MFA in Screen Scoring & Music Design

As any experienced film composer will attest, the principal job of the composer is to support the story and the filmmaker’s intent in telling it. In musicological terms, the craft of doing this is called musical narratology, literally, “telling stories with music.” Narrative cinema is constructed based on classic story form, which includes exposition, conflict, resolution, three-act structure, and manipulations of time and space. You will score three assignments to picture, and through this exercise, learn to create a linear partnership between the story’s structure and the score that accompanies it.

Maurice Ravel, acknowledged as one of the greatest orchestrators in musical history, distinguished instrumentation from orchestration by saying that the orchestrator painted the colors around the individual instrument in such a way that these colors became more important than the identity of the instrument itself. The analogy to painting is fitting: works like Daphnis et Chloé and Mother Goose Suite are highly visual and textured in a way that can almost be felt. This course will put Ravel’s musical paintbrush in your hands. In addition to orchestration techniques, you will also learn the fundamentals of score preparation, notation, and engraving to prepare you for the live recording sessions that will occur at key stages of the program.

The “mock-up,” a digital simulation of an acoustical/orchestral performance, was once just a demo used to show the client/filmmaker one’s intent and obtain approval of the music prior to live recording. With the extraordinary advancement in the quality of digital instrument libraries, what was once a demo now frequently becomes the final product and the critical medium by which the composer communicates intent to the filmmaker. In this course you will develop the skills to create these digital products to meet the high standards of production and authenticity currently expected in the industry.

“Find your voice” is the imperative given to every student who enrolls in the Master of Fine Arts program. It is not always a straightforward process, as you must hone, winnow and polish to clear away what is merely imitative and arrive at something truly original. This is what the industry demands. In intensive individual sessions, your work will be critiqued and shaped in order to bring out the gold of your own personal identity.

Material assigned in MFA511 will be recorded in a series of sessions held in Nashville.

In this course, you will work with indie game developers at the Media Design School and other selected locations to create music for these adaptive, interactive experiences. You will be involved, as most top game composers are, from concept to completion of short, model game projects for which you will write the music, record it in session, and then, as a music designer, implement it in middleware, and work with the team to integrate it with the game engine to produce a final integrated product. Just as in the earlier Screen Scoring modules, where the musical and dramatic challenges posed by individual short scenes or sequences served as exercises in development of your craft, you will work in short-form so that your finished work can furnish pieces for your portfolio.

In this third and final in the technology sequence, the focus will be entirely on the emerging craft of music design, the integration and implementation of the linear musical elements provided by the game composer into the game engine via what is known as middleware. In-depth exploration of platforms such as Wwise and FMOD, as well as the vast creative possibilities for creating immersive experience in non-linear media.

The radical changes in compositional technique introduced by Modernism, Minimalism, Post-Minimalism, and other new forms, as well as simultaneous breakthroughs in electronic music and the integration of non-Western tonal systems into popular music, have had a profound effect on the way music for visual media sounds and the expectations content creators have for it. In this course you will continue the work of Cinematic Score Study I to explore the paths that brought music to where it is now, and consider where it is going in the future.

“Find your voice” is the imperative given to every student who enrolls in the Master of Fine Arts program. It is not always a straightforward process, as you must hone, winnow and polish to clear away what is merely imitative and arrive at something truly original. This is what the industry demands. In intensive individual sessions, your work will be critiqued and shaped in order to bring out the gold of your own personal identity.

Material assigned in MFA521 Screen Scoring III to be recorded in remote/virtual recording sessions conducted in Europe but monitored by students and staff in Atlanta.

This advanced composition class will pair you with a group of young independent or advanced student filmmakers to collaborate on the scoring of a selected series of short films that are either festival-bound or have been featured on the festival circuit. From spotting to scoring and mixing, the course will model professional practice at every stage. The resulting scores will be professionally recorded in the capstone quarter on a selected European scoring stage with students in attendance. All sessions will be filmed and scores professionally mixed. Recording is expected to take place over an extended period in the designated country.

Tools for AI-assisted music creation are currently in a formative state, but considering their rapid rate of advancement it is not unreasonable to expect that in the near future many lower budget projects and library catalogs will be at least partially scored with AI utilities. These are the same projects that today support the early careers of many composers. It is therefore essential that you become familiar with these tools, and that music creators find ways to become their masters rather than their servants. This course is a survey of existing AI technology and includes an analysis of current and future trends for AI-assisted music creation. You will also practice composition utilizing leading AI music platforms.

Music editing, the assembly, recombination, processing and pre-mixing of all music elements in postproduction, is both a gateway profession for those wishing to compose and an alternative career path for those who opt for a more stable occupation that is nonetheless at the heart of the craft. The music editor is the composer’s most valuable ally and is present throughout the entire scoring and re-recording (dubbing) process. Music supervision encompasses the entire range of content needed to satisfy a project’s music needs, from clearing and licensing pre-existing songs for use in the project to serving as an executive music producer and recommending and securing a composer for the score. Music supervisors often come onboard with editors and have taken on many of the functions once performed by studio executives.

“Find your voice” is the imperative given to every student who enrolls in the Master of Fine Arts program. It is not always a straightforward process, as you must hone, winnow and polish to clear away what is merely imitative and arrive at something truly original. This is what the industry demands. In intensive individual sessions, your work will be critiqued and shaped in order to bring out the gold of your own personal identity.

The composer of music for visual media is a self-employed independent contractor as well as generally the sole proprietor of a small business. Whether the composer is the only employee or oversees a staff of forty, they must be thoroughly familiar with all aspects of the business. In this course, you will become familiar with the language of both “work-for-hire” and “all-in package” contracts, the metrics of performance royalties, their administration by Performing Rights Organizations (PRO’s), copyright law, and the rules and regulations governing intellectual properties in the age of AI. In addition, you will learn what it means to be your own publicist, and in the early stage of a career, an agent.

The media composer who is also able to conduct his or her music will not only have an extra measure of creative control over the outcome of their recordings, but may become eligible for additional earnings as a hired studio conductor. In preparation for the capstone recording sessions in the EU in MFA536, all students will undertake this workshop and thereby gain the competence and confidence to conduct your summative piece.

During this course, you will undertake to score complete live-action narrative, animated, or documentary short films to demonstrate mastery of the craft and prepare you for your thesis capstone project. You will write for varying large orchestral ensembles blended with electronic elements, and your work will be recorded in live session on a designated European scoring stage with full professional crew, complemented by cultural learning experiences. Note: Recording is anticipated to occur over a period of 1-2 weeks in the designated country. This SoundTrek occurs in the final quarter of the program, travel to a designated European studio location is required. Full participation in this exercise is required. All travel expenses (e.g., airfare/transportation, lodging, incidentals, and meals) are the responsibility of the student. Strayer will cover the studio reservation and recording fees. Students are responsible for securing their own visa, if needed.

In the capstone course, you will undertake and complete a signature project that demonstrates your competency in the field of music for visual/screen media. This will be a major work of music written and produced for an audio-visual project such as a narrative or documentary short film of festival quality, a video game, an interactive or virtual reality project, or another approved audio-visual collaboration. You will also submit a written commentary, a finished composer “reel” suitable for professional use, and a composer website to showcase your accomplishments.