Editing requires the right amount of rhythm and rhythm and music plays a key role in shaping how the story will be shown. Music can provoke fear in horror, suspense in action, and uncertainty in dramatic movies by providing the right element of surprise to evoke the right responses. In most cases, music can make or break a scene if scoring is not successful. Imagine the music from the horror movie “Friday the 13th” when Jason is about to attack his victim or when you hear the music but nothing happens, but you keep grabbing the edge of your seat.
And what about the various scenes in Star Wars when the music gives you an indication that Darth Vader is about to enter the scene (which is also the theme song during the movie’s intro) … as you can imagine, The music dictates and creates a reference point for the images. An Academy Award-winning editor once told me to play any award-winning movie with the music off and see if you get the same effect … period. The only memory I have of a movie in which the score did not influence the direction of the narrative was in the movie “No Country for Old Men”, where there was only one scene that had background music.
Apart from that, the soundtrack, sound design and music are essential elements to satisfy the emotions of that particular scene in the realization of a film production. In some cases, the music can cause the director to change the script to make a better marriage between the characters and the music. For example, in the 1972 film “Super Fly,” director Gordon Parks jr. He had to change various scenes in the script and costumes for the main character (Ron O’Neal) in the film after (RIP) Curtis Mayfield created the entire score based on the script.
And who can forget the famous soundtrack to all the James Bond movies. In any form of film or video editing, any professional post-production editor will always emphasize the importance of developing a rhythm to tell the story from the inciting incident to the plot, and music is the key component in putting it all together. Of course, with technology at our fingertips, we have the advantage of producing, directing and scoring much more easily than ever, but the key elements will always remain the same.
