The Purpose of Temp Music
During the long and iterative process of film editing, a movie is assembled and reassembled many times. To get a feel for the pacing and emotional arc of scenes before a composer has written the original score, the director and editor will often lay in a temporary music score, known as the temp track.
This track is typically built from a library of existing music, most often from other film scores, but also classical pieces or popular songs. For instance, an editor cutting a tense thriller might use music from a Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross score, while for an epic fantasy sequence, they might use a piece by Howard Shore from The Lord of the Rings. The temp track serves several functions:
- It helps the editor find the rhythm and pace of a scene.
- It demonstrates the intended function of music in a particular sequence.
- It is used for internal screenings and test screenings to give producers and audiences a more complete viewing experience.
”Temp Love”: A Double-Edged Sword
While the temp track is a useful and often necessary tool in the editing room, it is famously a source of anxiety for film composers. The phenomenon of ‘temp love’ occurs when the director, editor, and producers become so accustomed to hearing the temp music with the picture that they fall in love with it.
This can create a difficult situation for the composer, who is then often explicitly or implicitly asked to write a piece of original music that mimics the temp track very closely. This can stifle creativity, forcing the composer to imitate another artist’s work rather than creating something new and unique for the film. In the worst-case scenario, it can lead to scores that sound generic or, if the imitation is too close, raise legal questions about plagiarism. Many accomplished composers have spoken about the challenges of overcoming a director’s attachment to the temp track.