r/filmscoring

I organized an AMA/Q&A with actor/comedian/composer/screenwriter Jay McCarol. He has composed the scores for films such as BlackBerry, Tony, Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie, Hell of a Summer, The Kid Detective, The Dirties, and Operation Avalanche. He is also the co-creator (with Matt Johnson) of Nirvana the Band the Show and its TV show and film.

It's live here now in r/movies for anyone interested in asking a question:

https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1vskgy8/hi_reddit_im_jay_mccarrol_composer_of_tony_out_in/

He will be back at 3 PM ET today to answer questions. I recommend asking in advance. Please ask there, not here. All questions are much appreciated!

His newest film, Tony, is out in theaters via A24 this weekend. It stars Dominic Sessa as Anthony Bourdain and co-stars Antonio Banderas, Stavros Halkias, Emilia Jones, and Leo Woodall. It premiered to critical and audience acclaim a few weeks ago.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1MVnzd2aVc

Synopsis: Nineteen-year-old Anthony Bourdain stumbles into the chaotic world of a restaurant kitchen, setting off a summer that shapes the course of his life.

Thank you :)

soundtrackscores.com

I'm Robert, one of the co-founders of Soundtrack Scores YouTube channel and podcast.

My friends and I have had a longtime soundtrack newsletter/channel (reactions, reviews, discussions), but the goal all along has been to create an app that lets us capture our ratings and reviews, and build a community of soundtrack lovers like us.

The webapp is here. It's early days but already well on its way. Completely free as it stands, and we'd love all of you to test it out, send feedback, and help us build out the database with more reviews and tags.

Once you've explored drop your feedback here.
One of our outstanding questions that we'd love your take on: should the reviews also indicate whether the reviewer has seen/played the subject vs listened out of context? If so, how do we best indicate that?

A while ago, a student in my class asked, “I want to make music for movies. How do I do that?” I said, “Hold my Starbucks Grande oat latte.” And this was the result after 45 minutes of work - as a joke, of course, for the amusement of the students. Plus, the second phrase is even more epic than the first, and all utter nonsense 😂

Bad news: the oat latte got very cold.

Hi everyone! I'm Niko, a UCLA Global Jazz Studies student, jazz guitarist, pianist, and aspiring composer for film, animation, and games.

I'm interested in using music not simply to accompany what's happening on screen, but to explore character psychology, relationships, and how characters perceive the world around them.

I'd like to introduce myself by sharing a rescore I'm particularly proud of. The scene depicts two characters clashing with one another, and I approached the score as a musical confrontation between two different worlds. I used jazz fusion as the primary musical language, allowing the harmonic, rhythmic, and textural elements to collide and evolve alongside the characters' conflict.

This piece was also awarded the Grand Prize in an International Youth Music Competition, which made it particularly meaningful to me.

I'd love to hear what other composers think, particularly about how effectively the music communicates the characters' conflict and whether the musical ideas feel narratively connected to what's happening on screen.

Alastor vs. Vox Rescore:
Link: https://youtu.be/qL5ICz1TTeQ

This is one of my favorite projects where I show how the two overlords of Hell in the Hazbin Hotel show where they engage in an ultimate duel that inspired me to re-score this scene. I decided to replace the original soundtrack with a Jazz Fusion composition heavily inspired by Snarky Puppy, because jazz functions as a universal musical language. It allows the two characters to literally share their 'voices' during the fight through the mechanics of instrumental improvisation and taking turns trading solos.

Two completely different demonic eras clash here: Alastor, hailing from the Great Stock Market crash of the swinging 1920s, and Vox, emerging from the modern, contemporary digital aftermarket. Their main instruments take turns in an aggressive dialogue, as if one is desperately trying to 'outplay' or 'outperform' the other. For Vox, I utilized multiple synthesizers executing complex melodies at odd rhythms to emphasize his tech-savvy atmosphere, simulating his internal circuits and systems becoming physically overheated as the fight intensifies. For Alastor, I used a piercing trumpet and some rhythmic stride piano to emphasize his decaying, organic analog frequency, capturing both his theatrical showmanship and the sinister, vintage radio-filter chaos that anchors his power.

Driven by a blistering 160BPM tempo that gradually ascends slowly as the fight progresses, metric modulation, and unstable polyrhythmic displacements, the score shifts from mere accompaniment into a simulation of hardware failure, where the two god-like entities attempting to violently overwrite each other on the exact same bandwidth.

NOTE: I do not own anything related to Hazbin Hotel. All rights are reserved to Vivziepop and Spindlehorse.

© 2026 Niko Macario

Thanks for listening! I'm looking forward to learning from and connecting with everyone here.

As a performing musician, I’ve been getting back into composing again. I posted an earlier version here a couple of months ago, which was essentially the Logic Pro project itself. And thank you for all of the supportive comments and the previous discussions! Since then, I’ve made quite a lot of progress on the larger work for symphony orchestra. Plus, I'm almost finished with a behind-the-scenes video looking at the compositional approach in more detail, as well as showing how I’ve used the orchestral libraries in Logic to try to make the orchestral mock-up sound as realistic as possible.

As background, my passion for the Homeric epics was re-ignited by the trailers for the Odyssey film. But my project is inspired by Homer’s original Odyssey, and not a rescore of the current movie or previous motion pictures. I’ve been working through the epic poem, and one of the most interesting challenges has been deciding what not to score, and also where the same thematic material can represent different moments in the story. The Peril theme, for example, can apply to several very different episodes without needing a completely new musical idea every time. For many reasons, Odysseus does seem to end up in some ridiculously dramatic and dangerous situations a lot!

The suite here showcases four main themes from the larger work tied together in various ways by the same basic tonic–dominant interval: 1) the Wanderer (Odysseus trying to get home), 2) Ithaka, 3) Longing/Family, and 4) Peril.
The majority of the orchestral patches are EastWest Hollywood Orchestra Opus Edition; the solo violin is me. A full list of instrument plug-ins is at the end of the video. A friend also created some images that I’ve used as backdrops during the Ithaka and Peril themes, and you can see me playing the violin during the Longing Theme.

Anyway, this is where the project has got to since I last shared it here: interested to hear your comments and what you folks think for discussion!

I built Motif, a platform so that directors and composers can find collaborators directly without Facebook groups, cold DMs, LinkedIn, hoping the right person sees your post. You can put your genre style, links to socials, and links to your songs directly on your profile. Try out the beta version here: https://motif.bolt.host/

(Mobile version placement is a bit odd-- recommend you use desktop orientation)

Hey everyone, I’m White_Winter.

I recently finished an arrangement of The Electro Suite (Electro’s Theme) from The Amazing Spider-Man 2, originally composed by Hans Zimmer, The Magnificent Six and others.

I arranged it for:

• Clarinet in Bb
• 1st & 2nd Electric Guitars
• Electric Bass
• SATB Choir
• 1st & 2nd Violins
• Violas
• Cellos
• Double Basses
• Percussion

The full score is available on MuseScore here:
The Electro Suite (Electro’s Theme) - The Amazing Spider-Man 2

I'd love to hear what other composers/arrangers think, especially regarding the orchestration, balance between the different sections, and the way the choir and strings interact with the electric instruments.

Any feedback is very welcome!

Just caught a youtube on a new release from The Crow Hill Company -- Arcane Strings. Introductory price of $150 normally $200. Yet another library that wants me to part with my cash, this fricken addiction to composing, what's a person to do? Anyhow, curious what anybody thinks of the library, and very importantly do I already have a library that comes close to Arcane Strings so I can keep my money and use it for pizza and beer lol. I have tons of libs for Kontakt, tons from Spitfire and Heavyocity, so how unique really is Arcane Strings and could something comparable be had cheaper? I have the "evolutions" libs from Spitfire, maybe they compare? Still installing Spitfire libs to an ssd after my other ssd with that crashed so I can't test evolutions libs right now. Maybe Symphonic Destruction lib?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_Rwk4ohba8

Project Save Erid (PSE) is a non-profit fan animated series following Rocky and his 22 eridian crewmates on their journey to Tau Ceti. There will be 9 episodes, each averaging 10 minutes.

We are seeking a music composer to create a soundtrack for our animated show. The selected composer will be given the complete screenplay and will have one month to score each episode (9 months for 9 episodes).

Since this is a non-profit project, this role will be unpaid. The music composer will be credited in each episode.

RULES
You must be 18+ years of age to apply.

HOW TO SUBMIT:
The application form will open Aug 20-Sep 3. You will be asked to submit a 1-3 min demo for a specific prompt. The link to the form can be found on https://lliuwrite.carrd.co

For updates on the project, join the PSE discord and follow us on socials!

Hearing this piano piece at the end of Spiderman: Brand New Day, I was racking my brains trying to think of something similar I'd heard before...

https://youtu.be/WD-sy8k0fXU?si=PKuaOBKhDZw6CVoO

Turned out it was some of John Williams' music for ET.

https://youtu.be/CrPcS-oABBg?si=GNlGNon2pojn_36d