How to Have the Best Music Possible in Your Film
If you’re an indie filmmaker, director, or producer, you already know how much music can elevate your film. The right score doesn’t just sit underneath the images – it becomes part of the storytelling itself. It shapes emotion, guides perception, and connects your audience to the deeper meaning behind every scene.
As a professional film composer, I’ve seen firsthand how the strongest scores come from strong collaborations. When filmmakers and composers work together with clarity and intention, the result is something far greater than either could achieve alone.
In this article, I’ll share five essential strategies to help you get the best music possible for your film – and make your collaboration with your composer smooth, efficient, and creatively rewarding.
1. Use Reference Tracks to Jumpstart the Creative Process
Film music exists to serve the story. That means your composer needs to understand not just what happens in your film, but how it’s supposed to feel.
One of the most effective ways to communicate this is through reference tracks.
Reference tracks act as creative anchors. They immediately put your composer in the right emotional and aesthetic world. But it’s important to clarify what role those references play.
Ask yourself:
Are these tracks general inspiration?
Or do you envision the score sounding very close to them?
Would you consider using them temporarily in your edit (temp tracks)?
The answers matter. Reference tracks can serve as loose emotional guideposts – or as very specific sonic targets. Both approaches are valid, but clarity here makes all the difference.
When used thoughtfully, reference tracks can dramatically accelerate the creative process and help avoid unnecessary guesswork.
2. Be Honest About How Attached You Are to Your References
This is one of the most overlooked – but most important – conversations you can have with your composer.
How attached are you to your reference tracks?
Do you want something stylistically similar or are they simply a starting point for exploration?
There’s no right or wrong answer. Some films benefit from scores that closely align with a temp track. Others thrive when the composer uses references only as inspiration and creates something entirely original.
What matters most is transparency.
When your composer understands your expectations clearly, it prevents friction, saves time, and ensures the creative energy goes into making the film better – not into navigating avoidable misunderstandings.
3. Build a Common Language with Your Composer
Music is abstract. Words like melancholic, hopeful, fragile, or triumphant can mean very different things to different people.
This is why building a shared musical language is essential.
Reference tracks become incredibly powerful here – not just as inspiration, but as translation tools.
For example, instead of saying:
“I want this scene to feel vulnerable,”
you could say:
“I love how vulnerable the piano feels at 1:13 in this reference track.”
Now that emotional description has a concrete musical meaning.
Over time, these shared references create a creative shorthand between you and your composer. Communication becomes faster, clearer, and far more effective. Instead of speaking in vague emotional terms, you’re speaking in precise creative intentions.
This is where great collaborations truly begin to flourish.
4. Understand the Narrative Purpose of the Music
Music should never exist in a film just for the sake of being there. It must serve a narrative purpose.
Ask yourself:
What is the music contributing to the story?
Is it enhancing emotional moments – or softening them?
Is it revealing subtext the actors aren’t expressing outwardly?
Is it helping with pacing?
Is it creating connections between different moments in the film?
Sometimes music amplifies emotion. Other times, it provides contrast. Sometimes it reveals inner psychology. Other times, it simply provides structure.
When you clearly understand the function of the music in each moment, your composer can write with intention and precision – ensuring every cue contributes meaningfully to the storytelling.
The goal is completeness. Music should make the film feel whole.
Not overloaded. Whole.
5. Remember That Silence Is Also Music
One of the most powerful tools in film is silence.
Silence creates contrast. It creates tension. It creates intimacy.
When music enters after silence, its emotional impact becomes exponentially stronger.
Silence can:
Emphasize realism
Convey isolation
Control pacing
Focus attention
Amplify emotional impact
Great scores are not wall-to-wall music. They breathe. They leave space.
Understanding when not to use music is just as important as knowing when to use it.
Silence isn’t the absence of storytelling. It’s part of it.
Final Thoughts: Great Film Music Is Built on Great Collaboration
If you want the best music possible for your film, focus on building a strong creative relationship with your composer.
To recap:
Use reference tracks to establish direction
Be clear about how literally those references should be interpreted
Build a shared musical language
Understand the narrative purpose of the music
Embrace the power of silence
When these elements are in place, the composer can do what they do best: bring your story to life in ways that images and dialogue alone never could.
And when that happens, your film doesn’t just look complete.
It feels complete.
—
Álvaro Rodríguez Cabezas
Composer for Film, Television, and Video Games
The heart of a film beats in its music
Álvaro Rodríguez Cabezas is an award-winning film composer, arranger, and music producer with over 20 years of experience in composition and film scoring. Having crafted original music and cinematic scores for feature films, documentaries, and web series internationally, he helps indie filmmakers and directors understand how film music and soundtracks elevate storytelling through expert insights drawn from his professional career as a composer.
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