TIMING IN FILM

Timing is essential in film music. That is why it is crucial that timing notes and
music Cue Sheets are precision documents.

Imagine you need to compose a piece of music for a specific sequence –

perhaps the clip ends with a car bursting into flames. The director wants a big
effect on the explosion, and that will be the final climax of your music.

If you are told that the sequence

leading up to the final boom is 47.5
seconds, well then you need to
write music that is exactly 47.5
seconds long…

What if you want to keep up a

steady rhythm, with a clear
percussive beat to build excitement
up to the climax? And you want
your last note to occur right on the explosion, but you also want to be right on
your beat…

How will you decide on the right tempo to make sure you hit the
explosion on the right beat – the beat that you want musically?

CLICK TRACKS
If you have ever been in a music recording studio, or used computer-based
software to create music, you will be familiar with a Click Track.

A Click Track is a series of digital clicks that mark out time. Most will also
include accents on certain beats so that the clicks can be divided into bars:
ONE two three four, ONE two three four etc.

Using a Click Track as a guide, it is quite easy to play along to a specific

tempo. This is essential if a musician is about to overdub a track (ie: put
another musical line on a pre-recorded part). The Click Track will act as a
“count-in”.

The craft of synchronising sound with image has come a long way in the last
30 years. With the coming of the computer, and automated Click Track
patterns, it is relatively easy to manipulate tempo and beats to match images
exactly.

In the car explosion example, maybe you want your steady rhythm to be
pretty fast… up around 140 beats per minute (140 bpm), and you want to
keep it steady all the way through and end on a strong beat.
 Using a computer program, you can check at which part of which bar the 47.5
second point will occur, if the tempo is 140 bpm.

THE REQUIRED TIME

TEMPO
SETTING

THE BAR NUMBER AND BEAT AT THAT TIME

Now what this readout means is that at 140 beat per minute, the actual
musical moment at 47.5 seconds will be in bar 28 (in 4/4 time), and be on
beat 3 plus 4 semiquavers and 40 “ticks” (computerised music timings are
very exact!).

You wouldn’t be happy with that, because, at this tempo, the exact point at
47.5 seconds will occur sometime after beat 3 in bar 28. This is not exact
enough! You’d miss the exact moment of impact.

By adjusting the tempo slightly, you can actually make the timing come
directly onto a beat…

THE REQUIRED TIME STAYS THE SAME

TEMPO
ADJUSTED

THE BAR NUMBER AND BEAT AT THAT TIME WITH NEW TEMPO

By adjusting the tempo to 144 bpm, the exact moment of the explosion will
occur on beat 3 of bar 29. Now you can start planning how you would arrive
at that moment musically, knowing exactly the amount of bars and beats
available to you.
 In the past, film composers had to manually work out beats and tempos that
would work for specific timings. The Carroll Knudson Click Track Book was
assembled by music editor Knudson in 1965, and was an essential part of the
composer’s craft.

The book consisted of a whole series of tempos (bpm or beats per minute), and
related the tempo to actual seconds. You could look up the exact tempo
needed to give you (for example) 12 beats in 15 seconds.
INFORMATION

Click track numbers give information as to the number of frames per click,
which is inversely proportional to the standard metronome markings (which
gives beats per minute). Since there are 1440 frames per minute (24 X 60), the
metronome markings can be discovered by dividing the number of frames per
minute by the number of frames per click.

e.g. 12 frames per click = 1440/12 = 120bpm.

10.5 frames per click = 1400/10.5 = 137.14bpm

The main advantage of a click track is that it cuts down the time taken to
compose a soundtrack and helps the conductor of the orchestra pinpoint
specific cues during the recording stage. The disadvantage of using a click
track is that it allows little flexibility for the composer when the tempo is locked
to a specific click. By using a variable click track it is possible to include musical
devices such as accelerandos and ritardandos which may help make the music
more expressive. This will entail more calculations by the composer (or music
editor), but computer programs can now do this.

It will be important in your work as a film composer that you can work
within precise timings for each scene.