What’s the Deal With Temp Music?
/Recently, I went to see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem in theatres. It had received lots of criticism for copying Into the Spider-Verse’s distinct animation style, so I was excited to find that it was actually very unique, breaking away from the Sony hit’s focus on print media by using a more rough-sketch style to get its comic book feel. But there was one aspect of the movie that did continuously remind me of Spider-Verse, and that was the music. The score at points felt so obviously reminiscent of it that I even checked to see if they share a composer. They were composed by two different people with two different teams, so how did it end up with such a similar score? Well, the answer may well be temp music.
Temp music, also referred to as temp tracks or temp scores, is score music used by filmmakers to help edit early cuts of a film. At this point in the filmmaking process the score has no completed tracks, so alternate music is brought in to create a tone and tempo for the editing process. This temp music isn’t intended to be part of the final cut of the film so copyrighted music, especially music from already existing film scores, is typically used. The film is then edited set to this temporary soundtrack so it can be replaced later with the official score. This process has become a bit of a contentious issue in the world of filmmaking.
Temp music serves as a placeholder because something is needed to set the pace for editors, so what’s the problem? Well, directors have a bad habit of getting attached to their temp music, and when it’s time to add in the score the studio has paid for they struggle to let go of the cut of the film that uses temp tracks. When this happens, some directors go to their composers and essentially ask them to recreate the temp score as best as they can within the limits of copyright law. This is not only limiting to the composers’ creative process but, because all of these directors are feeding off of each other’s scores, it can lead to bland and uninspired music in the final cut.
Worse yet, some directors cut their composers out of the film entirely. Famously, Stanley Kubrick did this for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick had used a number of classical pieces as temp music for the movie, and he approached Alex North, a famous composer in his own right, about making similar pieces for the movie score. When reviewing the edits, Kubrick ultimately decided that the original version of the film worked better and opted to use it, something he could get away with because he had used classical music rather than another film’s score. He didn’t even inform Alex North of this decision, North had to find out for himself when he went to see the film in theatres.
This issue is complex though. Despite what some film composers say, it’s hard to do away with temp music altogether. It might work for some directing/editing teams to work to a metronome or some other way of maintaining pacing, but some creatives need to feel the music to create the best possible piece. Certainly, temp music can work against a scene, like when Mad Max: Fury Road based its score off of Captain America’s, creating an obvious tonal disconnect. But temp music isn’t always the wrong choice for the final cut. In one of the more well-known examples, 300 copied a theme from the 1999 film TITUS; personally, I believe this theme was the right choice for the scene and it’s hard to imagine anything fitting better.
Ultimately, directors, producers, and composers need to come together and figure out what the hell they want. In a case like 300, it probably would have been much better to just shell out for the rights to another theme rather than make their composer copy someone else’s work. Directors also need to be willing to step back and not get so smitten with their temp tracks; maybe switching up the music for subsequent edits of each scene would give them more distance when approaching the final score. Composers, in my opinion, are pretty blameless here and I just wish higher-ups would have more faith in their ability to do their job. The less the industry relies on temp music as the be-all end-all, the better film scores, and films themselves, will be.
Jack is an aspiring writer in Algonquin’s Professional Writing program. He resides in Ottawa, Ontario despite absolutely despising the cold. His main interests are movies, food, and politics. He hopes to give you some insight into the world of film scores and soundtracks.
