Composing : Thematic short movies without sound? by Srdjan Todorovic

To be honest, your question is somewhat confusing for me. Those creating short films, are often on a very small or no budget at all. If they use music at all, they go for 'creative commons' or some low to no priced music. I have just watched as part of the "Worldfest" festival ongoing here in Houston a bunch of short films - some had no music at all and some used free music. Another thing that happens with shorts is that the filmmaker, gets a band or one or more musicians to play for free. There are obvious advantages for this approach but it does have some drawbacks: (1) as the music is often pre-written it is up to the filmmaker/director to search for music that will fit with the action and intent of the scene (versus having a composer custom write music). (2) Also, the music will often not be of the correct length and so the filmmaker or his/her surrogate (often the sound editor) will have to decide exactly what portions of the musical clip to use.

Sometimes, a composer can be used to custom write music cues at little to no cost. Many composers will refuse to do this since they believe that they should be compensated for their time and creative artistry. So only a fraction of the shorts I have seen will have custom written cues. I actually do not agree with that philosophy. I believe that there is room for no cost custom written music as long as the rest of the crew is also not being paid. I believe it is a win-win since I get an opportunity to both practice my collaboration skills as well as to hone my ability to score for films. That is why I have 22 IMDB credits for shorts - all of which were done at no cost. I personally draw the line at features.

Another opportunity you may have though which is outside of the conventional film industry are wedding videos. About 80%+ of wedding videos are of 'cinematic' style which means the typical product, the "highlight reel" has no sound at all and the wedding videographers look to purchase music to overlay on the video. In my day job , I am a wedding videographer but I shoot in a different 'style' which normally uses the actual audio track and not overlaid music. Though when I am asked to/hired to, I will compose music. Here is a good example where I actually composed film style music, earlier this year, to a 'first look' segment my bride wanted overlaid music for. As you can see, the music is pretty much the same as a cue you would have in a film though it tends to be more 'thematic', structured and 'complete'. Though writing synthesized and orchestral music for highlight wedding clips is possible, more often than not, the videographers (who act as 'filmmakers' in this case), go with vocal music and often "singer songwriter style".

https://youtu.be/KIB6lmB4-q0

Your final comment "movie for music" is basically the definition of a 'music video'. Again, normally the video involves the performer/performers and the film/video shot is silent and overlaid with a pre-recorded music created/recorded live. However, this is not always the case. Back in 2013, I lent my pre-recorded musical piece called "Elegantia" to a filmmaker who created a film around it. The film went on to win a Houston competition and then placed 2nd to Paris internationally (12 awards in all). I was not in the video/film and it was not recorded live (though it can certainly be played live in the future). To get a feel for what I would call a 'film without dialog' and this could give you some ideas, check out:

https://youtu.be/jXfajMVeT54

Joel, thank you for advice.