Creativity in collaboration
My approach
As a composer, this is my approach to film scoring. I believe that creating a sense of unity in the entire score is essential to a film’s success, and I take great care to ensure that all pieces of the score fit together seamlessly. To achieve this, I carefully study the script and work closely with the director or filmmaker to understand the emotions that need to be conveyed in each scene.
In my view, collaboration is key to producing the best music possible for a film. I work intimately with the producer and director to ensure that my score enhances the visuals and
story in the most effective way possible. By staying open to feedback and input from the director, cinematographer, and other key players on the crew, I am able to create music that is perfectly tailored to the film’s needs.
When starting the sketching process, I take a highly experimental approach. I like to try out different ideas and directions, in order to see what resonates most with the director’s vision. By testing out different musical themes and motifs, I am able to find the perfect sound and tone for each scene. Through my careful attention to detail and my willingness to collaborate with others, I am able to create truly memorable scores that are an essential part of any great film.
A Hybrid Mix
My sound
As a film composer, I have to be able to create music in almost any imaginable style. Even though I always strive to fit the music to the project I am scoring as best as possible, my overarching style can be described as ambient, reflective, emotional, cinematic, and at times, epic and larger than life.
In my scores I like to use a combination of familiar and traditional instruments like the piano, small string ensembles and other orchestral instruments, in combination with more modern sounds from synthesizers. I also like to record all kinds of crazy sounds in my free time, and completely mangle them with my music production software to get to new and interesting sounds that I can combine with more traditional instruments and synths.
Even with a deadline that is actually too tight, Robert manages to exceed expectations. It was a very nice collaboration!
music
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ORIGINAL SOUND DESIGN
ORCHESTRAL CINEMATIC
AMBIENT
Original Custom Music for
Any budget
There are possibilites for an original film score for every budget. If your film’s music budget is low, but you still want a high-quality original and emotional film score, I create all of the music with the help of sample libraries. Sample libraries are digital emulations of real instruments, often sounding nearly like the real thing, because of the use of real recordings of the instruments. It is a bit harder to reach the same level of emotion and intensity as live recorded musicians, but with a bit of tweaking I usually manage to get pretty close.
If the film or documentary project has a medium budget for music, I like to use a hybrid approach. The bulk of the music is created with sample libraries, but I hire a couple of live musicians to play important parts on top of the music, for example a violin or cello player, or I add my own percussion, guitar or piano parts.
For films with a higher budget for music it is often times a good idea to have the entire score recorded by live musicians, be that a small ensemble of studio musicians, or an entire orchestra. Professional musicians take the music I created to a whole new level, because they add their own expression, emotion and technical skill to the music. Something you simply can’t achieve by using sample libraries, however realistic they might sound.
No matter what your budget is, there is probably a possibility for custom music in your film.
about me
Robert Lanting, Composer
Ever since I started playing piano at age 15, I loved the combination of moving images with music. My father, brother and me used to watch movies during weekends. When a commercial break started (yup, this was before streaming services like Netflix and HBO Max existed), I raced over to my digital piano, and started improvising, inspired by the movie we were watching.
Back in that time I had no idea that being a film composer was an actual job, something you could do for a living. It took me about twelve years to figure that out. A bachelor of law, a couple of years at music college, and several years in the workforce later, I started my freelance media composer journey early 2019, encouraged by my entrepreneurial wife (then girlfriend) Julian.
What followed was, and still is, an amazing discovery and adventure of the world of film music, and music for other media. Since the start of this journey I created custom music for all kinds of projects, from business videos to documentaries, and from short movies to video games. Next to that, I write music for several music libraries and publishers. Along with the opportunity of creating music that moves people (if I do my job correctly, lol), I am very grateful for all the amazing people I meet, collaborate with, get to know, and learn from (full bio here).
