The most powerful afterthought.

Sound is one of the most overlooked aspects of filmmaking. You can’t turn around without seeing some advice about camera toys, tools, and tutorials but where is the love for sound? 

This topic is coming to mind for us because we recently recorded some original music for the personal project we shared last week. The sound mixer we work with introduced us to a local musician that is classically trained, intuitive, and improvisational. What a gift! The project benefited immediately from the partnership. It’s interesting to note that in the same way that finding the right camera/lens combo can do wonders for your visual expression, so can finding the right music for connecting emotionally.  

The perfect music for a video means that you can help instruct the viewer, delicately, where you want them to go and how you want them to feel, drawing them in and connecting them to your brand. This often-forgotten detail of how the musicality adds another layer to your brand story is crucial. On a practical level, it means we can match the music to the edit and not the edit to the music. Getting the music right can take a brand story from okay to good and one that’s good to great. We’ve waded through so many pre-recorded music libraries and they always seem to miss the mark. Everything in the project suffers a bit when you have to settle for so-so music. Maybe you get lucky with some pre-recorded music and it really nails it, but more often it does not. We have to use it sometimes, this is the way it FEELS like it has to be sometimes. Money, deadlines, sales, money, deadlines, sales, money, deadlines…on repeat. All we’re saying is that we should seriously consider making original music a MUST in any proposal where music is a feature of telling your brand story. It’s so important that the quality and care we expect of ourselves to provide the perfect visuals for your brand also be transferred to the music that accompanies it. We should use every tool at our disposal to make a lasting connection for your brand. And you can think of it as a part of your brand’s voice that’s just as important as the language you use everywhere else.

That little uptick in the budget is us stepping over a nickel to pick up a dollar. Sure, it seems to cost a little more in the short term but in the long run, it’s worth it and then some. We hope you will consider it for your next project, we sure will.


Much love, Tim & Lisa

And in case you haven’t seen the project we are talking about, please watch the video here.