Creative expression vs. artistic vision

[Elmakai]

I was curious from all the filmmakers out there, how much freedom do you like to give composers? Do you like to give general ideas and let them create expressively, or do you like to be specific to your own vision of the film?

The same with composers, do you like to be given specific or general instructions when scoring for a film?

Since I've never actually done a film (any projects I had started always fell through), I really don't know what I like better.

 

[Uranium City]

I give them complete freedom. Like any other portion of the film, it's done in drafts, and they listen to my notes and fix whatever problems there are. But the initial draft is always "here's the cut, come up with something!"

For the short I'm completing now, shot in January, I actually stole a page from Coppola's "The Conversation" and gave the composer the script a month before we started shooting. He came up with several themes and we played them on set for the actors. It was an interesting way to work...

 

[Gonzo_Entertainment]

Limited freedom. I know what the music in supposed to accomplish (in my vision of the fim), as long as it does that, is the correct tone, sets the right mood, whatever, then it's fine, but he isn't llowed to change the tone, mood, etc... to spomething I don't want it to be.

 

[Elmakai]

I give them complete freedom. Like any other portion of the film, it's done in drafts, and they listen to my notes and fix whatever problems there are. But the initial draft is always "here's the cut, come up with something!"

For the short I'm completing now, shot in January, I actually stole a page from Coppola's "The Conversation" and gave the composer the script a month before we started shooting. He came up with several themes and we played them on set for the actors. It was an interesting way to work...

I remember watching the director's commentary on Vanilla Sky, and he liked to do that, but not with soundtrack music, but various songs. There was a scene when Tom Cruise was talking to Kurt Russell where he just starts dancing, and the director was talking about the song that was playing that Cruise was dancing to (I forgot what it was), but in the movie there was no backround music, so it was rather creepy.

Limited freedom. I know what the music in supposed to accomplish (in my vision of the fim), as long as it does that, is the correct tone, sets the right mood, whatever, then it's fine, but he isn't llowed to change the tone, mood, etc... to spomething I don't want it to be.

That makes sense, but if the composer was creating the wrong mood in the first place (like playing comedic music during a suspenseful scene), it would make me wonder if that person was the right choice. If the scene were Christian Bale murdering someone on American Psycho, and the composer started playing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnHmskwqCCQ I would considering hiring someone else.

 

[Hammerstone]

I give them complete freedom. Like any other portion of the film, it's done in drafts, and they listen to my notes and fix whatever problems there are. But the initial draft is always "here's the cut, come up with something!"

For the short I'm completing now, shot in January, I actually stole a page from Coppola's "The Conversation" and gave the composer the script a month before we started shooting. He came up with several themes and we played them on set for the actors. It was an interesting way to work...

I'm a composer, and I know a lot of composers, and I think you're the kind of director we'd all like to work with!