When making a sizzle reel, what guides your music choice?

[Shane Ross]

Something that fits the topic. For example, in an extreme sports sizzle, I used fast paced rock music. In a military competition sizzle, I used music with military tones…drums, trumpets…but also fast paced because it’s competition. In a sizzle about the quirky adventures personal shopper, I used more quirky cues…some sounding like 60’s TV themes like from Bewitched. In a southern pawn shop sizzle, we used southern blues and country music. In a sizzle about following a military troop in Afghanistan, I used dramatic scores…emotional. And action cues for when they were under attack.

Shane
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[Mark Suszko]

Music may not need to be “wall to wall” to be effective. Often, it’s the pauses or beats without music that make the music have even more impact, when it finally DOES come in. Sound effects, or more properly, sound DESIGN across the overall project, can be immensely effective on the subliminal level.

An example that sticks out in my mind is the scene when Clarice Starling is being prepared to meet Hannibal Lecter in Jail for the first time, in “The Silence Of the Lambs”. She has to go thru an entire orientation procedure as she gets closer and closer to the first face-to-face, including signing release papers, being instructed about forbidden items or procedures, and being shown pictures of what Lecter has been able to to to unwary people who let themselves get too close to his grasp. There is a subtle buildup of low frequency beats and patterns, just barely perceptible at first, that keeps building as the sequence progresses, and it winds you up tight as a clock spring, even before you see Hannibal standing in his cell.

A sizzle reel is short; you have to make the most of every shot. Think about what kind of enhancements you can make to the Foley tracks of each shot, and see if you can key that into the music in some way, and the entire thing will feel more polished, more “complete” when experienced.

[Richard Herd]

Foley/SFX — I’m doing it!

What about color correction?

I stayed pretty literal with the music choice.

[Shane Ross]

What about color correction? You do it if it needs it. Most of the sizzles I’ve cut used “found footage,” but the handful that were shot specifically for the sizzle…I graded. just like I would a show.

Shane
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[Richard Herd]

Thanks!