The Musician
Winter 2011
Report
The trailer trade
Composing music for movie trailers
is an art in itself and a growing
business. The Musician speaks to
experts of the 2-minute teaser…
Feature by
Katie Nicholls
With typically 120 seconds to convince an
audience that this will be the ultimate
cinematic experience, movie trailers are
invariably highly-charged. While two
minutes of fast-paced action, romance or
comedy is thrilling, it’s the trailer music
that helps stir the senses, giving the
audience a distilled snapshot of a film that
inevitably ends in a dramatic crescendo.
trailers are being commissioned up to nine
or 12 months before the film is finished.’
‘The trailer music industry is becoming
separate,’ agrees Bristol-based composer
Timo Baker, whose credits include trailer
music for Hollywood thriller The Adjustment
Bureau and Simon Pegg sci-fi comedy, Paul.
‘Because they’re working up to a year in
advance they often haven’t even
commissioned the soundtrack, so they
get other dudes in to write the trailer.’
Trailer music used to be either sourced
from a music library or extracted from
other films or the soundtrack of the film
itself, but with film lead times getting longer Money in movies
and marketing budgets getting bigger, film This burgeoning industry can be a Holy
production companies are increasingly
Grail gig for composers with big American
commissioning a bespoke piece of work.
film companies paying $60,000—$80,000
for two-and-a-half minutes of music and
‘It’s quite a new and growing area,’ says
up to $25,000 for 10-second long snippets.
Ben Jones, the Musicians’ Union’s National
Not all film production companies have
Organiser, Recording and Broadcasting.
blockbuster-sized budgets, however, and a
‘Five or 10 years ago, most film companies
cheaper option is to head to music libraries
used sync music for trailers. Now the
where licences for trailer movie tracks can
Haven’t I heard that before?
When film companies do not commission original music for their trailers,
they find inspiration in some familiar places…
O Fortuna
When German composer
Carl Orff composed the
24-movement cantana
Carmina Burana he would
have had no idea how the
dramatic choral piece
would grab the cultural
zeitgeist. The piece has
been used in a huge
number of movie trailers
from The Nutty Professor
to A Clockwork Orange.
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MUM28.trailer.indd 24
Lux Æterna
After electro punks Pop
Will Eat Itself disbanded in
1996, singer Clint Mansell
reinvented himself as a
successful film composer.
This leitmotif from his
score for Requiem For A
Dream has been re-used,
for the soundtrack and
trailer of Lord Of The Rings:
Two Towers and Danny
Boyle’s Sunshine.
Stargate
British composer David
Arnold is well-known for
his work on James Bond
soundtracks. But his
original score for 1994
sci-fi film Stargate, has
been re-used on
numerous big-budget
trailers including
Independence Day, The
Mummy and Lost In Space
among many others.
© Everett/Rex Features, New Line/Everett/Rex Features, 20th C.Fox /Everett/Rex Features
11/22/11 11:13:59 AM
The Musician
Winter 2011
Report
memorable musical imprint but composers
are often asked to write something, ‘in the
style of’ another trailer.
‘Writing music for trailers is a very particular
skill,’ says Ben Jones, ‘because you don’t
have time to develop themes or let the
music evolve and you’ve only got a few
bars to score the scene with the explosions
or the romantic scene... it’s a very
complicated thing to do.’
© Andy Schwartz
‘It’s essentially like writing a pop hit,’
explains Baker. ‘They want the big
memorable hook that people take away
when they watch it but you’ll also be asked
to take influence from another trailer.
Conforming to a pattern makes a powerful
trailer but within that sphere you need to
create something unique.’
Bristol composer Timo Baker’s
credits include trailer music for
The Adjustment Bureau, starring
Matt Damon and Emily Blunt
be bought for much less. The PRS tariff for
film trailers is currently £3,500. BAFTAnominated composer Richard Wells has
written nearly 50 movie trailers,
specialising in horror and martial arts.
‘Keep the rights!’ he advises. ‘I kept the
rights to the music from the beginning and I
later did a deal with KPM Music to release
some tracks on two library albums, Overkill
1 and 2, which has resulted in a lot of
secondary usage. Library music will earn
you more than the trailer in the long run.’
Becoming successful as a movie trailer
composer takes a lot of talent, a bit of luck
and a few good connections. Timo first got
involved after being introduced to the
brother of a Los Angeles music supervisor.
‘I stuck my CD in the post to LA and I
started getting a few things on CSI (Crime
Scene Investigation) and I slowly built up a
relationship with this guy. A few years later
he set up a company providing trailer
music for films. I’m two years in now and
I’m one of their “go to” composers.’
Wells started off writing trailer music for
video games, through which he met
director Jake West. After scoring the
soundtrack to West’s low-budget vampire
horror film Razor Blade Smile, Wells was
‘You’ve only got a few
bars to score the
scene... it’s a very
complicated thing to
do.’ Ben Jones, the MU.
Avoiding cliché
One downside of working to such tight
commissions, says Richard Wells, is that
trailer music can sometimes sound a little
formulaic. ‘The most difficult thing is to give
it some character,’ he considers. ‘As a style
it’s almost become a cliché — at the end
you always have big drums, a choir and a
riser. You could do them all like that but
you’d get bored.’
Having worked as a musician both with his
band T Minus 50 and as a composer for TV,
Timo Baker says he’s got an ‘arsenal of
sounds’ he can access. Working on Cubase,
he’ll start with a guitar line and let the
music flourish from there.
‘I’ll start off with a contemporary sound with
bass and light percussion right at the top of
the cue. In the middle section, it kicks in
commissioned by him to write the trailer for with urgent strings with possibly a beat
action film Atomic Train. It was during its
underneath and I develop that. Then there’s
making that he met Brian White who
a break before you’re into the final section
subsequently helped to set up Asian film
and it’s always, like, throw the kitchen sink
specialists Dragon Dynasty. Wells has been into it! It needs to be massive.
writing soundtracks and trailers ever since.
‘The challenge is not overloading the track
Moods in minutes
and muddying it up while building the
To carve a solid reputation in what is a very tension to a climax,’ says Richard. ‘On the
high-pressure industry is still hard. Timo
first write through I will often ditch
Baker’s ability to create top-quality
everything except the climactic ending
compositions on time and to brief has been and then I start again with the ending and
crucial to his success. Musicians are
build from there until I’ve found something
expected to produce results for a pitch
that excites me.’
quickly and often with just a written brief
or with scant visuals for inspiration.
Despite the tight deadlines and stylistic
restrictions, composing for movie trailers is
‘I’ll get an email on Friday night, saying,
undoubtedly a dream gig for the musicians
“I hope you’re around this weekend”,’ says
involved. ‘It’s a lot of fun to do,’ says
Baker. ‘I’ll work crazy hours Saturday and
Richard Wells. ’And if you get lucky you
Sunday, as they’ll want it for Monday.’
are going to have your music played on a
Stylistically, too, composers are asked to
big screen at volume 11! It really doesn’t
walk a tightrope. A trailer needs to create a come better than that.’
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