Current course offerings

Please Note: Course profiles marked as not available may still be in development.

Course description

To write impactful music for film, TV and games, composers need to craft music which enhances the emotional journey and story over time. This course provides a practical and theoretical foundation for crafting larger-scale musical structures for action, adventure, romance, thrillers, drama and fantasy genres. Each week students will work on crafting music for a different screen example, learning how to develop and transform musical ideas in response to character, plot and environmental development. A section of the course will focus on the needs of composing interactive music for games which can respond to players' actions. Lectures will unpack screen music by composers like John Williams, Koji Kondo, Wendy Carlos, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Alan Silvestri, Hans Zimmer, Lena Raine, Yoko Shimomura, and Amanda Brown. The course assumes students will have some familiarity with music composition, music notation and music technology. This course will be offered for the first time in Semester 2, 2026.