Music & Scripts

[Colmforest]

I'm a bit of a music fan, and have found that listening to certain types of song help inspire me to write a scene in a certain way. However, is it my place as a screen writer to make suggestions about what songs should be used for certain descriptive settings or montages?

I refer specifically to the inspiration surrounding a scene in a screenplay I've written that has a lazy wake-up scene at the start, which I always imagined to be played to a certain song by Led Zepplin. Needless to say it would be unlikely I'd ever get to use that song per-say, but it would be more the style of song rather than the song itself. The song would play much in the same way that "I've got you babe" would play as the wake-up alarm in Groundhog Day.

I feel the song (or one similar) would set the tone for the scene - but is it my place to make that suggestion?

Ta!

CC

 

[Joker B]

If your script includes a specific song as part of the story, then well it's a necessary liability.

This almost never ever happens.

If you imagine a particular song, why? What about that song's character inspires the feeling you desire? Writing "a slow jazz track reminiscent of clinking cocktail glasses and too many cigarettes" may be a better description than "Miles Davis's 'Blue in Green'" -- it leaves the director, composer, and production lawyers with plenty of wiggle room.

think twice anyway. Do you imagine the music cue as a means to telegraph an emotional cue? Is your story a balloon house that can't stand up without being pre-inflated? Why not?

 

[Colmforest]

Do you imagine the music cue as a means to telegraph an emotional cue? Is your story a balloon house that can't stand up without being pre-inflated? Why not?

Great point. The scene was my opening title, and I leaned on the crutch of this song to get away with a half-arsed description of what I wanted to happen. I have re-addressed it and it looks a lot better, didn't even mention music.