I’m big into film music.
John Williams, Hans Zimmer, John Powell, Steve Jablonsky, James Horner, and many, many more, I can’t stop listening to their work. So much so that I started dabbling in orchestral music production and film scoring myself—something that has definitely come in handy when creating original scores for my self-made video games or to accompany my fiction writing.
Either way, there’s so much going on, psychologically, when it comes to film music.
There’s a reason why most professional composers choose to write themes or “leitmotifs” for every major character, faction, and location in a story (and reusing them every time it makes sense) rather than just creating “good sounding music” that fits the scene.
And the reason why is fascinating.
See, it has to do with our brains and how they remember and store feelings and emotions.
If a piece of music is played during a sad and tragic scene, then your brain will “inject” the feelings and emotions you have during that scene into the piece of music. So the next time your brain hears that specific piece of music, it’ll remember how it felt the last time it heard it and make you re-live and re-experience those same emotions (or at least to a certain degree).
This is why re-using the same pieces of music and connecting them to certain characters in the film is so powerful.
The music is, quite literally, a “musical identity” of the character on screen. Just think about The Imperial March from Star Wars and how you immediately experience Darth Vader’s identity—someone who’s never seen the film won’t have nearly as strong a reaction to that piece of music.
So what can we take from this?
Well, if you haven’t already figured it out, then you might want to get my new book that’s all about how to actually enjoy the writing process while writing faster than ever before.
Yesterday I mentioned how I planned on releasing it this Monday (tomorrow). But stupid old me didn’t even realize there was a review period to get my book launched and published.
So you’ll have to wait until at least next week, if not the week after.
In the meantime, let me know if you’re looking forward to the new book. Would love to hear your thoughts.
Just reply to this email.