John Williams and Hans Zimmer are both brilliant composers of iconic blockbuster scores, but they have very different processes by which they craft their scores.  John Williams considers himself “Old School” when it comes to how he goes about actually writing his scores.  He still uses pencil and paper to actually write out the score. He also prefers to score his films based on his initial…

A Leitmotif is a short musical phrase that is repeated throughout the film or series of films to emphasize recurring people, places, objects, ideas, emotions etc. Some of the best uses of leitmotif in cinema, in my humble opinion, come from film series with long run times where the scores for all of the films are composed by the same composer.  The length of the series allows the composer to…

Why do films have scores?  It seems like a rather odd question to ask. To us It seems perfectly natural that when we watch a movie there is music behind each scene carefully crafted to shepherd our emotions through the story.  In fact a number of videos have been made that point out just how awkward films feel when the score is removed.  But if you think about it it is rather odd that there’s…