Composition for Screen - Mr Martin Armiger

Today we at the EMU where blessed with a visit by Martin Armiger, Head of Screen Comp. at AFTRS. It's about here that i should mention that AFTRS will soon be offering courses in Adelaide and its also about here that I have to wonder who is running this subject called "forum". Are we simply a venue on a spruiking circuit? Surely, some of us were excited to hear someone talk about screen comp., i know Jodie was. Heck, I was excited too, at first. [Martin is on the right

Martin delivered a talk entitled "The Trouble With Film Music". The trouble seems to be that directors and composers don't always see eye to eye. An "I say tomato, you say ..." kind of deal. Apparently the film The Hours chewed threw 3 composers. Oh my!

Armiger went on to explain some of the problems of working with film as a multi-jumbled form in which no one element (sound, mise en scene, acting, editing, etc etc) takes precedence over the other. It is a form made of many others and they all have to work together (Armiger 2006). It took some time before we got over this bump and actually got to look and hear some scoring - which was the best part of the talk.

As far as practical information goes, there was not much. Go and get a copy of Digital Performer. Decide whether you want to follow the action closely or you want to do something else (ibid). Oh, and learn to compose. It seems straight forward enough. Probably the most important thing you need to have though is a film. Once you have that I tend to feel all bets are off.

My general unreceptiveness probably comes from a desire to not engage in a general discussion about the "problems with film". While i know these issues are important for a great no. of poeple, expecially film theorists, as an introduction to the area (of scoring) i would have preffered some more examples and a few handy tips.

I often wondow why more films aren't inspired by music instead of the other way round? Anyone know of any?

As an interesting postscript to this talk, I had a Business module to attend after forum where Rob Pipan taught us all about royalties. There is a lot of money there people and writing music for TV or Movies will earn you squillions.

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Armiger, Martin. "The Problem with Film Music", Forum, Electronic Music Unit, University of Adelaide. 27/7/2006