This post is sponsored by Soundstripe. Everything below is my own experience and my own opinion.

I’ve been playing guitar since I was 10 years old and have loved music as long as I can remember.

But it wasn’t until this year that I decided to write and record a musical score for one of my own films.

Maybe it’s because I had been told so many times over the years to “specialize” and not spread my talents too thin.

That advice can be true for some people, but it never was for me. I was always wired more like a Steven Soderbergh than a Steven Spielberg. I loved every aspect of the craft. Directing, writing, color grading, cinematography, editing – it was all exciting to me.

The more I leaned into the idea of filmmaking as a canvas for multiple art forms, the more rewarding the process became.

Until now though, the one thing I hadn’t ever done was combine my love for music with my passion for filmmaking. But when the right idea finally came along, I decided to jump in with both feet.

This year I’ve made two new short films. The first, Jack & Christine, is a more traditional narrative psychological thriller starring John Hawkes, Nikki Lorenzo and frequent collaborator & friend Luke Barnett.

The second – Crow – is a much more experimental genre film that was conceived more like a music video than a traditional film. Not in the literal sense (it still has dialogue, coverage, and a narrative arc), but in the spirit of doing something with fewer boundaries.

One of the things I love about music videos is that there are no rules. It’s about making the viewer feel something on an emotional level, even if they don’t fully understand every choice you made.

Music itself works that way. How many times have you heard a song you love, but don’t really know what the lyrics mean? Music has this amazing ability to evoke an emotional response within you that isn’t forced or manufactured. And I really wanted to attempt to deliver the same kind of visceral experience with this new film.

I’ll be documenting the entire process via the blog, podcast, and newsletter in the coming months, starting with this article.

I also want to tank Soundstripe for executive producing the film. I’ve used Soundstripe’s library for years, and with their new LIVE tool (which suggests tracks for your edit by watching your NLE in action), it’s only getting better.

All of the music that I’m writing will ultimately be available to license on Soundstripe when the film is released, so stay tuned for more on that front soon.

As for today, I want to share my tactical process for approaching this score, in hopes that it will help more of you to do the same if you are so inclined.

The Rough Cut

I began this project the same way I would any other edit. Cutting without any music.

As I’ve shared in the past, it’s way too easy to use music as a crutch when you’re editing and miss hidden issues that will ultimately hurt the film. I’d much rather struggle to make something watchable with no music at all. Because if it can work without any score, it’s only going to be 10x better once the music is dropped in.

This particular project was a challenge to do that with, because it was designed from the beginning to hinge on the soundtrack. I knew there would be wall to wall music eventually, so cutting it without any music at all was definitely tricky.

Ultimately I was able to get it done by working on very small chunks at a time. I would try to get 10 – 20 seconds feeling really solid and then move on to the next chunk. Before I knew it, I was at the 7 minute mark (which is the total runtime) and had finished the music-free pass.

Interestingly enough, my rough cut and my picture lock ended up being about 90% the same. That’s almost never happened to me before. Rather than deal with a ton of revisions on the tail end, I front loaded the process and got it as close as possible before moving to the next step.

Sound Design

Another important lesson I’ve learned is that having sound design and/or foley in place before adding music can also help you avoid using music as a crutch.

Even with a solid edit in place, I didn’t jump straight into temp score. I worked meticulously on the background ambiences, foley, sound effects, and other sound design elements first.

Some of those elements would later be removed, but 80% or more made the final cut, and really helped me determine where to drop in music and where not to.

Temp Score

I decided to go through the process of adding temp music, even though I would ultimately score the film myself.

In a way, this helped me find the right tone and rhythm before actually writing anything too specific.

Going into the project I knew the emotional feel and level of intensity I was going for. But I was open minded to how it played out. The specific tones and instrumentation were still up in the air.

So I pulled a bunch of temp tracks that I liked from different movies, and ultimately used about four or five cues from the movies Arrival and Raw to shape the score.

The most important part of this process was dialing in the spotting. Whenever you have wall to wall music, you need there to be ebbs and flows. Peaks and valleys.

Working with temp allowed me to dial in the pacing to a tee, and create some goal posts for myself when I would later go back to score it myself.

Once the temp was in place, I did re-time some of the edits slightly to match the music. I wasn’t too precise at this stage as I knew it was still temp. But still, it helped tighten up the main edit and get the cut into really good shape.

The Score

At the time of this writing, I’m midway through scoring the film. And it’s been an incredibly fun process so far.

In total, the film will have five cues, and the fifth and final cue is by far the most intense and rhythmic. So I decided to start with that one first, and work backward from there. I wrote several different themes on guitar until I found one that worked perfectly with the visuals, and committed to it.

From there, I worked my way back through each of the cues. They become simpler and more minimalistic, especially toward the beginning of the film where it is mostly ambient.

Currently, I’ve recorded some rough demos – so the next step is to re-record everything from scratch to build a solid foundation. And then, add layers – bass, percussion, synth, etc. – to fully complete the sound.

In the future, I’ll be releasing a dedicated blog post with more detail on the scoring process, and will look forward to sharing much more as it unfolds.

For now, I’ve already learned so much from this process and it’s definitely made me excited at the prospect of doing it again on other films.

Once the film is out, you’ll be able to use the music in your own projects by downloading it through Soundstripe’s library. And if you’re using their new Soundstripe LIVE tool, it might just suggest the track to you while editing if it matches your footage.

Can’t wait to share more soon, and appreciate you all following along with the journey.

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