It depends on the library, (even then it may depend on the brief)... Although some libraries may lean toward focusing on locking in composers to "album" agreements, most will do the occasional compilation album which feature multiple composers. That's not a standard by any means though... Some libraries prefer to release albums featuring multiple composers because it results in releases with a broader range of cues...
After reading this thread I would have expected the opposite
Fascinating thread for an outsider too.
The short answer is that film music and trailer music serve two very different purposes.
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And this is how it should be. The trailer music should be based on the film score. At least, that's what I would expect from a consumer perspective.
And besides cost reduction this might be a further reason, why trailer and film score composers are usually not the same person. But they should collaborate in my opinion.
That's often not a good idea I think. Music is often likened to speech. If we take this metaphor for film- and trailer music, you could say that writing film music is like writing a play. While writing trailer music is like writing a marketing campaign text. Totally, totally different things. Some composers excel at film, some at trailer. Very few excel at both, because they are so different.
I agree. I prefer if trailer music comes from the same world as the actual film music. I also agree that if it is important to you, it's a management task to make it possible.
That's why I said, that both composers maybe should collaborate ... best of both worlds
A further task of project management ... making sure, that all fits together and that every team / department does a good job. Good project management is more than coordinating the time line of the project
Me too.
Interesting question. Dolby Atmos is mastered at -18 LUFS, so if the trailer will be played in theaters too, I would expect that being the requirement for the trailer too, or am I wrong?
Indeed, the reason I mentioned those two films specifically is they will have had the score together well in advance (or atleast a fairly representative version) to have been able to shoot. I found it interesting a production like West Side Story with such an iconic soundtrack with such identifiable hooks such as America, Maria or Somewhere would have other composers pitch to write for the trailer.
I just looked up the trailers for West Side Story, The Greatest Showman, and La La Land too, and they all feature music from the film, or at least music that's based on the score.
Which leads back to my original question to @yapa who said they'd worked on trailers for West Side Story etc that hadn't placed.
Ha - my version of this is the 2009(?) Star Trek film that used TJB's "Freedom Fighters" track
Perhaps there were multiple trailers produced for West Side Story? Big releases often have different trailers for different markets/audiences.
No, but it's often mastered loud, between -10 and -8 LUFS. That's not the loudest though, some of Audiomachine's albums hit -7 or so. (Buying good reference tracks in whatever genre you write in is key)... The levels aren't "required" per se, it's more that loud mastering has become the sound of the genre.
Just curious regarding the mastering side of things. Because I assume trailer music has to be delivered in STEMs for the editor, is all this mastering happening as STEM mastering - e.g. nothing on the 2bus, all mastering done on individual STEM groups so that the sum of all STEMs equals the 2mix?
It all has to do with IP (which the studios are incredibly protective of). Think about the level of trust a film studio has to put into a library they're willing to hand that IP over to. If you wind up getting a project where you're given content there are NDAs involved, and the library has to trust the composer, etc... All it takes is one naive, overly-eager composer bragging about it on S.M. and all parties are in a bad situation.
The actual mixes & cut downs are mastered as well as the stems, (cut downs being the reason why it doesn't make sense ignoring the mix, and mastering from the stems instead). Despite adding a little inflator I keep my mix bus clean. Technically I should't use Inflator, but it's never been an issue... There's other, more general production music where I'll master my own stuff though, it depends who I'm delivering to.
