The process of composing music – not just writing a song, but composing and layering all of the music and audio effects that move our emotions along – whether it’s in a 30 second TV commercial, video game trailer, or a feature length movie score is a craft that, I believe, is vastly under-appreciated for its ability to move the viewer into and along with the story being presented. As I’ve moved increasingly more into the motion film area of storytelling - after most of my career producing still photographs alone - my appreciation of having the appropriate music accompany the projects we were filming started to rise considerably. But I also realized that I wasn’t alone in my ignorance of all the subtle aspects of effective audio production, especially the scoring and layering of original music.

I’ve invited my guest, Andrea Saparoff, to talk about some of what goes on behind the mysterious curtain of music composition for commercial projects. Based in Los Angeles, Andrea is a composer and sound designer working primarily in the advertising and film/TV industries and has completed projects for scores of clients including Cheerios, Canon, AmEx, Nike, and City of LA as well as films for Lifetime and Hallmark. You can find examples of her work at http://saparoffmusic.com.