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USC THORNTON SCHOOL OF MUSIC / SCREEN SCORING

SCOR 511: HISTORY OF FILM MUSIC
JON BURLINGAME, ASST. PROF.
burlinga@usc.edu
rev. syllabus 8/16
Catalog description:
A comprehensive survey of the craft of composing music for motion pictures and
television, geared specifically to composers, combining film-music history and score
analysis.
Recommended reading:
Burlingame, Jon. Sound and Vision: 60 Years of Motion Picture Soundtracks.
Billboard Books, 2000.
Hickman, Roger. Reel Music: Exploring 100 Years of Film Music. W.W. Norton &
Co., 2006.
Karlin, Fred. Listening to Movies. Schirmer Books, 1994.
Palmer, Christopher. The Composer in Hollywood. Marion Boyars, 1990.
Thomas, Tony. Music for the Movies, second edition. Silman-James Press, 1997.
Grading:
a. First semester: One paper (due week 9): Analysis of one complete film score
(to be approved by instructor), including a discussion of each cue in the score
(description of both the music and its dramatic context, and opinion of its effectiveness).
b. Second semester: Another paper, subject to be determined (due week 15).
c. Attendance and general class participation.
Disability:
Any student requesting academic accomodations based on a disability is
required to register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter
of verification for approved accomodations can be obtained from DSP. Please be sure
the letter is delivered to me as early in the semester as possible. (213) 740-0776.
[first semester]
Week 1. Introduction
* Overview of the course
* Film-music functions: origins of music in motion pictures
* Discussion of music in silent films: original vs. compiled scores, combinations
Weeks 2, 3. Transition to Sound / Pioneering Efforts
* Early experiments with underscoring dialogue and action
* Pioneers in dramatic scoring during the 1930s
* Max Steiner - RKO, Warner Bros.
(King Kong, Gone With the Wind, Now Voyager, Casablanca)
* Alfred Newman - United Artists, 20th Century-Fox
(Wuthering Heights, The Song of Bernadette, How the West Was Won)
* Herbert Stothart - MGM

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(The Good Earth, The Wizard of Oz, Random Harvest)
Weeks 4, 5, 6. The Golden Age
* Rise of the classically trained composer in Hollywood
* Erich Wolfgang Korngold
(The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Sea Hawk, Kings Row)
* Miklos Rozsa
(Double Indemnity, Spellbound, Quo Vadis, Ben-Hur)
* Franz Waxman
(Sunset Boulevard, A Place in the Sun, The Spirit of St. Louis)
* Dimitri Tiomkin
(Lost Horizon, High Noon, The Alamo)
* Victor Young
(For Whom the Bell Tolls, Shane, Around the World in 80 Days)
Weeks 7, 8. The Medium Matures
* Film medium begins to mature, new approaches taken
* Bernard Herrmann
(Citizen Kane, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Vertigo, Psycho)
* David Raksin
(Laura, Forever Amber, The Bad and the Beautiful)
* Hugo Friedhofer (The Best Years of Our Lives)
* Hans J. Salter (The Wolf Man)
* Roy Webb (Cat People, Notorious)
Weeks 9, 10. New Faces, New Sounds: the 50s and 60s
* European-style 19th-century romanticism becomes outmoded as American
music and composers come to the fore
* Alex North
(A Streetcar Named Desire, Spartacus, The Misfits)
* Leonard Rosenman
(East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, Fantastic Voyage)
* Elmer Bernstein
(Man With the Golden Arm, Magnificent Seven, To Kill a Mockingbird)
* Jerome Moross (The Big Country)
Weeks 11, 12. New Faces, New Sounds: the 60s and 70s
* Influence of young composers from the big-band era and television
* Jerry Goldsmith
(Planet of the Apes, Patton, Chinatown, Star Trek: The Motion Picture)
* Henry Mancini
(Touch of Evil, Breakfast at Tiffanys, The Pink Panther)
* John Barry
(Goldfinger, The Lion in Winter, Out of Africa)

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Week 13. Jazz Composers in Film
* Johnny Mandel
(I Want to Live!, The Sandpiper)
* Quincy Jones
(The Pawnbroker, In Cold Blood, In the Heat of the Night)
* Dave Grusin
(On Golden Pond, The Firm)
* Terence Blanchard
(25th Hour, Inside Man)
Week 14. New Faces, New Sounds: the 70s and 80s
* Fresh sounds from composers in the popular-music fields
* Lalo Schifrin
(Cool Hand Luke, Dirty Harry, Enter the Dragon)
* Jerry Fielding
(The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, The Outlaw Josey Wales)
Week 15. Resurgence of the Symphonic Score
* Spielberg and Lucas spur return to orchestral tradition
* John Williams
(Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Wars, Schindlers List)
[second semester]
Weeks 1, 2. Foreign Composers and Notable Foreign-Film Scores
* Ennio Morricone
(The Good, the Bad & the Ugly; The Mission)
* Nino Rota
(8 1/2, Romeo and Juliet, The Godfather)
* Maurice Jarre
(Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago)
* Georges Delerue
(Jules et Jim, Day for Night, Agnes of God)
* Michel Legrand
(The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Thomas Crown Affair, Summer of 42)
Weeks 3, 4. Concert Hall Composers in Film
* Surprising number of famed concert composers who wrote for film, why
* Stigma of scoring for film: Is it disappearing?
* Leonard Bernstein (On the Waterfront)
* Aaron Copland (The Red Pony, The Heiress)
* Sergei Prokofiev (Alexander Nevsky)
* Dmitri Shostakovich (Zoya, Michurin, Hamlet)
* William Walton (Henry V, Hamlet, Richard III)
* Ralph Vaughan Williams (41st Parallel, Scott of the Antarctic)
* Malcolm Arnold (The Bridge on the River Kwai)
* Toru Takemitsu (Dodeska-den, Ran)

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* Richard Rodney Bennett (Murder on the Orient Express, Equus)
* John Corigliano (The Red Violin)
* Philip Glass (Kundun, The Hours)
Week 5. The Impact of Television
* History of television scoring; classic shows with outstanding scores
* Laurence Rosenthal (Peter the Great, Young Indiana Jones Chronicles)
Weeks 6, 7, 8, 9. Scoring Contemporary Films
* Changes in musical styles, circumstances in the 90s and beyond
* Alexandre Desplat (The Queen, Argo, Grand Budapest Hotel)
* Danny Elfman (Batman, Edward Scissorhands)
* Michael Giacchino (The Incredibles, Ratatouille, Up)
* Elliot Goldenthal (Alien 3, Frida)
* James Horner (Braveheart, Titanic)
* James Newton Howard (The Sixth Sense, The Village)
* Randy Newman (The Natural, Avalon)
* Thomas Newman (American Beauty, Finding Nemo)
* Rachel Portman (Emma, The Cider House Rules)
* Howard Shore (The Lord of the Rings trilogy)
* Alan Silvestri (Forrest Gump)
* Hans Zimmer (Gladiator, The Dark Knight, Inception)
* other composers
Week 10. Classical Music in Film
* Instances of classical music adapted for film
* Examples: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Excalibur, Amadeus, Platoon, etc.
Weeks 11, 12. The Use of Songs in Film
* Dramatic use of songs vs. songs as marketing tools
* Pre-existing songs: Casablanca, Easy Rider, The Graduate, Apocalypse Now
* Original songs: Shaft, Saturday Night Fever, etc.
* Rise, role and impact of the music supervisor
Weeks 13, 14. Animation Scores; Contemporary Issues
* Carl Stalling at Warner Bros., Scott Bradley at MGM, Frank Churchill and Leigh
Harline at Walt Disney
* Fantasia
* Modern examples: Pixar films, TV animation music
* Creativity in independent film scoring
* Union vs. non-union dates
* Orchestral vs. electronic in low-budget films
* Practical advice