Indie Film Soundtracks: Why does your music suck?

The Indie film scene does have its strengths, but I would say that one element that gets often overlooked is the musical score and soundtrack for most indie films. You often notice how must indie films out there tend to have forgettable soundtracks? As a heavy metal music nerd, this offends me. After all, the musical score of your film goes a long way in setting your stories vibe. Plus, there are so many cool music genres out there that you can use. But why does the soundtrack get ignored like a cheeseburger being served at a Mexican restaurant? Let's a break, break, break it down!

The power of music can greatly enhance your film.

Now there are two ways filmmakers go about getting music for their film, hiring a composer or using stock music. Going with the stock music approach is a road filled with danger. Many indie filmmakers go this route since it can be generally less expensive, and it seems fast and easy. However, (let me bring out my pointer finger) I would recommend this is not the way to go most of the time. Creating a soundtrack that is consistent quality and feels coherence with stock music is a challenge. One minute you might have an acoustic guitar track followed by some techno hi-beats track. Unless this is the sound you are going for, things can get out of hand. Finding a playlist of stock music that flows and adds to your film takes a bit of research and listening time to fully develop.

The second point is not all stock music is created equal. You can find some tracks that slap out there, but some filmmakers just seem to pick the first elevator music sounding track they could find. Have you ever seen a indie film and then you hear the bad stock music come at you, full force, pulling you out of the immersion and sending you nearest to the closest window to jump out of. Now, I'm not expecting some Taylor Swift quality to be coming at us during an indie film, but I am hoping that some thought and care went into the musical experience for your film.

This monkey composer would most likely sound better then those stock music tracks you picked.

This is why you should hire a composer to help you in your musical quest for groovy storytelling. The composer has the advantage of watching your film and matching the ebb and flow of your story. Now, a composer might cost a bit more money, but there are a lot of composers out there who would love to compose some scores. With the right amount of work, you can find a composer that will work for a pretty good rate. Besides money, the other main consideration when hiring a composer is time. Commissioning a custom score takes a lot more time than licensing a song, especially if there are lots of revisions. But you'll the payoff of having a unique score that if popular enough, could allow you to sell even the soundtrack of your film in addition to your film.

Now there are various methods to using music in your indie film. You've got original songs, scores and underscores, and existing songs as your main options. Using pre-existing songs can be useful if you want to use songs that people are already familiar with and can be great in establishing different periods of time. If your movie takes place in the early 2000s, then I expect to hear those pop punk and grunge songs baby. But depending on how popular songs are, this can expensive right quick. Don't bother asking Taylor Swift to use her music, can I tell you, you can't afford it. Making original custom songs for your film can also make your movie more unique and stand out more. However, this will take a bit more time and investment since you'll need to the write out the songs and find someone to sing them for you.

Yeah man, lets make this movie rock!

Scores and underscores will be your most useful tool and is the most common type of music you hear in a movie. This will be the music played in the background during dialogue scenes or be the focus doing a montage bit. Usually this will fall into classical or ambient sounding pieces that are mood setters. Pop, dance/electronic, R&B/soul/funk, and hip-hop are the most requested genres used in film. But I wouldn't discard the rest of the musical world. Where is that Folktronica or Lowercase movie at? (Yes, lowercase is a genre of music my friends, google it)

Now there might be times where picking a few stock tracks or songs might make sense for your film and project. But overall, the advantages of having a composer will always outweigh going the full stock music route. Soundtracks are important to movies not only because they provide a musical structure for the film, but because they emotionally connect the audience to the film and its story. Often, iconic movies' soundtracks are just as, if not more, memorable than the films themselves. Seriously, try watching or making a film without any music.