One of the top awards at the Oscars is for Best Original Score, demonstrating the power music has to make or break a movie.
"Film is not just about actors, it’s more than that," said the Hollywood movie composer Daniel Pemberton.
"The Oscars are helpful in shining a light on all the different aspects that go into a film."
Previous winners include Vangelis for Chariots of Fire, Herbert Stothart for The Wizard of Oz and John Williams for Schindler's List.
42-year-old British composer Daniel Pemberton wrote the score for Spider-Man: Into the Spider Verse (2018) movie. He’s also a winner of an Ivor Novello and has been nominated for multiple BAFTAs.
"Film music can massively change how you feel or experience something," this applies even when there isn't anything happening on screen, he explained "you’ll be getting excited and what’s giving you that feeling is, the music."
What does a winning score sound like?
"A really great winning Oscar score is something that’s very original" and "doesn’t sound like anything you’ve heard before and captures the movie," Daniel Pemberton said.
He explained the audience will engage "the more you can make a movie score unique" which "can be anything from a melody and the sound world you create - that’s how you’re going to make really great film music."
His quintessentially memorable film score is for Blade Runner (1982) starring Harrison Ford, whose music was composed by Vangelis.
"There is someone who’s created a whole audio world that’s unique for that movie and has become such a big part of the experience of that film".
Daniel Pemberton's next movie was Enola Holmes (2020), about the child sister of Sherlock Holmes.
"Anytime you’ve had a really good cinematic experience, I’d say probably music has played a big role in that and a lot of people don’t notice it," he said.
"A really good score is something that you can hear away from the film and it takes you immediately back into that world."
Music can evoke all sorts of emotions, it can "make you feel in love", "exhilarated" and even "give you tension".
Ennio Morricone, who wrote the score for the 1966 film The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, starring Clint Eastwood, is a musician Daniel Pemberton admires for being "an unbelievably inventive composer".
"This film is a great example of how someone took an array of sounds from screams to whistles to guitars and created an audio language", he said.
Morricone invented "how we see the Wild West music today" and it's made people "see the world differently - he’s a very exciting composer."
The significance of the Oscars
Daniel Pemberton believes Oscar wins can "change the goal posts for other composers."
"Hollywood is still quite a conservative town and every time a really ground-breaking score wins, it pushes the goal posts for everyone else."
When Trent Reznor won an Oscar for The Social Network film in 2011, "it had a really big impact on what was acceptable for film music."
"20 years ago it was all orchestral and it’s swung very heavily towards more electronic synthesis.
"The great thing about film music is that it can be anything and the Oscars can be helpful in confidently moving the goal posts for everyone.
"So you don’t get stuck with the same old sounds".
Where next?
Thunder Jam: Superheroes
Watch film composer Daniel Pemberton use music to save the day.
Bjorn Ulvaeus: Reasons why music is important for children
"Every child deserves to have a teacher who tries to teach them music", says Abba's Bjorn Ulvaeus.
Seven child music stars who made it big
They hit the charts as kids and never really left.
