The role of the music editor and the ‘temp track’ as blueprint for the score, source music, and scource music of films

Abstract

The ‘temp track’, a temporary mock-up of a film's soundtrack, is assembled from pre-existing music prior to the real, commissioned score being composed. An integral element of the post-production process of American feature films, it survives only in its role for audience previews. Constructed by a music editor, in most cases, it is a blueprint of a film's soundtrack – a musical topography of score, songs, culture and codes in which a balance must obtain between the director's vision, the music's function, underlying requirements of genre, and the spectator's perception. This article demonstrates that the temp track informs compositional practices and the final score, and makes the argument that textual analysis would benefit from the recognition of the role of production practices. Drawing on published sources and interviews with practitioners, this article provides historical context and musical detail, and shows how productive analysis can be when it draws on practitioners' insights as well as textual analysis. Film score analysis must not begin and end with the finished film score but must utilise a more eclectic methodology which takes into account the production process. Film score analysis should reflect the constitutive nature of film and film music.

Cinematography for female objectification: Analysis of item songs of Pakistani movies

“…The music and songs in films have undergone several changes and development, particularly in sub-continent cinema, to compete worldwide (Sadoff, 2006;Mukherjee, 2012). Similarly, the emergence of the Pakistani Film industry after independence coincided with Lollywood transforming its stories, music, and songs according to prevailing standards.…”

Designing a Game for Music

“…In the film-making process, the opportunity for the composer to play a role in offering their insight and suggestions is provided through the spotting process (Larsen 2007), and the ability of the director to try out different approaches in a hands-on way themselves is enabled through the common use of temp tracks throughout the editing process (Sadoff 2006). However, in games, the frequent outsourcing of music-often to composers from a linear film backgroundexacerbates the lack of integration between game design and music.…”

Discovering the facets of copyright licensing for commercial composers

“…Since the clearing of rights is a complex and legal matter, administrative budgets for such clearance are high. Consider that overall budgets for television production companies are decreasing, and one can identify a small but significant opportunity for commercial composers who, on entering into a direct contract with such a television company, finds themselves in a position to be able to licence both the mechanical and performance copyright (Ford, 2010;Sadof, 2006). Whilst charging less than major publishing companies, the commercial composer could arguably generate a more substantial profit margin than were he/she represented by an agent or publisher, assuming that the in-house cost of producing and recording a piece of music were minimal.…”

“…Gary Ford, Director of Music Services (Discovery Studios) at Sheffield's 2010 Sensorial Conference, identifies that, as the Discovery Channel's budget had been "slashed", it is now easier for them to deal directly with rights owner-authors, as they can access musical content that was "exciting, contemporary, colourful - [and] in every as different as you could imagine to library music", without having to pay the top industry prices (Ford, 2010). If a musical artist can sound similar enough to an artist perhaps preferred by the television network, but too expensive for the music supervisor to clear (Sadof, 2006), there is a market for cheaper, perhaps lesser known, alternatives. The same could be true for television production companies requiring decent quality, cheaper background music.…”