u/Square-Meat-9258

Are the development of themes specifically asked for by the director or is it left to the composer? Also, do you do themes without or with picture?

When scoring for characters how do you keep track of cues if for example you needed to make changes to the motif after feedback? How would you know which cue's need updating?

What is your process for writing underscore for stage? Do you score to a video recording of a scene or a brief? Is it closer to film/tv spotting or different?

When composing do you use a single monitor or multiple? If one where are your references like spotting, scripts, director feedback etc.

Does it start more from your own musical instincts, decisions you made on other projects, or from spotting sessions with the director or show runner, your own notes, temp music?

I’ve heard that ad/commercial scoring is more like writing trailer music where 95% of the time you’re writing music to a brief with no picture. Is that true?

Do you just use QuickTime Player etc + spreadsheet for taking spotting notes or do you spot in your DAW and create markers directly?

I was listening to a composer talk about how chaotic some projects can be in terms of how media is delivered to them with various naming, for example:

Getting a 3M1_v2.mov (reel based) then getting Intro_v3.mov - the first being reel based, the second being scene based.

This sounds unmanageable if true. I had assumed that the approach would be agreed upfront before any clips were delivered for scoring?

Example:

• Reel based
• Cue based
• Entire film
• Scene based
• etc

What's your experience?