Music is a tool to express the emotions behind the scenes in films, and film composers are responsible for film scoring.

In Hong Kong, besides film scoring, some film composers are also composers of pop songs and musicians.

Anthony Chue, a part-time film composer, did his first film scoring in 1996.

Mr. Chue said, “When writing up a film score, we usually work individually in a studio.

“In some cases, composers work with one or two assistants.

“There are only a few music production houses established by famous composers who specialize in music production. Usually, composers just do their job in studios which are either rented or owned by themselves.”

A film composer decides and creates background music for films.

“We start our job after receiving the videotape of a film. Separate scenes of the film are captured into computers,” said Mr. Chue.

“These scenes can be replayed many times in computers.

“We compose the background music as we watch the videos.”

According to Mr. Chue, there was a lack of equipment in studios in the past.

Said he: “Composers used to write the melody and the scores for musical instruments only, and specify tempo they wanted to use.

“Then they got other people to do the arrangements and programming in studios.

“Film composers do all the things themselves now.

“However, sometimes if the project is too large in scale or the composers are busy with jobs other than film scoring, they find members of orchestra to do the arrangement.”

From the ’40s to the ’60s, Hong Kong films always used music taken from Western films, so-called “canned music”.

Later, some pop music composers took over the job of film scoring to create original music.

In recent years, more people have become professional film scorers.

The improvement of quality may also be a result of technological advancements.

According to Mr. Chue, music used in film scoring in the past could only be that playable by humans.

That meant all music had to be performed by musicians, bands, strings, orchestras and so forth.

Nowadays, synthesizers can produce different types of sounds. This greatly increases the variety of music used in film scoring.

“Technology also helps in the procedure of film scoring,” said Mr. Chue.

“Another big problem in the past was timing, because film composers could not watch the film when they were recording music.

“To overcome this, composers had to time the film accurately.

“For example, they had to know when the door would be closed, when a gun would be fired and so forth.

“During recording, they had to play the music at the correct time.

“Take this as an example. They played the sound of a gunshot by keyboard, then six seconds later, a door would close loudly. And maybe after several seconds, there would be another action and so on. The precise times had to be recorded.”

He added that after computer technology became popular in film scoring in the 1980s, this kind of time recording method ceased to exist.

Computers play a vital role in film scoring now.

The composers play the background music with musical instruments connected to computers while the film is playing. The sound is directly recorded into the computer.


omputers are not only important in technical processes, but also in creative processes.
"Different sound effects can be achieved by computers.

“This makes the music more interesting,” said Mr. Chue.

“Film scoring is more than just creating music.

“It is very different from composing pop songs.

“The music has to match with the scenes, and should also help to enhance the mood of the scenes.

“The most common instruments we use are the keyboard and the guitar. We may find musicians to play. Sometimes, we find orchestras or bands to play for the film. This depends on the budget we have.”

Mr. Chue wrote in his personal web site, “It is known that some studies show that people react more to what they hear than to what they see. For example, the sight of a knife thrown towards one on screen would not be quite so scary without a distorted high-pitched screeching string accent accompanying it. So we cannot just play the music we like; it is not that simple.”

Most of the music for film scoring is original.

Creating music that can successfully match with the scenes is the chief concern and also the most challenging part of film scoring.

Courtesy of Anthony Chue

A studio used for film scoring.

Directors and producers sometimes have meetings with film composers before film scoring.

They may give their opinions on the music they want for particular scenes.

In some cases, directors provide them with references of foreign films to explain their needs.

Mr. Chue said, “Of course, we are not going to copy the music. But it certainly provides us with a guide to express the correct feeling of the scenes.”

However, the directors may not have opinion on the music in some cases. This
leaves the decisions to the composers.

“The greatest difficulty in film scoring lies not in composing or playing the music well.

“It is about deciding the appropriate type of music that can express the feeling we want.”

Mr. Chue said that it is difficult to come up with the right feeling for the scene.

Even when the emotion of the scene is given, there are different ways to express the feelings being evoked.

He explained, “For the same fighting scene, we can use drums, electronic or techno music to create an anxious feeling.

“However, each way may lead to totally different results.

“That is what we have to consider.”

In Hong Kong, very often, there are theme songs for films, which recur many times across scenes.

Said Mr. Chue: “Sometimes, theme songs are assigned to us. We may rearrange the songs into several variations, such as voice and instrumental.

“Or, directors would ask us to compose a theme song for the film.”

Film composers usually take about one to two weeks to complete a job. It is a common practice in Hong Kong.

Mr. Chue said that working in a hurry will affect the quality of the end-product. Instead of one week, he recommends that one month gives sufficient time to the composers.

Generally for a Hong Kong film, there will be a budget ranging from $100,000 to $200,000 for film scoring.

It will be higher if they need to find orchestra or strings to play the music.

The wages of film composers also come from the budget.

Said Mr. Chue:"This is not a big investment.

"But it is acceptable in Hong Kong because the budget for producing an entire film is not much.

"However, compared with overseas productions, it is quite a small amount, I think.

"This may be because Hong Kong people value film scoring llower than those in western countries."

Mr. Chue said a foreign producer once told him that up to half of a film is made up of sound.

Mr.Chue said, "In Hong Kong, audiences may focus on other parts of a film like the plot or starring rather than music.

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