to Score Music for Film, TV, and Video Games

This as a "big picture" set of real life/real world strategies for how to approach composing music for particular emotional circumstances. A heavy emphasis is placed on analyzing what has been done well in popular movie scores, and working within a creative team. To get the most from this book the reader needs a firm understanding of music harmony and orchestration and has some experience with scoring to picture. This is not a "how to" score a film from the bottom up. Thankfully this doesn't have an overly simplistic beginning describing what a melody is, what basic chords are, and how to read musical notation. Instead, this book assumes that the reader is a serious and dedicated, somewhat established, composer. I think it is great for composers looking to expand their work with film and advertising and would be a godsend for a composer who just landed their first full-length film scoring job and is overwhelmed by the scope of the project and asking "what now? There is so much to do and so many questions to answer!" The book provides a method for approaching any film/music circumstance and ways to answer the most common musical/artistic situations found when composing a film score. Personally, I have struggled with how often my music should respond to edits in a film and the book provided a process for deciding if my music should change when the edits happen, and which types of edits are most important to respond to. That word "method" or "process" is key here. The book doesn't provide answers for all people at all times, but instead it provides a way to get to the answer. I found myself watching movies and analyzing scores differently after reading the book. While I was always amazed by the melodic and harmonic choices, now I notice many other aspects, like how the music reinforces the location and time period of the scene, and how the entire creative team must have worked together to make sure the music works with dialogue and sound FX throughout the movie. As a composer and producer with some short film credits to my name, I really enjoyed the book. Though it is short(under 200 pages), it is not a quick read. It is information-packed and requires a large amount of musical and technical knowledge before it can be really useful. For novice composers just starting to learn music theory, orchestration, and melodic construction I think there are some other resources to get going with the basics, but for somewhat established composer/producers, this book provides a great resource to answer the question "How do I approach this scene?".

Ben is an extremely gifted educator. I was lucky to have him as an orchestration professor twice in my degree program and have always loved how straightforward and simplified his teaching style is. This book definitely fits that same mold, and for me as a longtime musician but new to film scoring, this book has been my best friend when approaching film. Each concept is broken down in an easily digestible way and uses real film score examples to show how these concepts can be applied to scenes. Really love this book and have been using it frequently alongside my composing.

I highly recommend this insightful and effective work. This book is about quantifying the creative process. It presents a method for film composers or anyone trying to figure out what the music should be in a film, TV show or other recorded media. Newhouse’s writing style is clear and easy to understand. The early chapters present the concepts generally while citing scenes from existing films that can serve as examples. The ending chapters are case studies, specific scenes that don’t have music and then the book talks about how the method would be used to create appropriate music. The appendix includes a series of worksheets that can be filled out when making musical decisions about a scene or film

The author intended that this book provide a modus operandi for composers working with film makers, There is nothing in the text that requires anything more than minimum musical knowledge. Composers who play "by ear" can benefit. from the suggestions. he author points out what is obvious about film scoring, but what most of us haven't consciously noticed. The references to the internet (with purchase of the book) are helpful. The book gets a 4 instead of a 5 star rating because I would have liked a more scholarly approach to film scoring which would not necessarily have involved more musical expertise, but would have had discussed more and different aspects of scoring, a more historical approach.

This book by Ben Newhouse guides people in the creative process of film scoring in a wonderful step-by-step manner. Style considerations, Emotion, Energy level, Contour and many other considerations are outlined in a very thorough and clear way to provide great information for composers. It is also great to have a book with many films referenced throughout. This is a practical resource for composers either just getting their feet wet or in the trenches of composing for film. I am honored to have taken composition from Ben Newhouse at the prestigious Berklee College of Music Online. His sharing of his knowledge with me and countless other Berklee graduates will keep this industry kicking, and with his incredible ideas stemming from his many years of industry experience, I feel ready to take on more film scoring challenges as I graduate. This is a wonderful addition to a film composers arsenal of film scoring books! Karen Naifeh Harmon

This book is a wonderful overall guide to creating a concept based on the story-line of a film and how to make creative decisions that may not be obvious. It details how to build a framework for your score based on the style, emotion, and energy level of the scene; as well as understanding contour and when to hit picture cuts (or emotional changes in the story). There is an in depth analysis of a few scores that help the student understand why particular choices where made such as harmony, melody, dynamics, instrumentation and color to name a few. This book is a great way to get started in writing music to picture. If you want study these techniques further as well as expand your grasp of film score/20th century harmony commonly used I can also highly recommend Ben's Berklee Online Courses "Music Composition for Film and TV 1 and 2.

This book is everything you need and more to get in the right mindset for writing/scoring for film, and learn tons of practical techniques and approaches. This is also an ideal book for the whole creative team (director, producer, music supervisor etc.) to read. It teaches everyone a common language so they can communicate more clearly and efficiently and keep the creative flow going, even if they aren’t trained in music.

This book covers many fundamentals of film scoring in ways accessible to both professionals and enthusiasts. The accompanying musical examples help to concretise some ideas. Hope to see a sequel of sorts exploring more deeply or extending from those ideas covered in this book.

A really great book, well written, that gives you a very in detail tips on how to write music to picture.

Amazing book and great teacher

Everything is in detail

There are some basic concepts and contextualized examples, it's not about arranging and orchestrating