The Master Guide / 12 Music · The music brief
The music brief
Write one page from the treatment's music section and the picture-locked assembly, with the dialogue and voiceover already in place. The picture-locked assembly is the running cut of approved takes, with its picture fixed (see Editing → The running assembly after every batch).
Write one page from the treatment's music section and the picture-locked assembly, with the dialogue and voiceover already in place. The picture-locked assembly is the running cut of approved takes, with its picture fixed (see Editing → The running assembly after every batch). The voiceover is locked before music, and the music is fitted around it (see Editing → Voices locked before picture and before the cut).
With no cut yet (a single music task, or a music-first film): write the brief from the treatment's scene timings instead:
each scene's length and beats come from the treatment and your shot plan;
the hit points sit at the scene changes and the product moment;
the speech windows come from the line ledger's timed lines (the list of every line in your shot plan; see Voice and Arabic dialects → Three texts per line).
Mark the brief provisional. After the cut, fit the chosen take on bar lines; in a music-first film the picture is cut to the track instead.
What the brief holds
The music's job: what the viewer should feel, beat by beat.
The exact length and hit points, with timecodes from the assembly (the reveal, the turn, the product moment, the logo or button), and where speech sits.
The elements: genre and era, a tempo range in beats per minute (BPM), the feel, the key instruments, vocals or instrumental (for vocals: language, dialect, gender, the lyric's theme), the energy arc, and the ending (a button by default, or a ring-out or a loop). The music carries the film's one ending; a designed logo sting only reinforces its last hit (see Sound design and mix → Placing effects).
References: 2–4 human-made tracks, each with a note on what to take from it, plus 1–2 opposites and an avoid list. They are never uploaded to Suno.
Cultural colour: specific instruments and rhythms, or "none".
The unexpected direction. Option: use it when the treatment wants a style that plays against the picture [single strong source]. One of the three directions may then be the unexpected choice, never the default. Rumble (Film and Film Craft Grand Prix, 2024) dropped its planned score for a rare 1960s Mandarin cover because the familiar choice felt too obvious.
Each brief field in Suno, and the fix when a take misses
Brief field | In Suno | If the take misses |
Length | Duration custom, set to the cut length. If the ending must ring out, the next Duration step up (5-second steps in the app as last read; check when you set it). Under 10 s: a short bed, or Sounds | More than 1 s off: fit it on a bar line in the edit. Badly off: one regeneration with the same settings; if it is still off, you decide whether the direction changes |
Genre, era, feel | The first clause of Styles: the purpose, the genre, the era | Wrong genre: Style Influence +10, to about 90. Right but bland: Weirdness +10, or one option on v6-wild |
Mood words | Musical terms (the list below) | A word with no clear musical meaning: write down what you actually hear in it, and use that |
Tempo | BPM and metre as numbers, near the start | Measured BPM more than 3 off: restate it near the start and add "steady tempo"; leave the sliders alone |
Key or mode | A key, or a maqam's colour, only if the brief needs it | Your ear |
Instruments | 3–6 named parts, each with its job | Missing: name it earlier. Unwanted: Exclude it |
Arc and hit points | Plain words in Styles (where the hook, the lift and the final hit fall), plus section tags in the same order | A hit early or late: cut on bar lines. Many hit points: style formula 1b (see Music → Style-text examples) |
Arc: a section or a hit | The same Styles words and tags | A weak section: Replace Section. A missing hit: a Sounds one-shot at the same BPM and key |
Ending | A button-end or hard-stop tag last; "one hard hit on the downbeat, no fade" in Styles; fade out in Exclude | An Edit tool, never more text |
Vocals or instrumental | Stray vocals: the empty-lyrics form | |
Wordless colour | A hum in parentheses in the lyrics, or a wordless vocal pad in Styles, with singing left out of Exclude | Stray vocals: the empty-lyrics form |
Sung language | Lyrics in Arabic script, spelled as the dialect is spoken; Styles names the dialect and the singing style | A garbled line: Replace Section with corrected spelling; still wrong: a real singer |
Cultural colour | Specific instruments and rhythms; the clichés in Exclude when the brief says "modern, not oriental" | More exclusions; Style Influence +10 |
Space for the voiceover | A sparse middle, no lead melody under the voice, a steady level | Exclude lead melody; or duck one stem in the mix |
Mood words into musical terms
A starting vocabulary:
Premium, refined: 80–100 BPM, few instruments, space between notes, soft attacks, a warm low end, no busy drums.
Playful: 100–125 BPM, short bouncy notes, light percussion, plucked or tapped sounds, a major key.
Tense: a slow steady pulse or a repeating figure, a low drone, a minor key or a clashing note, rising pitch, quiet then dense, no release until the hit.
Confident, energetic: 115–135 BPM, a driving beat, a bright tone, strong downbeats, dense layers.
Warm, human: acoustic instruments, a mid tempo, a rounded tone, gentle swing, a small-room sound.
Clinical, precise: an even pulse, clean synth or mallets, short notes, dry, no swing.
Intimate, emotional: slow, piano or strings, wide space, a soft level, a long final note.
Epic, grand: 70–100 BPM building to a full climax, big drums, low strings or brass, choir, wide reverb.
Sources
Rumble, dir. Seb Edwards, Park Pictures for Droga5 and Accenture Song (The One Show entry); Suno's advertising music library (ad bed shape).