BASIC INFORMATION
• When it comes to the choice to add music into a particular scene in
a movie or television show, a lot of thought goes behind the process
when deciding the perfect song.
• If the perfect song is actually chosen, the scene should be able to
evoke that much more emotion, whether it be joy, madness or tears.
• If the scene was produced properly with the accompaniment of a
song, whenever this song is heard at a later date, images of that
scene should come up in people’s minds to remind them how well
the music was used in that movie or show.

ACTING ON EMOTIONS
Sometimes music is chosen to display a certain emotion that is happening on
screen. The three main emotions include anger, happiness and sadness.
• ANGER: For the emotion of rage and aggression, music
reflecting it would have to be darker, harsher and come
off as violent for the most part. It has to be able to
express the level of anger the character(s) is feeling.
• HAPPINESS: To accompany a scene involving
happiness, there would be light and joyful music; a more
peaceful side to the image on screen.
• SADNESS: To express sadness though music, the songs
chosen must be able to provoke a depressed feeling from
the audience. This music would need to be something
that would really get to people’s emotions to get them to
sympathize for the character(s).
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CREATING THE SCENE
• Music is chosen to accompany a scene, jsut to help express the emotions more clearly.
Sometimes music can overpower the scene, and sometimes it may not be effective enough.
To find a balance in the middle, the trial and error method can be used:
• STEP 1: Find a scene that you feel needs music to go along with it.
• STEP 2: Collect a group of songs you think could go with the scene.
• STEP 3: Play each song along side the video clip, playing different parts of each song to get
every option possible until you eliminate all but 1 selection of one song that fits the best with
the scene. Also, a whole song is not usally played during a scene, only a selection.
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SPOOFING HAPPENS...
The O.C.
Sometimes songs are so recognized that other shows will spoof how the song was used.
For example, The O.C. being spoofed by Saturday Night Live.
SNL
http://www.screencap-paradise.com/caps
http://images.google.ca

SECRET OF SELECTION
• When it comes to picking a song, most modern days
television shows and movies tend to select songs that Titanic (1997) is associated
aren’t well known due to the fact that most people, who with the song “My Heart Will
are used to mainstream music, won’t already have Go On” by Céline Dion.
Hearing that song reminds
preconceived ideas when hearing a certain song. people of scenes of that
movie, or emotions they
• Unless one of those ideas is to be brought up, people were expressing while
putting music to the image chose to bring a new song watching that movie.
in, in able to let the audience have their own new
ideas.
The Bodyguard (1992) also
• Another point of using well known music of a certain achieved similar success with
“I Will Always Love You” by
genre is to give an audience a good idea of what type
Whitney Houston. Although
of music will be featured throughout the movie or some may not recognize the
television show. movie, almost everyone can
easily recognize the song, still
• Sometimes songs alone can promote a certain show giving the movie more fame just
from the music chosen to be
or movie, if the vibe that they are giving off works well featured in the movie.
with the images being used to advertise.
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STATISTICS
• After taking two episodes of two different shows, these two graphs show what percentage of the
songs featured were well known, somewhat known, or completely unheard of. Both statistics are
taken from episodes in the first season of each show.
Gossip Girl Grey’s Anatomy
25% 29%
known
somewhat
60% unknown
15%
71%

MUSIC FEATURED
IN PILOT EPISODES
• Something that is noticed when it comes to music featured in television shows, is that the first episode
always seems to contain more music than any other episode. Here are some statistics gathered of
how many songs were featured in the first, third and sixth episode of four different shows still on air.
This is done in order to advertise what type of music will continue through the season.
20
Pilot Third Sixth
15
10
5
0
One Tree Hill 90210 Gossip Girl Grey’s Anatomy

TELEVISION MOMENTS
“How To Save A Life”
by The Fray
- Grey’s Anatomy
“Hide And Seek”
by Imogen Heap
- The O.C.
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WORKS CITED
• http://abc.go.com/primetime/greysanatomy/index?pn=musicguide#t=89824
• http://community.livejournal.com/ggmusicthread/tag/101
• http://www.greysanatomyinsider.com
• http://images.google.ca
• http://www.oth-caps.com
• http://www.oth-music.com
• http://www.screencap-paradise.com/caps