LessonPage:Film scoring for musicians:Spotting Session

Watch a movie

All you have to do is watch a movie. Very easy!

Star Movie Shop has created a new disks called "Only a Dream" which is the final scene from a popular television series. The disk contains a rough edit, an overview of the best of the film dailies and a spotting session.

The spotting session is the instructions from the film's Producer to the film's composer listing all the musical cues which are needed. This disk gives you a good introduction to a spotting session.

If you wish, you can also score the scene and send me the audio file of the score or the score plus the dialog.

Disk required for this lesson

Lesson requirements

Wikiversity Film School uses the disks from the Star Movie Shop.

I can loan the disks to you if you promise to return each disk in one month. (The disks are not copy protected.)

When you are ready, tell me that you want to borrow the disk called "Only a Dream". clicking here

Earn extra points.

If you wish, you can try to create the film score for this scene. Send me just the audio file (preferably the score mixed with the dialog.)

If you need help setting up your program

There is a page which tells you how to set up GarageBand to do film scoring. If you have not done this before (with any program), go to How to score with GarageBand.

Ben Henderson (Cubinoid) has created the film score for this scene - 15 March 2008 - 10 points

• The film score for Only A Dream (Ogg file)

I used Logic Pro, and many orchestral samples.

I added a fade, but normally I would leave this to the Sound Guy!

The piano playing at the end is me playing a piece I wrote for this scene - not a real record! I added vinyl noise to it to in order to make it sound somehow wistful and nostalgic. I sampled an actual piano - and created an EXS24 instrument with the samples. It's not the greatest piano in the world, but it has a bit of character!

Tiego Louis Zontag has created the film score . - 15 March 2008 - 10 points

• The film score for Only A Dream (Ogg file)

The next exercise

When you send me the score or you send me your comments, I will send you the next disk.

Contact your instructor

Your instructor for this course is Robert Elliott. You can send me a quick email by clicking here.

NOTE: To submit assignments

To submit assignments, attach your completed assignments to an email and send it to me at "r_elliott innercite.com".