Music Composition for Film and TV
Learn to write music in the style of big budget Hollywood films and TV programs. Music Composition for Film and TV begins with an overview of important considerations for composing for film and TV, including how to balance music and dialogue, how to influence the audience’s emotional response, and how to create music that elicits a location or time period. Each week, the course will focus on a different genre of music for film and TV—themes such as romance, sadness/sorrow, chase, heroic action, action adventure, horror, suspense, magic, fantasy, and comedy. The course will analyze each genre in terms of melody, harmony, counterpoint, tempo, rhythm, and orchestration, providing you with a “recipe book” for writing for film and TV. The analyses form a collection of music templates that you will then apply towards writing a piece of music for each genre. The final week of the course traces the logistical path of a musical idea from initial conception to final recording, including composition, orchestration, and recording.
The course features scores from the biggest composers in Hollywood—scores that are typically not available publicly. The musical examples include composers such as John Williams (Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Hook, Schindler's List), Aaron Zigman (Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, Bridge to Terabithia, Flicka), Alan Sylvestri (Forrest Gump, Polar Express), Marco Beltrami (Hellboy, Live Free or Die Hard, iRobot), James Newton Howard (Atlantis), Pinar Toprak (Light of Olympia), James Horner (Braveheart, Troy), Jerry Goldsmith (Star Trek), and Alf Clausen (Simpsons) who composed a piece specifically for this course! The goal of the course is to give you a thorough understanding of the compositional styles used in Hollywood projects, in addition to arming you with a 10-piece portfolio of film and TV music that you can use as demos.
By the end of the course, you will be able to:
- understand creative considerations for writing to picture, including balancing music with dialogue, hitting pictures cuts, and more
- identify and apply harmonic devices specific to themes such as romance, sadness/sorrow, chase, heroic action, action adventure, horror, suspense, magic, fantasy, and comedy
- identify and apply melodic considerations specific to themes such as romance, sadness/sorrow, chase, heroic action, action adventure, horror, suspense, magic, fantasy, and comedy
- identify and apply rhythmic considerations specific to themes such as romance, sadness/sorrow, chase, heroic action, action adventure, horror, suspense, magic, fantasy, and comedy
- understand and apply appropriate orchestration specific to themes such as romance, sadness/sorrow, chase, heroic action, action adventure, horror, suspense, magic, fantasy, and comedy
- understand the logistical path of a musical idea from initial conception to final recording, including composition, orchestration, and recording
- create a 10-piece portfolio of film and TV music in various genres for demos
Ready to Enroll? |
Online Summer Term Starts June 25th
Course Info
| For-credit tuition: $1,400 |
|
Non-credit tuition: $1,200 Add 6 CEUs: $25.00 |
| Credits: 3 |
| Duration: 12 weeks |
| Catalog #: BMW-190 |
Course Faculty 
| Ben Newhouse Assistant professor at Berklee College of Music and a music supervisor and composer on dozens of television shows, films, and stage productions. | |
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Berklee College of Music is accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC)
