Soundtracks and film scores make a significant impact on cinema. The music works to tell the story and plays a role in evoking emotion to create moods. The score creates an ultimate experience for the viewers, and the best composers know how to use the soundtrack with images to make you feel and move the story along. Film composers are not only influential, but necessary in the film industry. They create the music to accompany a film that is as essential to the plot as the story itself. Music has the power to make a movie more of a work of art. In the age of content creation on social media platforms, content creators recognize the significance of incorporating captivating elements like vlog video background music to engage their audiences and elevate their storytelling. This realization further emphasizes the role of film composers, as their compositions infuse emotions, tension, and depth into the cinematic experience, enhancing the impact of these visual narratives on today’s content-hungry audiences. Here are some of the most iconic music composers and their contributions to the film industry.
John Williams
A well-known composer in the movie industry, Williams is one of the most iconic film composers ever. The enormity of his orchestral pieces is tailored so well to the movies, and that’s because Williams watches the film in its entirety before writing the soundtrack. Some of his most prolific film scores come from movies like Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, E.T., and Harry Potter, and he’s also written the theme of Star Wars. He’s composed for the film industry for over seventy years, having been nominated for over fifty Oscars. He also has twenty-five Grammys. He has a long-standing relationship with Steven Spielberg, partnering and working together on many films.
John Barry
Barry was a famous English composer in the 1950s, known for his famous collaboration with working on the James Bond movies. He composed eleven scores for the first of those movies, and you can hear his influences within them through the jazzy big band sounds (as he was a trumpet player growing up). He’s won five Oscars for his musical scores, a Golden Globe, and four Grammys, having been nominated for several. Besides the Bond movies, he’s also composed themes for music in the films Dances with Wolves and King Kong (1976). Barry died in 2011 after almost six full decades of composing music for the film industry.
Hans Zimmer
German composer Hans Zimmer is iconic for his way of incorporating electronic music into a more classical-sounding orchestral score. His break-out recognition was for his composition of the movie Rain Main in 1988. He has since become one of the most recognized names in film composition. Zimmer’s other famous contributions to film are his scores in science fiction and fantasy films, including Pirates of the Caribbean, Dune, Inception, The Dark Knight, and Interstellar. He’s also done animated features, including The Lion King and other Dreamworks pictures. With over 150 film scores under his belt, Zimmer is a well-known icon for his music.
Howard Shore
Howard Shore is a Canadian composer and one of Hollywood’s most prominent composers today. He graduated from the Berklee College of Music and has since maintained a substantial career doing film compositions. Some of his most notable films reflect his influence on classical music as a composer of operas, concertos, and symphonies. You will recognize his work in movies such as Lord of the Rings, Twilight: Eclipse, and King Kong (2005). He’s won four Academy Awards, three Golden Globes, and four Grammys for the Lord of the Rings trilogies alone!
Max Steiner
Steiner is an early composer of the 20th century and became successful through working with the infamous George Gershwin after moving to the United States from Austria. He did much work within Broadway musicals before moving on to feature films. He has 300 original film scores in his repertoire, which include Little Women, Gone with the Wind, and the timeless Casablanca. He was nominated for twenty-four Academy Awards and won three of them, and he is known today as the father of modern film music.
Danny Elfman
Danny Elfman is an American composer known for collaborating with directors on fantastical films and creating music to match. He is best known for working with director Tim Burton on many films, including Beetlejuice, A Nightmare Before Christmas, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. He’s also well-known for creating the theme song for the TV show The Simpsons, continuing to compose for the director/creator Matt Groener. Other notable films of Elfman with his musical contributions include Batman (1989), Psycho, Spiderman (trilogy 2002-2007), and Fifty Shades of Grey (trilogy 2015-2018).
Music Composers: Crucial to the Film Industry
Composing music that supports video can work to transcend a story and put you in a state of mind. The composer has a challenging task and often goes through several drafts of work before making a final product to create the right sound to capture the feelings and evoke emotions on screen. These iconic composers are dedicated to the film’s success, and many develop their music to reflect a characters’ journey as it correlates to the plot. There is so much creativity and originality that goes into their work, and for those who can master it, their contributions are remembered well beyond the years to come.