Film Music

Why do we have music in films?

• Adds Emotion
• Adds Foreshadowing
• Sets tone for each scene
 Sounds in films
• Versatile • Manipulated to make
• Live sound many new sounds
• Many famous movies have orchestras • Can have a wide range
of possibilities
• Became more popular
after 1970s

Orchestra Synthesises

Non-
Diagetic
diagetic
Sound
sound
• The source of music comes from •The source of the music
inside the film is added on top.
• E.g. Rain, draws closing, paper, •The characters don’t
tapping hear it
•E.g. Action music on top
of a fight scene
History of film music
 The beginning of films
• Thomas Edison invented the Kinetograph around 1894
• Inspired by the Kinetograph, the Lumiere brothers invented the
cinematographer
• The first public showing of a Lumiere brothers film took place on
28th December 1895
What did you think of some of the first
Lumiere brothers films?
The silent Era (1890s to 1929s)
• Professional musicians (accompanists, pianist or orchestras) were
hired to drown out the sound of the projector during a silent film
viewing
• Accompanists were given just musical ideas to play live during a
silent film viewing
• Its believed Saint Saens score for l'assassinat du duc de guise was
first ever original score for a film (1908)
• Towards the end of the 1920s they started to synchronise music to
films
 What did you think of l'assassinat du duc de
guise?
• One of the first movies that had a synchronised piece for the
film
• Written in 1908
• Sound by Saint Saens
Golden age of film scores (1930s to 1950s)
• The Jazz singer (1927), was the first featured film with
synchronised dialog and song sequences
• Music was specifically written for the film, and matched it
•
first talkies?
• Jazz singer
• One of the first pieces when talking could be recorded and
perfectly synchronised
• Amazed the audiences back in the 1930s
Composers of the golden age (1930-1950)
• Max Steier
• Famous for leitmotif (A technique where instruments are assigned to
individual characters or events)
• Known for King Kong in 1933
• Enrich Korn
• Austrian Composer
• Famous for The adventures of Robbin hood (1938) & The Sea Hawk
(1940)
The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Fantasia)
Film music branches out (1950s-1969)
• Jazz music became more popular
• Fewer musicians were required to record scores
• First films that had jazz in it was called The Street car named
desire (1951) scores written by Alex North
• Some experimental music also
Addition of Rock Music (1970s)
• 1970s shift towards rock music and very early synthesisers in
film scores
• A Clock work Orange was one of the first pieces with lots of
rock (1971)
Rise of the Synthesizer (1980s)
• 1980s synthesizers became extremely popular and available, could
write the whole score on just one synthesizer.
• More scores with pop and rock instead of full orchestrations became
more popular
• Blade Runner
• Combined classical and synth to make dark futuristic score
• BeetleJuice
• Score written by Danny Elfmann
• Has symphonic orchestra, synthesizer, voice and rock
• Star Wars
• John Williams
Technology advances 2000 to 2021
• Technology continued to advance.
• Synthesisers became more complex and had an ability to make
extravagant scores and soundtracks
• The Royal Tenenbaums uses a mix of classic and pop music
• Harry Potter
• The Lord of the Rings
Do you know any famous film composers?
Danny Elfman
• American composer LA, (1953 born)
• Composed mostly for tim burton films
• 46 Academy award nominations
• 2000 golden globe nominations
• Winner: Man title theme music- Desperate Housewives
• Winner: Best instrumental Composition- The Batman theme
from Batmann
You might know some of his works…
What did you think of charlie and the
chocolate factory?
Hans Zimmer
• German composer 1957
• Moved to London as a teenager
• Famous for using traditional orchestra instruments with
electronic sounds
You might know some of his works…
What did you think of the Da Vinci Code
John Williams
• Born 1932
• Studied piano at 6 years old
• After 3 years military service he became a movie studio
musician playing piano (To kill a mocking bird)
• 1973 Jaws recorded with 73 piece orchestra Steven Spielberg
laughed at the beginning when John Cage presented EFEFEF
motif.
Some famous works you might know….
Howard Shore
• Canadian Composer 1946
• He plays saxophone, organ & Flute
• Most famous for lord of the rings and the hobbits (Concerning
Hobbits)
References
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_score
• https://www.theguardian.com/music/2007/mar/18/features.musicmonthly
14
• https://www.classicfm.com/composers/zimmer/best-hans-zimmer-soundt
racks/
• https://johnwilliams.org/compositions
• https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/pictures/composer/great-works-d
anny-elfman/
• https://www.filmindependent.org/blog/know-score-brief-history-film-musi
c/
• https://prezi.com/xhhh_oly62uc/film-music-presentation/
• https://www.slideshare.net/smontero10/history-of-film-music
• https://www.slideshare.net/chrisbr/music-film
Thanks for watching!