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Dances With Wolves! Yes! Beautiful score that was effective but not in the way. Did you know that the 1st Batman movie (Tim Burton's) was originally going to feature only songs by "the artists formerly known as" Prince instead of the score that was brilliantly done by Elfman? How horrible would...

I only saw Lord of the Rings (1) in the theatres and yes I found the score to be very boring and distracting and everything else you said. I remember thinking, "I'm glad I didn't write this" while watching the movie. I guess that's pretty bad. Alan Silvestri, however, is one of the best...

What are some of our favorite scores out there and why? My all-time favorite score is from "The Natural" with Robert Redford simply because the music played such an important role in the "mystical" and "magical" eliments of the story. When those heroic horns play that fanfare-type theme...

The score for the original Planet of the Apes is amazing. Jerry Goldsmith won an oscar for it. He wrote the avant guard piano part for his teacher and mentor (I forgot his name) who was an accomplished pianist. I doubt he could have given such a part to a regular player for sight reading. The...

Speaking of English, I had the opportunity to meet John Cleese at a conference last year. He's one of my favorite actors and probably one of the people on my very short list of "most wanted to meet". The best thing was I got to make him laugh a few times. Being he was in Harry Potter my kids...

Bruce, Extremely nice site! Very impressive credits too. I could not listen to your audio clips because of a firewall issue, but I liked the intro a lot. It's difficult, even with samplers, to emulate a real orchestra. It takes a writer who knows what a real one is supposed to sound like to do...

That's another good point, Bruce. When I do student films (for free) I usually sign a Master Use license agreement, which pretty much says, that "this is my music and you can use it in your film." Again, everything in writing. There are situations were the music is bought out as a "work for...

I don't have any SFX cds to recommend, but follow up on Clive and Baz, sounds like good leads. And welcome Joshtrix! You are in the right place. Most composers join groups like "Film Music Network", which is fine. I belong as well. But if you want to score music to films then you have to hang...

Getting everything in writing is the most important point! Thanks Clive. I know electronic scoring is the norm for indie films, but I just thought I'd ask: Have any filmmakers out there ever had the resources to hire a full live orchestra to record a score? Just wondering, if so, what that...

Actually, better still. Here is a link to the Film Music Network site. This page might answer a lot of basic questions about music licensing. It is a great resource: http://www.filmmusicmag.com/faq/8.html

Logan, It looks like you ran into a little of this with your film Little Elm. I'll give some pointers in my next post when I have a little more time to type.

Turning to pop songs instead of scoring, I've run into producers who have put songs into their films only to find themselves in a legal nightmare once they get a distributor interested. They put the song in the film without asking permission and all of a sudden they can't use that key song...

Clive & Redemption, Please feel free to call me for any film you do!

My thanks to Redemption and Clive. Wow!

My camera is a MINI DV (Miniature Digital Video) format digital camera (Sony Handy Cam-type) It hooks up to a PC / MAC via Firewire. USB is usually used for still photo transfers. My camera has composite (RCA) inputs that will accept video input from pretty much any other video source. You...

I prefer and usually ask for the film on Mini DV format, but I can convert from DV CAM, S-VHS, VHS, BETA and even 3/4" to MINI DV and then import it from my camera to my computer as Quick Time. I haven't gotten anything yet on DVD. When I did the music for the Shaman King (FOX Saturday...

I forget... what's a turntable? 8)

I have a MAC G4 running Digital Performer. I use Kontakt as a virtual sampler. (Pro-Samples, Roland, & Native Instruments Libraries.) I also have a Roland XV-5080 Sound Module and a Korg X3 Keyboard along with some other outboard gear (ADAT, Delays, Reverb units, etc.) I use a Soundcraft...

This debate has been going on since the Earth cooled and probably will continue until the mother ship comes back for us all, so in an attempt to try to change the subject: What do you other composers use? Hardware, software, samplers, etc...How do you sync up to picture?

I feel that if composers don't charge anything then they dis-value (I think I made that up) the craft and don't see their own work as having any value. Sure there are films with no budgets, but come on... producers can come up with at least something nominal. Is Hutch saying that, like little...