5 Steps to Playing Matchmaker Between Music and Motion

The cinematic process is like creating a satisfying dish in the kitchen—gathering the right ingredients and artfully combining them, says producer and musician Roy Ashen. “You don’t want to just pick random things you like and sandwich them together,” he says. “All of the elements of your video—the music, the fonts, the images—you want all that stuff to match.”

As co-founder and CEO of Triple Scoop Music, a music licensing service for photographers and event filmmakers, Ashen has advised many customers on creating soundtracks for both slideshows and films. “We recently saw a slideshow by a young photographer who was taking children’s portraiture,” Ashen recalls. “She also loved techno music, and she put those two things together, and for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working for her potential clients! Nobody loved it at much as she did. Then we had her go back and redefine her project, and it was much easier for her.”

Many important decisions inform the soundtrack before it’s even chosen, Ashen says, starting with these five key tips for photographers and videographers adding music to their mix.

1. DEFINE YOUR STORY
As they told you in school, start with the topic sentence.
Before you even start thinking of the music, write down one or two sentences that serve as an overview of your story,” Ashen says. “What is the essence of your project? An example might be, ‘This is the wedding of Joe and Linda, and the love between them.’ It could be as simple as that. All it does is remind you what this work is about, and the music has to match.”

2. REVIEW THE GREATS
Check out videos you like and note what makes them work.
“For people who are new to this, go look at a bunch of your favorite videos,” Ashen suggests. “It could be movie trailers, commercials, documentaries—anything that inspires you. Look at it and think about how the music is helping tell the story, where they transition the cuts of the images in relation to the music. Ask yourself, ‘What is it about this audio that helps amplify that story? How does the tempo of the music relate to the emotion they’re trying to get me to feel?’

3. CHOOSE KEYWORDS
Pinpoint the emotions and moods you want to evoke.
I always invite people to pick three keywords that define the emotional energy of the story,” Ashen says. “With a wedding, the three words could be, ‘timeless, romantic, loving.’ If it’s a destination wedding, maybe ‘playful, exotic, sunny.’ Or for a sporting event, it might be ‘aggressive, intense, fast.’ If you’ve defined the story and pegged the keywords before you pick your final images and tunes, you are much, much more likely to stay on track.”

4. EDIT TO FIT
Make music a guide in the editing process—not a bystander.
“A lot of people take their footage and build their film or slideshow first, and then they’ll put the music in as the very last thing, like it’s icing on the cake,” says Ashen, who suggests syncing the speed of the visual transitions to the rhythm of the tunes; a high-energy video should have quicker cuts. “But if you’re doing a really elegant, timeless, romantic story, you can have transitions every four or five seconds, and the music at a slower pace,” he says. “When things really match, there isn’t going to be a dry eye in the house. Ultimately, you want people to get chills or to cry or to jump up and down. And there’s nothing like music to amplify those emotions.

5. MASTER THE ART
Shape the overall gestalt of your storytelling craft.
If you’re just a photographer or just a videographer, you’re in competition with everybody,” Ashen says. “But if you’re a master storyteller, you can use all of these ingredients to show your client that you can capture the story of their business, families, lives, or whatever it is you’re shooting. And that’s where the money is.”

License to Reel
Sharing videos and slideshows online could create copyright entanglements, as most commercial music is licensed only for personal use. “If you buy a CD or songs on iTunes, you’re not legally allowed to use it in a slideshow or a video that you sell,” Ashen says. In addition to Triple Scoop, other music licensing services include SongFreedom, The Music Bed, Shutterstock, Marmoset and Audio Socket.

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