Our Approach To Creating Custom Music for TV and Film
We’ve produced thousands of tracks across almost every music genre, but despite having a catalog of ready-to-license material, sometimes our clients need us to create custom music for TV or Film projects.
There are a million different reasons why a TV show, commercial, or movie could need a custom track, so our approach has to change for each project. Most music supervisors or producers will provide some direction of what they’re looking for, and leave it up to us to do the rest. It’s our job to take the information they’ve given us and to do any additional research about the production needed to create something that fits their project.
Different productions require different research, but there is some overlap with our approach to creating custom music for TV and Film. We’ve put together a short list of things that we look for before turning on the mics to start recording.
What We Look For
Duration: The first thing we want to figure out is how long the piece needs to be. This direction often comes from the client, but not always. Our approach is typically to make several different versions of the final track that can work for different uses. It’s not uncommon for us to provide 15 and 30 second versions of the same track to be used as needed.
Decade: This is where we start to get into the more creative part of creating custom music for TV and film. Many shows and movies take place in the past, the future, or even span across decades. This is a great starting point to determine the sound that we’re going to be aiming for. Decade specific sounds, instruments and recording techniques are made to make the tracks sound authentic.
Theme: Is the custom piece for a fight scene in an action movie? A robot coming to life in a TV commercial? Is the mood serious or sad? This typically is provided by clients, but actually seeing a rough production of the project helps us understand what the theme of the music should be.
Genre: Even with a decade and a theme, we often have a variety of genres to then narrow down. Most times the client will already give us some direction on this as well, but watching earlier episodes of a TV show, or checking out movie soundtracks from the same music supervisor can help us get more particular with what we produce.
Final Track or First Draft?
Our producers have been creating music for TV and Film for decades, so it’s not uncommon that our first pass at a custom track is what ends up being used in the final production - but that’s not always the case.
Sometimes it requires a few rounds of feedback from a client in order to make sure that the track matches exactly what they are looking for, and is the exact reason they commissioned a custom piece of music in the first place.
Looking for a custom track for your project? You know where to find us. hello@sonicbeatrecords.com