ABSTRACT
Music's ability to underscore emotional, thematic, and narrative information for the audience is uniquely powerful. To arrive at a strong musical score for a documentary, it is essential to start early. If the director is not sure yet about music, it will likely be up to the editor to scout for it. There are more and more sources these days for finding music that can be licensed for films. The music cues have accomplished something quite extraordinary: they have suggested a new way to feel about the images. The Filmstro and SonicFire Pro apps attempt to simulate the experience of working with a composer by letting practitioners find a piece of music with search terms and then customize it to the contours of their particular film with sliders for attributes like "momentum," "depth," and "power." The music documentary Can't Stand Losing You: Surviving the Police uses a similar technique, also in the opening scene.
