Feature films are rare species. They are presented to ticket buying audiences in theaters that are designed to eliminate distractions. During a projection of a feature film in a movie theater you can’t zap, talk or move about the room. These wonderful screening conditions free us, movie makers, from the need to constantly bombard you with mind blowing musical, textual, and visual teasers -  just to make you stay. 

Instead - when it comes to feature films, we can concentrate on deeper, more sophisticated ways to tell our cinematic story. 

 

Writing music for feature films is no small task. Achieving such  high standards can take hundreds of hours of trial and error, that eventually produce hours of original music, most of it not to be used (not in the project it was written for anyway) . For each cue that ends up in the soundtrack - 5 others will be shelved in the “outs” drawer. 

 

Sometimes it can take years from the first phone call to the premiere. Sometimes it’s necessary to compose the whole film twice before finding the right tone. 

But…. if all this sounds a bit depressing, it is very important to also mention that: the sheer joy of watching a feature film for the first time in a packed house, is a delightful compensation for all the effort. One can easily get addicted to it.

When the film is well made the risk of addiction is doubled.

I was lucky to enjoy quite a few such moments. 

I am still addicted.