Film Score Analysis Flashcards
Grade 10 · Music · Flashcards
Key composers, techniques, and analytical concepts for studying and interpreting film scores.
Flashcards
- Film Score
- Original music composed specifically for a film, designed to support narrative, character, and emotional tone; distinct from a soundtrack which may include pre-existing songs.
- Leitmotif
- A recurring musical idea associated with a character, place, or concept; adapted from Wagnerian opera into film by composers like Max Steiner and later John Williams.
- Diegetic Music
- Music originating within the film's story world that characters can hear — a jukebox, a band, a character singing or playing an instrument.
- Non-Diegetic Music
- The background score added post-production; heard only by the audience to shape emotional response — the dominant form of film music.
- Underscoring
- Playing music softly and continuously beneath dialogue or action without drawing the viewer's conscious attention to it.
- Mickey Mousing
- Precise musical synchronization with on-screen movement; common in animated films where every physical gesture matches a corresponding musical gesture.
- Stinger
- A short, sharp, usually dissonant musical accent used to punctuate a shock, jump scare, or sudden revelation on screen.
- Temp Track
- Pre-existing music used during film editing as a placeholder; directors often become attached, which can constrain composers when writing the final score.
- Bernard Herrmann
- American composer who scored Hitchcock's greatest films (Psycho, Vertigo, North by Northwest), known for tense, dissonant orchestration and unconventional instrumental combinations.
- Ennio Morricone
- Italian composer famed for Spaghetti Western scores using unusual timbres (electric guitar, whistle, voices) and for over 500 film/TV scores across six decades.
- Hans Zimmer
- Contemporary film composer who blends orchestra and electronics; known for 'braams' (heavy brass-synth swell) and atmospheric texture in films like Inception and Interstellar.
- Orchestration
- Assignment of musical material to specific instruments; strings convey emotion and intimacy, brass signal power, woodwinds suggest wit or nature, percussion drives action.
- Tone Painting
- Using musical techniques to aurally represent physical objects or environments — strings mimicking wind, pizzicato suggesting rain, tremolo evoking tension.
- Spotting Session
- The meeting between director and composer to decide exactly where music starts and ends in a film — determining which scenes will be scored and which will rely on silence.
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