Curriculum

Learning objective
The Composing for Film master's degree programme prepares the student for all facets of a professional career as a composer in contemporary film music industry. Students who have finished the programme will have sufficiently developed perceptive skills and structural awareness with respect to film drama. Parallel to this they will have gained the scoring experience and competency to meet with various film categories and situations while being attentive towards up to date developments in movie production.
Structural overview
The two year master's degree programme is broken down into two periods (one per year) both consisting of theoretical and practical lessons as well as projects (two per year). The following methods of instruction will be employed:

Group lessons: theoretical lessons on scoring, conducting to picture, drama, film history, sound, technology (MIDI sequencers, ProTools, Synchronization). These subjects aim to provide the students with basic skills and background knowledge essential to film music scoring processes.

Individual lessons: practical lessons on drama spotting, developing motivic and thematic music material, scoring for separate film fragments and scoring for film sequences in context. In the course of these subjects the students will gain practical experience and develop mastery of film scoring techniques.

Workshops: in the form of compact educational seminars, students will be instructed upon diverse additional aspects concerning the film music industry. Seminars may include:
* music notation using Finale
* career / film music business introduction lectures on issues of contracts, licensing, publishing, copyright, etc.
* scoring for commercials
* audio-visual synchronization, use of ProTools

Workshops may involve educational activities in the form of projects such as:
* attendance of film music recording sessions
* post-production sound studio sessions (demonstrations on sound design and use of ProTools)
* excursions to School of Sound (every two years), film festivals (IDFA, IFFR, NFF)

The content of the programme (including information on credits and on the part of the curriculum that will be taught at the NFTA) will soon be announced.

Evaluation
During the course of the academic year the students will be required to produce homework assignments for both theoretical and practical lessons. These assignments will include analysis of films on diverse levels with respect to drama and musical content/structures. Practical assignments will involve all different scoring tasks aiming to progressively developing film music composition competency. Punctual and satisfactory completion of the given assignments as well as active class participation and workshop presence will determine the student eligibility to the second academic year and to the final exam stage.

Final exam
Assuming that the student has successfully completed all the necessary subjects involved in the programme, he is expected to conclude his study with a final exam. During the last semester of the programme, the students will be assigned with a complete film including sound (dialogue & sound effects) for which they will have to compose a full film score:
* the assigned final exam film score will have a duration of maximum 30 min.
* as a whole the score will be recorded with MIDI equipment
* the programme will enable students to have 10-15 min. of their final exam score recorded at the CvA recording studio with live musicians. These projects will be considered as and valuated as CvA orchestra projects.

The student's skills in drama perception, scoring and arranging as well as his recording/production results (referring to both MIDI and live performed music) will be evaluated. It should be taken into account that students are expected to conduct the part of the score that is to be recorded with live musicians themselves. All preparatory stages leading up to the final exam will be under the guidance of the teachers involved.