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How To Write Cinematic Music

WITH GUY MICHELMORE

A THINKSPACE INTERACTIVE COURSE

Media Composition

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$249

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The Sound of Classic Hollywood

If you want to create orchestral music with a Hollywood flair – whether or not you are writing for film – this course is for you. Perfect for both passionate hobbyists and aspiring professionals, it reveals the secrets behind iconic scores like Jurassic Park and Harry Potter, and helps you bring some of that same magic to your own compositions.

Taught by Guy Michelmore and his fellow film composers, this course gives you essential cinematic writing techniques, enabling you to turn simple ideas into grand, emotive music, reminiscent of classic Hollywood scores.

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Unlock the Secrets of the Hollywood SOUND

Cinematic music is so much more than just an accompaniment to film. At its best, it's simply great music – melodic, lyrical, uplifting, dark, suspenseful. Think of your favourite film scores, such as Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or Pirates of the Caribbean.

In this course, we’ll be leaving hybrid and minimalist scoring for another day and focusing on helping you write in that classic Hollywood style.

by the end of this couRse you will be able to...

Develop and write memorable melodies and themes that capture the essence of cinematic music.

Use harmony and chord progressions to evoke specific emotions and enhance the storytelling aspect of your music.

Arrange music effectively for different sections of the orchestra, understanding their unique roles and capabilities in a classic cinematic music context.

Integrate ostinatos, rhythms, and dynamic changes to build excitement and drive in your compositions.

Combine thematic development, orchestration, and structural techniques to create cohesive, cinematic pieces.

what daw and SAMPLE LIBRARIES DO I NEED?

This course focuses on composition and instrumentation, rather than technology. The tutorial videos use Cubase and Logic Pro, but the approaches will work in any DAW. You can also use any virtual instruments, including the free BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover.

The course also references a Spotify playlist of film scores, so for the best experience we recommend subscribing while you are taking the course.

Learn From Award-Winning Film Composers

Meet your course instructors. Through in-depth interviews, score breakdowns and masterclasses, they will give you the insights, knowledge and skills you need to make the kind of music you love. Together, you'll learn from classic scores by Ennio Morricone, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Anne Dudley, Dario Marianelli, Kris Bowers, Pinar Toprak and many others.

Guy Michelmore

Guy Michelmore is a multi award-winning film, games and TV composer whose clients include Marvel, Disney, Dreamworks, Lionsgate and dozens of major TV networks around the world. He’s best known for his work with Marvel on animated feature films including Ultimate Avengers and Thor, as well as hundreds of episodes of television including Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Iron Man: Armoured Adventures and Hulk.

Peter Bateman

Peter is a composer, orchestrator, and conductor for feature films, TV and video games. His film credits include The Grinch, Justice League, Avengers: Age Of Ultron, Alice Through the Looking Glass and 50 Shades of Grey. His TV work includes Next Of Kin (ITV), Notorious (NBC), Roots (History) and Texas Rising (History).

Bruce Broughton

Bruce is an Academy Award nominee with 20 Emmy award nominations and 9 wins. He is best known for his many motion picture scores, which include Miracle on 34th Street, Silverado, Tombstone, The Rescuers Down Under, The Presidio, Homeward Bound, and Harry and the Hendersons. His television themes include The Orville, JAG, and Dinosaurs.

course structure

module 1

Orchestral Foundations

This module introduces the foundational elements of orchestral music, covering the roles and characteristics of different sections within the orchestra. You'll learn how to utilise sampled instruments and templates to create realistic orchestral sounds in your compositions.

module 2

Memorable Music: Theme and Melody

Explore the art of crafting memorable themes and melodies that resonate with listeners. This module teaches some of the techniques used by legendary composers to create iconic film scores, and provides practical guidance on writing your own standout themes.

module 3

Emotional Music: Harmony and Chord Progressions

Learn how to effectively use harmony and chord progressions to evoke specific emotions in your music. This module covers the theory behind emotional responses to music and offers strategies for creating compelling harmonic structures.

module 4

Exciting Music: Ostinato and Rhythm

This module looks at the rhythmic elements that drive excitement and tension in cinematic music. You'll discover how to use ostinatos, dynamic changes, and rhythmic patterns to add energy and movement to your compositions.

module 5

Theme Development: From 30 Seconds To 3 Minutes

Develop your short themes into complete pieces. This module guides you through the process of expanding and varying your musical ideas, structuring your compositions, and maintaining listener interest over longer durations.

module 6

Putting It All Together

Integrate everything you've learned in the previous 5 modules to create a complete, polished, cinematic piece of music. Cohesion and storytelling in your music are a focus in this module, which will help you to produce high-quality music in a classic Hollywood style.

WATCH A FREE SAMPLE

Deconstructing The E.T. Flying theme

The themes of John Williams comes as much from his style as it does his mastery of the orchestra. In this sample from the course, we explore ways that John Williams expresses his own style, as well as compositional technique, in his Flying Theme from the movie E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial.

INTERACTIVE VIDEO

A COURSE THAT’S PERSONALISED TO YOU

DAW School is packed with interactive videos, personalising the course to the level you are starting at, and where you want to get to.

They are also a great way to check what you’ve learned from a module, and suggesting any areas you might want to revisit before you move on.

practical, HANDS-ON LEARNING

The quickest way to learn is by doing. In addition to in-depth masterclasses and interviews, this course offers you several ways to practice and refine what you've learned – helping to cement your new-found skills and knowledge. It's much more than just a playlist of great videos.

downloadable stems

Our popular MinusONE assignments are a great way to learn. After watching a video tutorial, you can download an audio file (or Cubase project file) for a piece of music that has one or more parts/stems missing. Then, using what you have learned in the tutorial, you compose the missing parts. It helps you stay focused and removes the ‘fear of the blank page’.

projects & tasks

There are also more open-ended tasks and projects, giving you the freedom to experiment with the approaches you've learned. You can even post your work on our Discord channel for supportive and constructive feedback from fellow composers around the world.

interactive video

Interactive videos are a bit like having a conversation with Guy. They offer you a more immersive and rewarding learning experience, and are a great way to test your skills and explore your creative choices.

widgets

Widgets are designed to give you a direct, hands-on experience testing technology or techniques. This could be anything from manipulating an effect on a track or piece of music, simulating the signal flow of a mixing desk, to balancing forces in the orchestra to see how it affects the overall sound.

LEARN WITH FELLOW Composers AROUND THE WORLD

This ThinkSpace Interactive course includes lifetime access to our ever-growing community of music makers on Discord. You can chat to other people taking the course, pick up and share tips, and grow your network. You can also share your MinusONEs and Projects from the course to gain useful feedback and pointers from your peers.

Don’t worry if you’ve never used Discord before, it’s simple to get set up, and totally free.

Buy today, start anytime

Learn how to turn your ideas into music reminiscent of classic Hollywood film scores

Get hands-on with MinusONE projects, widgets, and interactive videos

Over 20 hours of insightful interviews and engaging masterclasses

Lifelong access to our global community of composers on Discord

BUY NOW — $249

Lifetime access. Start, finish and revisit anytime.
30-day money-back policy

Frequently Asked Questions

If you have any questions not answered here, please get in touch using the contact details below and we'll get back to you.

This course is for people who may be new to writing cinematic music, but are not new to writing music in their DAW. With this in mind, we would put this in the intermediate category. You should have a working knowledge of your DAW and how to use sample libraries to create your compositions, even if you are aware there are areas of your workflow that need a lot of work.

If you are totally new to your DAW, we recommend taking a look at one of our DAW School courses, like How To Use Cubase or How To Use Logic Pro.

If you want to learn how to make high quality mockups first, and don’t know how to use sample libraries in your DAW, we recommend taking a look at Sampled Orchestration.

Sampled Orchestration shows you how to get the best sounds out of your sample libraries from a technical standpoint, and is not a composition course. How to Score Films largely focuses on the skills involved in writing to picture, and not the music writing process itself.

How to Write Cinematic Music is first and foremost a composition training course, showing you how to develop engaging musical themes, create great harmonic progressions, and generally compose in a classic orchestral cinematic style. This course will not teach you how to analyse film clips to improve your scoring to picture skills and will not go in-depth about the skills involved in creating high quality, realistic MIDI mockups (although you will learn some of that along the way).

Many of the skills we explore in both How to Write Cinematic Music and Orchestral Composition Bootcamp will overlap. However, Bootcamp includes 8 weeks of live webinars, written feedback, and tutor led review sessions. This course is created without the feedback element in mind, so we provide projects and tasks that you can tackle on your own to guide your learning journey.

It’s worth noting that none of the content in either course is copied from one course to the other - we make all of our courses with unique content with a specific learning objective in mind. If you do want something more structured, with help from industry professionals, we recommend taking a look at the Bootcamp.

If you want to write cinematic music, you will need a computer that is capable of handling your DAW and sample libraries. This can be intensive on your computer's resources at times, so we recommend 8 - 16GB of RAM as a minimum, if you are using orchestral sample libraries. Sample libraries can also take up a lot of storage space, so do make sure your computer can download and run your libraries.

Many composers also choose to compose using a MIDI keyboard, however this is not mandatory. It depends on your preferred way of inputting music in your DAW.

If you have any questions about the hardware involved in writing music, please feel free to reach out and ask us questions.

You can use any DAW for this course. If you are using a DAW with limited capabilities (Garageband or Cubase LE, for example), you may find certain plugins or features aren’t available to you that are used in the videos. That said, the course largely focuses on teaching you how to write music, not DAW-specific techniques, so use whichever DAW you are most comfortable with. Reach out to us if you have any concerns about your equipment's capabilities, and we will be happy to advise.

have a question? contact us

contact@thinkspace.ac.uk

+44 (0)1243 256049

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