Film scores can have a strong impression on an audience member when watching a film. Like everybody has a favorite song, there are a lot of famous movie themes and songs that people still can’t get out of their heads several years after they’ve seen the movie, and the composition of a movie score is a crucial element in setting a movie’s tone, style, atmosphere, personality and even memorability. A score mostly comprises of orchestral instrumentation and/or choirs (called cues) which are used in specific parts of a film in order to elevate the emotional purpose of a scene and to leave a lasting impression on the viewer. A film’s music can encompass a wide variety of styles, depending on the nature of the film they occupy or the tone they are hoping to achieve, ranging from jovial and lively, slow and dreary, fast-paced and action-oriented or high-strung and heart-pounding. It’s a highly integral piece to a film’s final puzzle.

A film’s score actually didn’t originate for any creative merit, but rather a means to stop an even worse noise, as music was put in the background of film to drown out the noise made by the projector. There was an effort during this period to give each movie a fitting accompanying piece, usually by a pianist or an organist. Early silent films didn’t have professional orchestras make music as it would be too expensive, therefore it utilized recordings of music scores on discs to produce the music, and only decided to create proper composed scores when the medium became more popular. Original pieces started to be created within German cinema (which was highly influential in the era of silent films), with composers like Gottfried Huppertz (Metropolis, 1927), Hans Erdmann, (Nosferatu, 1922), Werner Richard Heymann (Alraune Unnatural… The Fruit of Evil, 1952), and Giuseppe Becce helping to create the idea of leitmotific (a reoccurring theme) scores. Ironically, the rise of sound film halted the usage of film score, as movies opted to stay mostly silent in the music department until much later down the line in cinema history. The 1950s brought a rise to several directors and composers wishing to experiment with what they could do with a film’s score and took inspiration from jazz music to create memorable pieces for movies such as A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, Vertigo and Psycho. Film Scores became a crucial new element in constructing a film, and even uses its non-lyrical sound as a means of conveying stronger emotion than if it wasn’t there, highlighted by Phillip Kirby by noting the paradoxical nature of a film score; one side supplementing the slower part of a narrative, and the other side crucial to making a film feel whole (Sound and fury? Film score and the geopolitics of instrumental music, Philip Kirby, 2019, pg. 1)

The work of a music composer is one that is dictated and controlled by a majority of the other roles that control the entire project. Film composer Samuel Pulman mentioned how in the process of creating a score for a film, the final results are pinned on what the director and producers want as opposed to having the creative control to decide for himself. While he was allowed ideas and given the freedom to come up with options, it was the final word of the higher ups to determine what was kept in and what would be removed. A film score is there to evoke a feeling and emotion. Obviously, a song can too, but with a film score, it can be done with just three or four different notes, if you tried to write a song with three or four different notes, it would be a pretty empty song. Ever since technology became accessible in all formats and audio sampling was invented, many modern films have relied on digital samples to imitate the sound of live instruments, and this means that several big scores in modern film can be performed and created by the composer himself/herself as opposed to an entire orchestra. Back in the Golden Age of Hollywood, film studios would have orchestras on the payroll as they were used in every single score for an old film, whereas nowadays, score composition could be done on a laptop in your own room. This change in musical styling has also changed in how people perceive certain sounding pieces of music. Peter Franklin observed how music that was commonplace in certain movies with the 1930s and 40s, mainly the violin-based cinematic love themes or overly masculine western or action themes are now met with mockery upon hearing them or used as a punchline for a joke (Seeing Through Music: Gender and Modernism in Classic Hollywood Film Scores, Peter Franklin, 2011, pg.3). This shift is likely due to the change in perception audiences have with expected music tropes and with the evolution of cinema and with films no longer being bound to stereotypes, genre films can experiment with tone of music and have newer sounds to them; action blockbusters like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings can have just as much fast-paced triumphant music as it can soft and atmospheric pieces, Westerns like No Country for Old Men and The Power of the Dog can now be dry, steely and hollow, and female-centric films like Thelma and Louise and Booksmart don’t need to follow the traditional soft romantic music that are associated with the ‘’chick-flick’’ genre. Other elements of sound that factor into a score is known as a Folly. A folly is the reproduction of everyday sound effects that are added into film or other material in post-production to enhance the audio quality or the illusion of another sound, with examples like coconuts mimicking the sound of a horse trotting. This style of sound enhancement has arguably been shaped into its own form of music composition, as films, shows and even games have utilized non-instrumental methods in crafting a score, with famous examples being  Charlie Clouser for his industrial-like work on the Saw franchise, John Cage, a pioneering for many abstract movie aspects, but known mostly for his non-standard use of musical instruments and Akira Yamaoka for his rusty hollow score for the Silent Hill game franchise,

There is a difference between a movie’s score and a movie’s soundtrack, much like how music in a film or any product can be diegetic (sound that exists within the film’s world) and non-diegetic (sound that exists in our world). A film’s soundtrack often relates to songs from any expected musical genre that are created outside of the film. Even though there are times when the composition can base thematic elements and ideas from the score, a score usually doesn’t have lyrics (unless there is a choir), often allowing the melody and instruments to tell a story in itself. Songs that are popped into a movie either in the opening or ending credits, or during a dramatic or comedic moment, aren’t considered part of the film’s score, even if occasionally a song can be written and created by a composer to match the movie’s themes with an example being James Horner’s My Heart Will Go On, sung by Celine Dion. This separation between a score and a soundtrack can also help the audience gain a more nuanced understanding of a scene from a movie. Movies have often times used songs to represent a specific mood, time period or cultural movement, like how editor Donn Cambern used his own collection of music for the 1969 film, Easy Rider, to capture the film’s air of rebellion and despair, going to show how much a music’s genre or presentation can illicit a specific emotional retort that can connect with the atmosphere of a film (The Short Story of Film, Ian Haydn Smith, pg.207). While a previously created song can add a new level of context or dramatic irony to a scene with a specific intent or emotion, a created score with intended emotional purpose can sometimes show the finger of the composer too strongly, something that shouldn’t happen too often. Screen composer Caitlin Yeo described the process as a flaw when composing music, how the effect of the music should not take people out of a scene, but rather engross them, using the example from Reservoir Dog’s torture scene as proof.

We hear the fabulous piece on the radio, Stuck in the Middle with You, and it’s a torture scene, but somehow, we find ourselves smiling when we watch that scene. That’s an incredible use of music working against the drama, but someone else might come along and be directed to actively create music that goes against the drama, and it pushes us as a viewer not further in and doesn’t give us a more nuanced understanding of what’s going on in the scene, but it might push us as the audience further out and we might suddenly see the hand of the filmmaker.

Music connects with people on a strong level, and a film’s score taps into that by causing an emotional response, whether a happy, sad, intense, or even unexpected reaction. Through its development, a score has become crucial to modern day cinema and has expanded from genre-specific tones and melodies to a large variety of sounds and motifs from various different instrumentation.