Score & film audio
SCORE AND MIXONE PAIR OF HANDS
Original music and finished audio for short films, documentaries and independent features — written and mixed by the same person, so nothing is lost between the two.
On most productions the time goes in the same place. A composer delivers stems, a mixer interprets them, and the note the director gave in the edit suite is lost somewhere between the two: the music arrives two seconds late, the theme that was meant to carry the scene ends up under an effect, and a week goes backwards. Here there is nobody to hand off to. The score and the mix are the same job, done by the same person, in the same room.
That matters most where there is no budget for two departments — which is to say on almost every short film, documentary and independent feature. One conversation covers both, and a change to the music is not a renegotiation.
The person scoring your film is the person mixing it. A note given out loud becomes a change the same afternoon.
The mix itself starts with dialogue, because that is what an audience judges a film's sound on. A soft shot is forgiven; a line nobody can hear is not, and neither is a voice that changes between two angles of the same conversation. Atmospheres, effects and music are built around keeping it clear, and the whole thing is balanced to the standard your delivery asks for.
The music is played rather than programmed. Guitars, bass, drums, piano, strings and winds are recorded live, so a cue can be scored for real instruments without a session budget or a week of diary-matching. On a short or an independent documentary that is usually the difference between a real score and a library track.
What the work covers
Original score
Written to picture and played on real instruments, not programmed.
Spotting
Deciding where music belongs, and more usefully where it does not.
Dialogue edit and mix
Cleaned, levelled and consistent across every cut.
Sound design
Atmospheres, effects and the detail nobody consciously hears.
Arrangement
Solo piano to strings and horns, written for the budget you have.
Stems and delivery
Music, dialogue and effects split out, to your spec.
The practical part
What you send
- The cut as it stands, with a timecode burn-in and the guide audio.
- The production sound, and a note on anything you already know is a problem.
- Two or three films or cues that feel like the right tone.
What you get back
- The finished audio in the format your delivery asks for.
- The score as separate files, yours to use.
- Stems — dialogue, music, effects — for archive and foreign versions.
Delivery formats
The mix is built for whatever your festival, broadcaster or distributor asks for. Say which at the start — the format changes how a mix is put together, not just how it is exported at the end.
Stereo
Festivals, online and most short films. Still the delivery that matters most.
5.1 and 7.1
Broadcast and cinema delivery, with stems split for foreign versions.
Ambisonic
360 and VR, where the sound field has to turn with the viewer.
Dolby Atmos
Object-based delivery for platforms and cinemas that ask for it.
If your distributor needs the mix signed off in a Dolby-certified room, tell me at the start rather than at the end. That is something to plan for, not to improvise.
About film work
We only need the music. Can you just score it?
Yes. Plenty of films arrive with their audio post already sorted and only need the music written. It is simply cheaper and faster when both sit with the same person.
We only need the dialogue cleaned up and mixed. Is that a problem?
Not at all, and it is a large part of the job. A film with no music at all still needs its audio finished properly.
Our production sound is rough in places. Can it be saved?
Often, and you will get a straight answer before any money changes hands. Send the worst scene rather than the best one — it is the only way to know whether it is an edit problem, a mix problem or an ADR problem.
It is a student short and the budget is small. Is it worth asking?
Yes. Short films and documentaries are most of this work, and the reason one person doing both is worth anything is that it makes a real score possible on a budget that could not otherwise afford one.
What formats can you deliver?
Stereo, 5.1, 7.1, Ambisonic for VR and Dolby Atmos. Tell me the spec at the start, because it changes how the mix is built rather than just how it is exported.
Send me your project
I'll tell you what it needs and what it would take. It costs nothing to ask.
Free, no obligation