Currently, he argued, this doesn’t always happen – with composers and programme-makers often failing to sing from the same song sheet.

 

Hexel recalled a quote from Rachel Portman, who won an Oscar for her score for the 1996 movie version of Jane Austen’s Emma. “Many good directors are bad at giving good direction to composers,” she said.

 

Directors, added Hexel, “really know what they are doing – they wouldn’t be directing a feature film if they didn’t know their craft and have a really strong creative view on what they are trying to achieve.”

 

It was therefore surprising, he added, “That these people should be bad at communicating with a composer when it comes to creating the music for a film.”

 

Composers and directors need to find common ground, Hexel said. “If you can find a shared language with a vocabulary that both parties understand, that can go a long way towards a more rewarding process and, perhaps, a more rewarding product at the end.

 

“When you discuss music, be honest and clear – and that goes for both sides.”

 

Hexel, who teaches TV and film composition at the Royal College of Music in London, has composed original scores for animations, short films, documentaries, commercials and feature films. His music has featured on the BBC’s Panorama, Horizon and The One Show, Channel 4’s Dispatches and E!’s Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

 

Programme-makers often use music to portray emotion, but a viewer’s emotional response to music is “not always necessarily as predictable as we’d like”, said Hexel, who offered an example.

 

“We don’t need music to be sad in itself – it has to do so in the context of what’s happening. That is how we sometimes get a comedy where the music is serious, dramatic and heavy, but the resulting experience is hilarious.”

 

The amount of music in programmes and films varies hugely, he said. “If you’re Ken Loach, you’re going to have two minutes at the very end of the film, maybe – I exaggerate a little. If you’re Michael [Transformers] Bay, you’re going to start [with music] and never stop.”

 

Hexel’s new book, The Film and Media Creator’s Guide to Music, offers more advice for composers and programme-makers alike.

 

But the future for composers may not be so bright. Hexel revealed that “artificial intelligence tools that would generate music for projects” are being developed.

 

“There are people working on music software that will fill in music [to a programme] automatically. I’m quite worried about that.”