10. Temp Tracks
Temp tracks, or temporary tracks, or music placeholders, are a fantastic tool when handled properly. But even for the most experienced filmmakers, temp tracks can easily become a nightmare. In an ideal world, composers would be commissioned for what they do best, and given complete freedom over the placement and style of the soundtrack. However, it is rarely the case as directors usually have a pretty good idea of what they want, and therefore need to effectively communicate their vision to the composer. Other than communicating with words, temp tracks are often used. The idea is to select existing tracks from existing projects or works that carry the right emotional weight for a scene, with the hope to lead the composer in the right direction early on. The downside of that system is that soon enough, everyone starts getting used to the temp track as our brains naturally look for creating associations and patterns. Try listening to Britney Spears’s worst tune three times, chances are that by the third time you will start finding good things about the song. Not that the song is good, you just tricked yourself into liking it by getting used to it. The more time temps are being listened to, the more they become linked in our brains to the images they have been stuck on. It does not mean it is the best option for a scene, it just means that we got too used to it. The problem now lies in the fact that not only it might be hard to license that temp track, but also, and mainly, that we just lost cohesiveness in the soundtrack. When Clint Mansell composed the main theme to Requiem For A Dream, he wrote it for string quartet along with the rest of the soundtrack, and that same theme comes back with variations for the duration of the film. If someone else uses that theme only once in their film as a temp and decides to keep it on their final soundtrack, this soundtrack will probably use other tracks from other movies, and for other musical ensembles. It may quickly start sounding like a patchwork rather than a cohesive soundtrack with its own identity.
One good idea to avoid that problem is to select temp tracks without ever attaching them to the images. The use of playlists is quite effective, even for specific scenes it can describe the director’s intentions without ever getting in the way of a future sync’d soundtrack. Another good (but more dangerous) idea is to create a temp track, work on it for a few days, then mute it completely and rely on your memory until after the new composer’s soundtrack is written. This might give composers the right amount of info to start quickly in the right direction without creating obstacles. They would then listen to it once, get all info they need, then mute it until they have their own musical ideas, then eventually get back to it once towards the end to verify if they caught the right emotions.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that even though this might be obvious to some, editing the images to a temp track is truly a disaster. This is the ultimate recipe to driving a project into a wall. A good edit should always work without any music at all, the music will certainly help carry the emotions in most cases, but it should not fix an edit that does not work. If cut to temp music, the edit will have a certain shape that is specific to the track’s structure, and therefore even more inseparable. With that kind of scenario, two outcomes are possible: 1. You will have to use the temp track for the final soundtrack with all the issues mentioned before, including a potential massive gap in the budget if the publisher of the temp track asks for too much, you are trapped. 2. Possible fall out with the composer who will be forced to copy the temp track’s structure and style, for a result that rarely will sound as good as the original track.
Comments, suggestions, experiences you had with composers, and consequent advice for others are encouraged.
This blog will be updated with new experiences and illustrations as they occur.