Year 6 - Music
Film music: drama
Compose and create: nature documentary inspired film scores
Study Hub
Study Guides
This pupil-friendly study guide includes a unit summary, clear notes, common mistakes, and quick questions with answers.
Unit Summary
In this optional unit, pupils are introduced to the term, film music. They study many examples of film music composed for the BBC nature documentaries Planet Earth II and Planet Earth III and use these as their inspiration for composing their own film scores.
Lesson Summary
You will learn to create drama in your film score, considering effective ways to build on your motif to create a sense of danger and disaster.
Key Notes
- A film score is an effective tool for adding emotion, tension and drama to a visual story.
- A motif can be used to represent an idea or emotion and can be developed and built on to create a bigger piece.
- We need to think about the structure when scoring so that the film score clearly enhances the visual narrative.
- Making changes to the elements of music, for example changing tempo, can help to add drama and tension to a film score.
Vocabulary To Learn
- film score: an original piece of music composed to accompany a film or television programme that contributes to the narrative by adding emotion, tension or drama
- natural disaster: a sudden event, caused by natural and not human activity, for example an earthquake or flood
- scoring: creating original music for film or television that enhances the narrative
- dramatising: using music to amplify the impact of a narrative beyond the visual on screen
- motif: a short recurring musical idea in a film score that represents a place, character, emotion or idea
Common Mistakes To Avoid
- Texture and structure are the same thing.
3 Quick Questions (With Answers)
1. Explain the lesson in two key points.
A film score is an effective tool for adding emotion, tension and drama to a visual story. A motif can be used to represent an idea or emotion and can be developed and built on to create a bigger piece.
2. What does this key word mean in this lesson? 'film score'
an original piece of music composed to accompany a film or television programme that contributes to the narrative by adding emotion, tension or drama.
3. Correct this common mistake.
Mistake: Texture and structure are the same thing. Correction: Texture and structure are easily confused. Think of texture as vertical and structure as horizontal. Texture is what is happening at the same time: the layers of sound. Structure is what happens in order: what happens first, then what happens next.
More Lessons In This Unit
Browse all guides in the Year 6 Music guide library.