How to Practice Film and TV Composing | Finding more to score

How to practice film and tv composing more. More composer tips with this composer behind the scenes episode.
Season 1 Episode 9: In this video I answer the common question composers ask -- "How can I get more video clips I can score to for practice or for my demo reel?" This video aims to answer that and discusses more about practicing the craft of scoring to picture.
In this video I share some thoughts on what you can do to better prepare and practice for writing film and tv music. I share 4 strategies on how to obtain lots of practice material and also play a quick demo of one of my own example scoring and putting together a mock teaser trailer within 1 day.
Chapters
===============
0:00 Intro
0:34 The Common Question
0:59 Waiting for the Break
1:25 Reality Check
1:43 Work Hard and Be Prepared
2:53 Trevor Morris 6 minutes a day
3:54 4 Strategies
4:17 Strategy 1
4:41 Strategy 2
5:52 Strategy 3
7:10 Strategy 4
8:27 My Example Intro
9:20 Demo Teaser Trailer
10:10 Demo BTS Explanation
11:50 Summary
12:20 Outtro
Links to videos mentioned:
How to How to Sync Video | Cubase | Composer Behind The Scenes - • How to Sync Video | Cu...
Trevor Morris AMA Episode #23 - 6 Minutes A Day, The Path To Becoming A Pro TV Composer - • AMA Episode #23 - 6 Mi...
Services/Sites mentioned:
Stock Video
Pixabay.com
Artgrid.io
Storyblocks.com
Elements.envato.com
Software mentioned:
Open Broadcaster Software | OBS Studio - obsproject.com/
Blackmagic Davinci Resolve - www.blackmagicdesign.com/prod...
#filmcomposer #tvcomposer #creators

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

Post clips of your demos! I would love to check them out. And let me know if you want me to possibly showcase and review them in an upcoming video!

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

I’ve learned from other composers that thecuetube.com is a fairly new service that is helping offer unscored cues, competitions and matchmaking with filmmakers. Worth checking out!

[@MartinHeidenreichMusic]

@@AlvinSWongMusic the Cue Tube is a fantastic resource and great community

[@axel.lessio]

Hey Alvin, you and other youtubers have inspired me to finally give film scoring a try. I do have a background in music but scoring to picture is something I would have never tried hadn't I watched these videos. Any feedback on my very first project would be highly appreciated, I have a lot to learn: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aqbIkIuCjraHh7c Thanks! Axel.

[@joshuastclairmusic]

Great video Alvin! I resolved to compose the soundtrack to my KZbin channel, and it has been a great way to practice composition. I’ve got a lot of free time this summer too, and I’m planning to head to the library and study counterpoint, orchestration, etc. I sometimes get intimidated by how much work and study is ahead but then I remember - I love composing! Couldnt be happier walking this journey. All the best to all the composers out there!

[@sakurathornsickle5681]

This was very helpful, thank you so much! I am a classical musician but have always been passionate about film music so needed to know where to start to try and build a portfolio, so thank you so much! Subscribed :D

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

Thank you for watching. I’m honoured you found it helpful as a classical musician. Cheers.

[@gyorgybecsei34]

Great tips, I am very grateful for your informative videos and good advices.

[@micwarren21]

Cuetube is a great resource for royalty free clips to work with.

[@googlesucks7473]

Such awesome information, tyvm. Cheers

[@braydendukes6633]

super informational. Thank you Alvin!

[@Alexlamb442]

I got lots of value from this, thank you

[@ihcrenrut]

Cool Alvin! This is great man.

[@jorgelatorre2579]

Just stop by to say THANK YOU! i recently determined that i want to follow the Film scoring path and yours is a real blessing. God Bless You!

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

Jorge, Thanks for your message! God be with you too in your endeavours.

[@whatchrisdoinmusic]

Great video! I love the points you made at the beginning. I think most of us can get wrapped up and think that for some reason the universe is just going to bring us the next big director on a silver platter and we’re gonna catch our big break. Haha! It’s so dangerous to be in that mindset because it can hinder our progression and forward action for our careers. New subscriber!

[@rdpatterson2682]

Great suggestions.

[@ShivSagar010]

Thank You Very Much Sir! 🙂🙏

[@nate4732]

Great video mate!

[@martingeorgeselwood]

These are some great tips, thank you Alvin.

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

Thanks for stopping by, Martin!

[@seanfourie7]

Thanks Alvin for you I insight into this very competitive industry, loving your channel.

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

Thanks, Sean! I’m still a total newb learning as much as I can and sharing back as much as possible. Cheers.

[@Tallstack]

Pretty cool video! Thanks for the 4 strategies! I really like your style and your channel.

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

Thank you so much! 🙌

[@jamescalvey5273]

Great video very helpful! Thank you for making it!

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

Thanks, James! Glad you found it helpful!

[@raymondspagnuolo8222]

Hello Alvin! Thank you for posting this video. Many useful tips; change tonality about every 9 seconds was interesting. Also, the different web sites for film clips was also new info for me. I've subscribed and liked the vid, too!

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

Glad you liked it. Thanks Raymond!

[@MartinHeidenreichMusic]

wonderful video and so many useful tipps, thank you. just subbed

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

Thanks Martin!

[@micwarren21]

Saw your previous video on synchronizing to film. As a relatively new cubase user, all of your tips were extremely helpful. With this video, your addition to external resources to get video was a great help. I am now subscriber as of today. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

Thanks, Michael. Glad you found the videos helpful! Cheers.

[@micwarren21]

Everything works perfectly following your setup. My only problem is that when I scrub there is no audio. I've tried everything in my own limited knowledge bank. Is there one other setting I'm missing? Audio and video plays fine using space bar and when scrubbing, timecode and scene updates but no audio. Is there another lesson you did that might address that? Thanks again, Michael Warren

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

As far as I know there is no audio in DAWs as you scrub through the video as you would with a NLE video editor like Premiere Pro or DaVinci Resolve. Audio should only play at normal speed. Hope I understood your question. 🙂

[@micwarren21]

@@AlvinSWongMusic Makes sense. I was going crazy trying to scrub the video or audio track attached to it. Using accomplishes pretty much the same thing. Again thank you for your time and your knowledge.

[@patrickvisser4710]

aight, Im subscribed

[@Musicforpets145]

I Got into This By Accident, A Large Company Contact me to Buy Some of my Music for TV and Radio Commercials I was thinking it was A Scam Till they Paid me for the First year Now I love Doing this Work and Music ! Thanks for your Video

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

Wow that is wonderful! I am so happy and grateful for messages like this. Best wishes and continued success!💪💪

[@henryhorne5492]

Nice Alvin! Thanks again!

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

Thanks Henry. 🙌

[@philmartin7474]

Wonderful information, im a follower now👍👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼💯

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

Thanks Phil!

[@marklholloway]

Just discovered your channel. It’s a gem! 🖤👑 Liked and subscribed 👍✅

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

Thank you so much Mark! Glad you’re enjoying the content. 🍻

[@tailokman]

Your whole presentation was really great. You're a wonderful person whom I hope to one day meet. Learnt so much from you Thank you for all your helpful advice..

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

Thank you for the feedback and kind words! Happy to grab a beer if we ever meet!

[@angelomarchelletta]

Such amazing advice I just subbed thank you. I've always been obsessed with zombie movies I'm gonna shoot a creepy sceen in an abandoned school and write to it lol also the film contest thing is brilliant.

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

Awesome. Nothing more fun than to see your own film come to life! I’ll be releasing a new video soon on some sound design/sfx as well. Amazing stuff. Glad you subscribed 😉!

[@gkgyver]

6 minutes a day is f'n crazy. At crunch time for Return of the King, Howard Shore had to deliver 6-8 minutes of orchestrated music per day, and he was dead.

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

Wow did not know that. Cool trivia info for LOTR fans! Thanks.

[@project1265ffo]

Nice video Alvin 👍

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

🙏 Thanks, Filipe!

[@DolceMusicGroupZim]

Very informative

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

Thanks for watching.

[@AlbinSivard]

I love the video! I looked at Envato but had a hard time finding longer videos, are most of their videos short? or wich site do you recommend for longer videos? Cheers Alvin

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

Give thecuetube.com a try Albin! I hear good things about them.

[@geoffreyhargreaves-heald9948]

Alvin-your music far exceeded the visuals. Visually, it has to MOVE like the music moves or the visual can drain dynamism from the music. The visuals went on too long and didn’t have enough interest to match your music. That improved with the skull, but that too did not match the urgency of the music. I realize that you had to work with video you had, but I’d look for ways to balance the two elements more by rocking the visuals. Just kicking up the speed would help but you need more interest (shifting color? Shifting closeups etc. I think you need more material so you can MOVE.) Bravo on the music! I too love those Legendary Low Strings. Cant wait to use them.

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

Geoffrey thank you so much for watching and your great analysis. Definitely am not a proper trailer editor and yes definitely felt like I had to try to add more excitement to the cuts that might be too long. In a subconscious way when I realized I left it in and actually thought it was also good practice if I ran into less than ideal material I was told to score and do your best with. Definitely have to work on my film editing side haha. Once again many thanks for watching! Yeah so many libraries and so little time to play with 😁. Thanks.

[@kennethjackson4858]

Hello Alvin, thank you for your inspiration on doing film scoring. I don't have a camera, but I have an iPhone 12 to video. I don't have my own all--in-one library and the library you used is great. I also don't have Cubase. I have Logic Pro X. I'm not a youth in age, but youthful in my mind. I have a few free libraries: Spitfire LABS and their BBCSO Discover, ProjectSam's Free Orchestra. So, I watched your comparison of Abby and I think Albion One. I know nothing of film scoring and I like films and documentaries. Any inspiration or advice. I will try what you have suggested on this video. Thank you, Alvin.

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

Thanks Kenneth! You should be able to do amazing things with those libraries already and with Logic. Have fun!

[@jimrogers7425]

Hi Kenneth... In reading your particular comment I felt like I wanted to chime in to reply. I'm in my mid 60s and over the past year have purchased Logic as well as several Spitfire libraries. While I began with all of the free libraries (Spitfire BBCSO Discover, and a few others) I soon realized that I needed something with more resolution, so I got the full version of Kontakt, at full price, and Albion One on sale. For me that was where things changed as the resolution of Albion One's samples is SO much better, with more articulations and dynamic layers. Since Albion One is ensemble oriented, I went back to get BBCSO Core on sale and that made an even BIGGER DIFFERENCE in my level of inspiration. However, to address your question, ThinkSpace Education, and Guy MIchelmore's You Tube channel, has scoring footage available, as does Spitfire's channel, as well as Christian Henson and Paul Thomson's channels. ThinkSpace even has a rather inexpensive course on scoring to picture. This channel looks great and will most certainly grow beyond where it is now, but getting with even more channels that are similar will get you more of what you're looking for. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

Thanks Jim 🙏! Excellent insight and advice about following Guy Michelmore’s channel and all the great resources online offered by Spitfire Audio and their cofounders Paul and Christian. They were who I watched a lot of as well. Also check out Alex Pfeffer and Christian Su’s channels. Great people and composer channels as well.

[@kennethjackson4858]

@@jimrogers7425, thank you so much for rolling the deal, if I can say that. I know libraries can get expensive and so many things out there. I was looking at Albion One or Nucleus. Nucleus has a few solo instruments and AO hasn’t, but you choose BBCSO Core. To be honest, I like them all, but I know, for me, being wise, I’m saving up for sales and most likely when they do come in be as little better at arranging. I like Spitfire videos and what they do with their libraries. I would like to keep up with you and let you know how I’m doing if that is ok. It took awhile to get back in music after a bad accident and recovering and it is my goal to do a documentary of my own or work for a short film some day. I like gamer videos, but it’s so hard to hear music with all the action that is going on. Anyway, sorry for the long write. Thank you again for jumping in.

[@offlinemode92]

Where can i enroll to learn how to make... Music for film and tv... From scratch... I have no idea... Where to start please... Help me... I need to learn from basic to advanced... I am ready to give myself next three to three years... Dedicatedly. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

[@MrEMann]

What happened to this channel? The videos just stopped. 😕

[@joeldavidpalmer]

I've been compiling a list of films with little or no music. So far: Catch-22 (1970). Almost no score. Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (1974) No score apart from the opening and closing credits. Frankenstein (1931 No score apart from the credits. The Birds (1963) No musical score to speak of. Fail-Safe (1964) No musical score. Fantastic Voyage (1966) The first 40 minutes -- per the composer's insistence -- has no music. The Narrow Margin (1952) No musical score. Rope Blair Witch Project Network M No Country for Old Men Blue Ruin Bone Tomahawk Open Water Starred Up The Defiant Ones The Homecoming

[@AlvinSWongMusic]

Wow thanks for sharing, Joel!