Scoring those darn movies

Pizza wrote on 10/23/2002, 3:25 AM
Ok, I have this long-term plan that I want to earn some extra cash by scoring short movies, documentaries or whatever. Problem is, the more I read, the more I get confused, so if anybody could help me out...

Basically, investing the money boils down to 2 solutions:

The expensive, like Cubase + various VSTs including Reason etc. I've heard rumours that the old Cubase is better at video scoring than the new, is that right?

The cheap: Vegas Video 3 + Reason only. That also would save me from a lot of pain learning how to program VSTs, etc. But I am not sure that Vegas can sync properly. All I know is that it can link to Reason by MIDI sync, but is that enough? How bad do I need SMPTE anyway?

If possible, I'm gonna avoid analog equipment, as I can't afford both this and that. My focus is on computers and computer music.

Thanks for any advice.

Comments

kkolbo wrote on 10/23/2002, 5:17 AM
If you are scoring feature films or if you are scoring for network television, chances are that the team will all be working on pieces of the film at the same time once the picture is locked. In that situation, the post production supervisor or the producer will make the call on how it all gets put back together again. 9 times out of ten he/she will call for a SMPTE lock.

In Indie stuff the call is more often "What can you do for me?" Most of the composers I use are working in some form of sequencer with a Gigstudio setup for doing demo and temp scores. They use Finale then to check the score and then print it. Since you are going to be concentrating on computer music, you will probable not need Finale or a simalar notation application. Gigastudio on the other hand will most likely be your life. Rather than Cubase there is also Sonar for the PC platform.

Most folks I know are working on Macs for scoring, but that is because they are using Protools for assembly and sync.

As for time code lock, there is hardware that reads/spits out SMPTE and then syncs with midi stuff. I can't remember the name, but it is in both of my primary composer's studios(bedrooms).

I doubt this helped, but what the heck...

K
copycat wrote on 10/25/2002, 1:11 AM
you should check out www.creativecow.net and visit the sonic foundry vegas video forum there - douglas spotted eagle, a host, has won a grammy for using vegas to mix his albums. there are tutorials there for using vegas/acid to score projects...
David_Kuznicki wrote on 10/25/2002, 8:20 AM
Hey, if you can find a way to link Vegas and Reason, let me know-- I can't say as I've looked into it too much, but it would be handy to know!

re: Reason-- I'm not sure if it's what you need, to be fully honest with you. As much as I LOVE Reason (and I really do, it's one of my favorite apps), it depends on how you're working. Reason really is built around VSTi's. You can use it simply as a step sequencer (as I do-- I have NO musical ability), but to get the most out of it, you're going to run into that need very, very quickly.

re: creative cow

Yeah, I have to admit, those are some pretty good forums, especially the Vegas one. I haven't had a question yet that didn't get answered. Good bunch o' people over there...
Paul_Holmes wrote on 10/25/2002, 10:21 AM
Although I've had the program for probably I year I just discovered I can import my video into Acid 3.0 and create and sync a soundtrack to the video. Haven't done anything with it but it opens up a whole new world. So far I've just created pieces in Acid, then tied them to video, or cut the video to the music. I just use stock loops but I know Acid can do just about anything in conjunction with other programs, like Sound Forge. You can create your own music with a keyboard, add loops, fades, etc. I believe Douglas Spotted Eagle is a big user of Acid.
DGates wrote on 10/25/2002, 12:13 PM
Frank Polky-Dotted Crow has some good tutorials on this.