MMP7C002R CUM22081550 Critical perspectives essay

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From the dance floor to the big screen. The role, evolution and purpose of electronic music production in film music. 

Abstract 

This essay examines the historical and philosophical development of electronic music in film production, with a focus on the influence electronic dance music (EDM) has had on current film scoring, exploring how the electronic sound has evolved from early film experimentation with synthesisers to the hybrid-electronic orchestral scores frequently found in contemporary cinema. The essay also analyses how, as film scores have adapted alongside technological developments, so has the audiences expectation of what a film score should sound like, shaping the way modern film scores are conceptualised and written. The essay further examines the critical and philosophical perspectives on the technology and the writing processes employed in modern film scores as well as my own work and creative practice, demonstrating how an understanding of these historical and theoretical contexts informs my approach to electronic film scoring. 

P1 introduction

dictionary.com defines electronic music as “any electronically produced sound recorded on tape and arranged by the composer to firm a musical composition” From early experiments with electronic instruments in the mid twentieth century to the modern era of electronic film scoring, electronic sound has shifted from a marker of experimental technology novelty to a primary expressive language utilised in film. “What began as the otherworldly sounds of Bebe and Louis Barron’s film score for the 1956 film Forbidden Planet, and the rarefied, new timbres of Stockhausen’s Kontakte a few years later, are now a common part of our soundscape.” – Daniel Warner (2017 p.8) 

Electronic music has become a core part of contemporary film production. Genres heavily associated with electronic music include science fiction, thrillers and psychological dramas. Often, this is due to the requirement for unfamiliar or alien sounds that are difficult or impossible to achieve using a traditional orchestra. Electronic music allows for an adaptive, versatile approach to an otherwise problematic area of film scoring. Unlike traditional orchestral scoring, synthesised and electronic scores often prioritise texture and atmosphere over melody and theme allowing the music to function as an internal sound that expresses tension, anxiety or the mental and emotional state of the onscreen characters without the music asserting itself as something separate to the film in the way orchestral music tends to. “Electronic music for theatre and films seems an especially appropriate replacement for a disembodied, nonexistent orchestra heard from a tape or a sound track.” – Lejaren Hiller (2025)

While orchestral film scorings traditionally dominated the media of film music, the increasing presence of purely or hybrid orchestral electronic music reflects an evolution in music production, pop culture and listening practices. By engaging with existing film scores and music production scholarship, this essay will explore the development of electronic music in cinema, its functions and examples of its efficacy in films. 

P2 historical context: electronic music in film

The utilisation of electronic music in film predates contemporary digital media production, as at the conception of electronic film music films were recorded and edited on tape. The transition from analogue tape based work to digital audio workstations has not only greatly improved the efficiency of production processes but has also increased film composers sonic palette and ability to create, distort, modulate and transform a signal all within one DAW. Prolific film composer Hans Zimmer has talked extensively about how integral this shift from analogue to digital has been for himself as a composer. In a Sound On Sound interview, Zimmer contrasts modern digital and older analogue scoring. “The big difference about doing a film score now, as opposed to doing a film score 20 years ago, is the edit. There is never a locked picture. … You need to always be able to go back to the sound, which is a little difficult when somebody tidied up your patch cords!” – Hans Zimmer 2024

One of the earliest examples of electronic instruments in film is the use of the theremin in science fiction cinema of the 1950s, notably in The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951) where the unfamiliar timbre and portamento on every changing note became associated with themes of otherworldly technological anxiety, alienation and the unknown. Largely in part due to this instrument not being heard in scores prior to Bernard Herrmann’s application of it during the Prelude / Outer Space / Radar cue. 

As technology developed through the twentieth century, synthesisers became commonplace among pop artists of the 1970s and 80s. Electronic music began to move from being a niche, situational novelty to a mainstream attraction. Observed in Kraftwerk’s – The Model (1978) or Gary Numan’s – Cars (1979) paving the way for synthesisers to be used in a more versatile way to create not just catchy rhythms and melodies in pop and funk music, but also for their broad ability to allow for shifting textures and emotional depth found in scores by composers and groups such as Tangerine Dream (Sorcerer, 1977; Thief, 1981) and Vangelis (Blade Runnier, 1982). 

However, despite the usual assumption of electronic music being associated with an otherworldly or futuristic sound commonly expressed at the time, other films such as Alan Parker’s Midnight Express (1978) opted for a different take on how electronic music can be perceived in films. Giorgio Moroder’s predominantly electronic score for Midnight Express does not function as a marker of science fiction or futuristic spectacle. Instead it draws on the rhythmic drive and repeating structures frequently observed in electronic dance music in order to generate a sense of momentum fitting with the themes of high pressure and anxiety featuring in the film. During the 1970’s EDM was considered a relatively new genre of music, Giorgio Moroder only one year prior to scoring Midnight Express produced and co-wrote the hit track I Feel Love (1977), which featured a fully synthesised, continuously pulsing rhythmic bass line. This sound, now a staple of EDM today, was unfamiliar to audiences in the 1970’s. 

Rather than distancing the audience through an unfamiliar sound, commonly expected in films featuring an electronic score, Moroder’s use of pulse and groove creates an engagement with the audience in a similar way to how all dance music engages a listener. The physical response from listening to dance music and feeling each beat, especially prevalent in the cue: Chase, helps align the audience with the experience of the protagonist. The non stop pulsating beat aids in evokes the feeling brought on by the non stop chase and fear of getting caught smuggling, underlining the themes of the film with the themes in its music. This approach reframed electronic music as an expressive tool capable of communicating and encapsulating human emotion and narrative intensity in a way previously not utilised by films. Rather than the abstract futurity of previous sci fi films, Midnight Express remains as a grounded film focusing on the human aspect rather than the unknown, mirrored in its music despite the electronic nature of it. Consequently, Midnight Express can be understood as a pivotal moment in the integration of EDM into mainstream cinema due to its success as a film and Moroders future success as an artist and producer. The sound track paved the way for later films to employ purely electronic rhythm and repetition as its narrative drivers rather than a novelty. 

The influence of Giorgio Moroder’s electronic and largely rhythm based approach to writing and scoring can be traced directly into the development of electronic dance music as a genre and, by extension, Daft Punk. Daft Punk are a duo of musicians who specialise in electronic music. Formed out of the early 1990’s French house scene, the two have created many critically acclaimed albums, scored films such as Tron: Legacy (2010) as well as Thomas Bangalter’s solo work on multiple others such as An Urban Allegory (2024) and have shaped modern day electronic music by making its sounds and production techniques more accessible to a mainstream audience at a time when electronic music was largely associated with underground club culture. Bangalter noted in an interview with PitchFork that Daft Punk were part of “a generation that wanted to make electronic music accepted, at a time when it was not,” observing that in the modern day “the place or electronic music, culturally and socially, is completely different – it is now everywhere.” – Bangalter (2007).

The French house scene which played a formative role in Daft Punk’s initial tracks was a genre characterised by repetition, groove and the integration of analogue synths and equipment with digital production techniques. Despite the commonalities of the genre, Daft Punk’s early productions predate widespread DAW focused works. Instead the pair relied on hardware drum machines, synthesisers and tape based recording, with software producing and sequencing tools such as early versions of Logic Audio only becoming integrated later in their career. The decision to stick to analogue software for the entirety of their first album Homework released in 1997 can be understood as a deliberate creative decision rather than a limitation of technology. The earliest DAW softwares were developed in 1978 with the launch of the Soundstream Digital Editing System. While that may be considered rudimentary, a newer and more capable DAW ProTools was developed in 1991 by Digidesign, which was quickly utilised by many recording studios. However, due to the heavy influence taken from Giorgio Moroder and his entirely analogue style of recording and producing, Daft Punk’s debut album adopted a similar workflow. Bangalter in an interview with Ideastream Public Media stated, “Giorgio Moroder is an important influence for us because he’s a pioneer of some sort and he has this amazing career and life journey… He ended up being part of the founders of disco and electronic music and somehow techno…”  – Bangalter (2014) 

Daft Punk’s music drew heavily on disco, techno and the legacy of producers like Moroder, whose work primarily demonstrated that electronic rhythm could convey emotion through its intensity and provide momentum to a scene where a standard orchestral score would distract from the onscreen drama. This lineage of EDM and techno became evident when Daft Punk as a group transitioned from exclusively making dance music to film scoring with Tron: Legacy (2010). In this context the duo applied typical EDM stylistic choices such as a pulse based rhythm of repeating ostinatos all perfectly quantised to a grid, loop based construction of low synth pulses, mid range arpeggios and high frequency legato notes to allow for musical tension to be felt through the density and timbre of the notes, rather than chord changes, and EDM inspired builds, with incremental increases in intensity conveyed by adding new sounds or ostinatos, all before a climactic release. These EDM inspired principles are most evident in the tracks The Grid and Recogniser and all contribute to the pacing, character and electronic atmosphere of the film. Additionally, these features are evocative of Giorgio Moroder’s style of composing for Midnight Express, demonstrating the clear inspiration from his work. With the cue: Chase, nearly all of the EDM techniques mentioned in the track The Grid are present. 

Moving to more modern day films, Dune (2021) and Dune: Part Two (2024)directed by Denis Villeneuve, both employ electronic music and sound design to great effect. The score is deliberately vast and monumental, reflecting the large scale narrative and imposing physical environments depicted throughout these films. Rather Etna drawing on EDM derived pulse or groove, the score relies on ever evolving expansive textures, timbral weight and the full dynamic range to mirror the sense of scale fitting the films lofty narrative. Zimmer does not pursue extreme integrated LUFS in his film mixes to create this large sound however, as unlike EDM or trailer music, film scores must coexist and not compete with the dialogue and sound effects of the film. Saturation plug ins are employed in order to create a sense of density and thickness in his mid to high range, while the low end frequencies are kept controlled and at no risk of peaking. Larger scores such as Gurney Battle  and Worm Ride from Dune: Part Two are split into fundamental elements such as the brass or bass drones taking up the majority of the sonic space. And the width, elements including doubled layers of the brass, delays, harmonics and reverbs. These fundamental elements are then recorded and input as a mono or near-mono signal, whereas the elements used to create width are stereo panned and carefully boosted with external gain plugins. By keeping the fundamental sounds central and the spacial width sounds wide, the sound feels enormous without losing focus or having to increase the decibels. In regards to the instruments used, Hans Zimmer’s approach to these films reportedly involved the use of modular and Eurorack systems, with sounds being designed layer by layer rather than taken from a conventional preset and altered. – Cole (2024) In addition to this, he made his own instruments which had never before been heard in an effort to capture the alien landscape of the film similar to how the theremin was initially used to represent an futuristic and alien sound. 

Dune and Dune Part: Two can be understood as more than examples of advanced electronic scoring, but as markers of a broader historical shift. The two films are not niche experimental films, they are both mainstream blockbuster films, films which if made and scored thirty years prior would have a very different soundtrack, as that would be what is expected of a blockbuster film. In the modern era of filmmaking, electronic music has moved from the niche margins of sci fi and club culture to the forefront of contemporary cinematic scoring to such a degree that electronic hybrid scores such as the ones found in Dune are to be expected from an audience. Zimmer’s electronic and hybrid sound world operates as a core narrative component, shaping scale, power and atmosphere in a way that audiences now readily accept. This can be attributed not just to electronic musics popularity in film, but on social media. Contemporary data from globally used social media platforms show that electronic music has moved beyond the underground dance subculture. For example, TikTok experienced a 45% increase from 2023 in views on videos tagged with electronic music with thirteen billion views in 2025. TikTok’s head of music partnerships for the UK and Ireland, Toyin Mustapha noted, “Dance music has become more accessible and big in the commercial sphere… We are seeing the breaking down of boundaries for artists, and TikTok is part of that.” – Dan Milmo – Guardian Editor (2025) 

Across the history of electronic music in film, a notable shift has been felt from it being an experimental novelty to a central and widely accepted cinematic language. Early works I have mentioned such as The Day The Earth Stood Still established the electronic sound as a marker of the unfamiliar and unsettling, Blade Runner expanded this role by integrating modular synthesis into the mood, space and psychological depth of the film. Midnight Express conveyed to electronic music can be perceived as something beyond futuristic, using electronic dance influenced textures and punchy electronic rhythms to articulate the human emotion and express the anxiety of the protagonist in tense scenes, paving the way for its more expressive use. Tron: Legacy further demonstrated how electronic and dance music aesthetics can function to fit the tone and themes of a film and work in large scale Hollywood scoring, the film merges popular EDM characteristics with the cinematic form. Finally, Dune and Dune: Part Two represent the culmination of the development of electronic music in mainstream Hollywood Blockbusters, where the electronic sound is no longer stylistically exceptional or different, but rather refined and embedded within the story telling, used to not only capture the sense of futurism but the scale of the film in a way just an orchestra would fall short of. Together, these films trace the normalisation of electronic music in cinema, reflecting a cinematic shift in audiences expectations and a broader cultural shift in electronic music on the whole. 

P3 who cares if you listen

Audience expectations have long shaped the reception of new music, often being the primary source of a genres continuance and refinement. Expectations usually privilege familiarity and immediacy over complexity or technical innovation. The final paragraph of Milton Babbitt’s essay Who Cares If You Listen? frames this need from the layperson for acoustic similarity as music not evolving and ultimately dying, noting that original compositions derived from original thought is the primary driver of what makes new music and ultimately new genres rather than solely technological advancements being responsible. “what possibly can contribute more to our knowledge of music than a genuinely original composition?” – Babbit (1958)

“Granting to music the position accorded other arts and sciences promises the sole substantial means of survival for the music I have been describing … But music will cease to evolve, and, in that important sense, will cease to live” – Babbitt (1958)

In Babbitt’s essay he directly challenges the assumption that advanced contemporary music must conform to the listening habits or demands of a general audience in order to justify its artistic or intellectual value. Rather, Babbitt reframes such music as specialised practice, arguing that alienation from an audiences expectation and subsequently, the audience itself, are not failures of communication but natural consequences of artistic progress. The essay goes on to advance the position that certain forms of contemporary music operate within highly specialised fields that cannot be adequately judged and evaluated according to the standards of mass appeal. Drawing parallels with scientific research, Babbitt suggests that advanced compositional practices, rather than pop or any other musical genre intended for a mass market, are primarily addressed to informed practitioners and professionals rather than general listeners, and that the demand for immediate accessibility in the music of these advanced compositions misunderstands the function of such work. From this perspective, complexity and opacity in ones compositions are not shortcomings but indicators of a developing musical language. 

Babbitt’s argument is particularly resonant when considered alongside the history, specifically the early history of electronic music. Mid twentieth century electronic and electroacoustic music relied on unfamiliar technologies usually conducted in a studio while using novel sonic materials, such as oscillators, early modular synthesisers and tape editing. All aspects which fell outside established listening conventions. As a result, these works were frequently confined to academic or institutional contexts rather than exposed to mass consumed media like film or radio, not due to a lack of artistic validity, but because audiences lacked the frameworks and listening experience to contextualise and interpret them. One example of this would be the WDR Studio for Electronic Music in Cologne founded in 1951, one of the first permanent electronic music studios. – Wikipedia (2025) 

Composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen and Herbert Eimert were present from the inception of the studio and pioneered working with oscillators, tape machines and serial producers. Their compositions were commissioned by broadcasting institutions and disseminated through lectures and academic concerts for likeminded composers to learn about early synthesis. As a result, their music circulated largely among specialist audiences, reinforcing its association with institutional and intellectual contexts rather than popular listening environments. 

As time has progressed and with it, technology, the electronic sound has become embedded within popular, cinematic and digital media cultures. Contemporary audiences now engage routinely with electronically produced music, responding to the senses and emotions it can evoke rather than the technological construction and timbre. Babbitt writes: “… unfamiliar musical languages may initially resist comprehension, yet gradually acquire cultural legitimacy as listening practices evolve.” This line directly conveys Babbitt’s main idea from his essay: that understanding is not a prerequisite for value. Many audiences won’t be able to understand why something works musically as the layperson knows nothing about synthesis techniques, digital signal processing or loop based construction, yet they respond intuitively to the effect electronic music has on them, validating another one of Babbitt’s claims that music’s legitimacy does not depend on traditional forms of literacy or explanation. In Who Cares If You Listen?, Babbitt draws an explicit analogy between advanced musical composition and advanced theoretical physics in an effort to demonstrate how little the common understanding of a concept matters in its inherent value. He further argues that just as advanced physics operates within a framework only intelligible to trained specialists, so too does contemporary, highly systematic music require a similar level to not only be understood but appreciated. When expecting such work to be immediately accessible to a general audience, Babbitt suggests, this reflects a misunderstanding of the function of the music, rather than a failure of the music itself. He continues by emphasising that scientific research is not judged by its popular comprehensibility but by its contribution to furthering the knowledge and understanding of a certain field. By extending this logic to composition, he contends that advanced musical works, whether advanced in virtuosity, advanced in form and structure or advanced for the time period like electronic music during the early 1950’s, should be evaluated according to their structural logic and technical innovation rather than their capacity to satisfy conventional listening expectations. Importantly however, Babbitt does not argue that music should deliberately exclude listeners, but rather that the cultural expectation that music is made to serve an immediate social or emotional function is flawed and leads to the stagnation of development in music. His comparison with physics reframes composition as a form of research in which the complexity of form and ideas is necessary for the progression of not just the composer but other works in a similar genre. 

Babbitt provides evidence in his essay of audiences not being ready for a composers work with the mention of Anton Webern. He states that only after Webern’s death in 1945 did his music become popular, attributing its popularity to the cultural shift experienced across the world after world war two. “Anton Webern, which during the composer’s lifetime was regarded (to the very limited extent that it was regarded at all) as the ultimate in hermetic, specialized, and idiosyncratic composition; today, some dozen years after the composer’s death, his complete works have been recorded by a major record company, primarily- I suspect- as a result of the enormous influence this music has had on the postwar, nonpopular, musical world.” – Babbitt (1958). Webern’s acclaim as a composer reached such a degree of prestige that it would later motivate Glenn Gould to perform his variations for piano. 

This example of a composer being ahead of their time is not a new notion. Often seen as geniuses by audiences only after culture has caught up to what the composer was trying to create. The same can be observed with electronic music. A large cultural shift was required in order for it to be accepted and regarded as meaningful mainstream music by audiences. Composer Alex North was commissioned by Stanley Kubrick to compose an original score for the film 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) and in doing so experimented with modernist and electronically influenced techniques that stood apart from the traditional Hollywood symphonic scores being used in other films at the time. However, Kubrick rejected North’s score entirely, choosing instead to replace it with pre-existing classical recordings. While the argument can be made that the rejection of North’s score was for aesthetic purposes, it also reflected a wider cultural hesitation: electronic music was still broadly seen as alienating and too closely associated with sci fi horror. North’s score for the film was never heard by cinema audiences at the time and remained unknown for decades after its release. Echoing a similarity between North’s work and Webern’s. 

P4 how this relates to my practice

The historical integration of electronic music into film provides a useful lens through which to examine how I compose and produce for films. As I have become a film composer in an era of composition where electronic and orchestral hybrid scoring is the current norm of mainstream and non mainstream media, I have been fortunate enough to learn how to create and manipulate an electronic sound with the creative freedom not afforded to previous generations of composers. 

Film music occupies a unique cultural position in which structurally complex or technologically advanced music is not rejected in a way it may be were the music heard in isolation. The film provides a necessary narrative and visual context, allowing the music to operate primarily on an affective and associative level. Audiences can engage with unfamiliar sonic experiences or complex musical ideas without any expectation of analytical understanding of the music because the music is secondary to the onscreen narrative, rather than being the sole point of focus. This dynamic is particularly significant when accounting for electronic music in film, which historically posed challenges to audiences due to its timbral unfamiliarity and departure from the conventional orchestral or acoustic sound. Within film, however, electronic timbre is mediated by the story and, like the majority of film music, secondary to the film, allowing for any potential alienation to be transformed into an expressive medium for music, where the electronic sound is able to be overlooked due to its supporting role of a narrative. From the perspective of my own practice of film scoring, I am acutely aware of how this relationship between image and sound permits the use of electronically complex and unfamiliar timbres without requiring them to be explained or marginalised into specific use for only a few niche genres such as sci fi or dance. In my compositions, electronic music is used to shape pacing and drama of a scene rather than to draw attention to itself as a musical element. Rather than relying on overt thematic development, electronic materials allow for the gradual shaping of tension through harmonic stasis, maintaining the same chord while modifying the sound to align with the scene as it develops. In this way, electronic music can operate beneath the film and in the subconscious of the listener, contributing to a narrative cohesion without demanding the audience analyse and actively listen to the music, taking away from the on screen image. 

Early implementations of electronic music were constrained by the technology of the time. Polyphony in early synths such as the RCA Mark II wasn’t possible in the way it is today, cutting, splicing and looping tape was the primary way to arrange an electronic score and oscillators at the time had a restricted dynamic range, often relying on amps or analogue gain consoles to achieve the desired results. These restrictions forced electronic composers to write monophonic or slowly moving textures where timbre was more important than harmony. They also constrained composers to simple loops with only incremental variation, vastly diminishing the ease of creating complex rhythms or melodies. However, as digital technology has progressed, electronic music has become decoupled from its technological constraints. DAWs are able to offer vast sonic flexibility, with the choice of timbre, texture or rhythm not based on cutting tape or using analogue synthesisers, but being a completely free creative decision. In my work, electronic textures and production techniques are applied due to their ease of manipulation with track and region automation to provide an atmosphere otherwise impossible to create with a standard orchestra. While I don’t neglect to use orchestral samples or recordings in my compositions, I find that for scenes without a clear discernible and poignant emotional charge to them, electronic music is more effective at providing background noise where a disembodied orchestra would be distracting. In my compositions I often find that an unfamiliar timbre such as a triangle wave with a very harsh high cut filter is far less obtrusive and obvious than a cello or a French horn. Now that the electronic timbre has become a staple of modern cinema, its versatility can be realised. 

Historically, the composer, arranger, sound designer and producer would all be jobs delegated to different people, proficient in those fields. Advances in digital audio technology has collapsed these roles into the majority of films only requiring one composer and one sound engineer. Contemporary composers are now composer-producers with direct control over the sound design, sequencing and post production processes. This advancement in technology allows for composers to design and manipulate sound all within one project, enabling a more coherent and intentional approach to each score. With no risk of miscommunication between a composer and sound designer, possibly hindering the effectiveness of a score, the composer-producer is able to convey their exact vision into a film. In my work, this convergence of roles allows me to approach a score holistically, treating composing, arranging, sound design and producing as one process. I have full creative control over a films score and don’t need to rely on translation or interpretation by a separate sound designer or producer. This control permits me to experiment with unconventional structures, timbres or pieces of sound design and execute them with precision without any worry of the intended idea being polluted or altered by someone else working on the same track. Being a composer-producer has only been made possible quite recently in the film making world and is integral to me being able to fully realise the expressive potential of not just electronic music, but all music in film. It means that I am able to ensure that my musical intentions are maintained from conception to the final product. Composer Daniel Pemberton notes how he does “everything kind of on my own” in his work, emphasising his preference to manage the score himself rather than delegating responsibilities in order to keep his creative control and avoid overly mechanised outcomes. 

P5 conclusion

The development of electronic music in film reveals a gradual shift from technological novelty to complete integration within mainstream cinema. Early iterations of electronic film music were constrained by many technical limitations and often struggled to meet audience expectations with its unfamiliar timbre, these expectations were so reinforced by the classical orchestra that for many years electronic music was marginalised as a sub genre, appropriate in clubs and dance music and disregarded in the realm of film. However, as production technologies advanced and listening practice evolved electronic music became increasingly utilised and thus, accepted as an expressive component of scoring. This gradual cultural shift can in part be attributed to technology advancing over time, but the medium of film was integral in providing narrative context to the unfamiliar electronic music being written, allowing audiences to experience rather than analyse what they were hearing. Milton Babbitt’s Who Cares If You Listen? offers a theoretical lens through which to understand this normalisation of the electronic sound. Babbitt’s analogy of comparing advanced composition to advanced physics highlights the difficulty of presenting complex and unconventional music to a general audience. Electronic music once occupied a position similar to advanced physics: a specialised practice understood mainly by people working within academic or experimental contexts, rather than general audiences. Its integration into film, however, reframed electronically complex ideas within a story’s emotional framework, allowing them to function similarly to how an orchestral piece might swell at an emotionally poignant moment. 

My own compositional and production practice exists within this historical development. By employing electronic music in my scores as a means of shaping atmosphere, pacing and drama rather than a focal point of its timbre, I engage with the electronic sound as a fully integrated narrative tool. My work reflects both the historical normalisation of electronic music being used more frequently in film and the modern expectation that composers take the majority of the responsibility in producing, sound design, arranging and composing. As electronic music continues to progress with film and media technologies, my practice builds upon this progression, working within the current established convention of utilising electronic music as an expressive medium while aiming to contribute to how electronic music can be used in film. 

Bibliography 

Babbitt, M. (1958) Who Cares If You Listen. Available at: https://chromatone.center/media/pdf/who-cares-if-you-listen.pdf

Bangalter, T. (2007) Daft Punk. Interview by Pitchfork. Available at: https://pitchfork.com/features/interview/6701-daft-punk/

Bangalter, T. (2014) Interview on the influence of Giorgio Moroder. In: Daft Punk on ‘The Soul That A Musician Can Bring’. Available at: https://www.kasu.org/arts-culture/2014-01-27/daft-punk-on-the-soul-that-a-musician-can-bring

Cole, A. (2024) Dune Part Two: how Hans Zimmer created the dramatic soundtrack, ScreenHub. Available at: https://www.screenhub.com.au/news/features/dune-part-two-how-hans-zimmer-created-the-dramatic-soundtrack-2636178/

composer.spitfireaudio.com (2025) An interview with Daniel Pemberton, Composer Magazine – Spitfire Audio. Available at: https://composer.spitfireaudio.com/en/articles/an-interview-with-daniel-pemberton

Hiller, L. (2025) Electronic music. Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/art/electronic-music/Music-synthesizers 

The Guardian (2025) Views of TikTok posts with electronic music outgrow those using indie. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/apr/20/views-of-tiktok-posts-with-electronic-music-outgrow-those-using-indie

Warner, D. (2017) Live Wires A History Of Electronic Music. London: Reaktion Books. Available at: https://ereader.perlego.com/1/book/2801448/15?page_number=191

Wikipedia (2025) Studio for Electronic Music (WDR), Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_for_Electronic_Music_(WDR)

Zimmer, H. (2024) Dune: Hans Zimmer & Friends. Sound On Sound. Found at: https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/dune-hans-zimmer-friends

Zimmer, H. (2021) Interview on Dune score sound design, musictech.com. Available at: https://musictech.com/news/music/hans-zimmer-dune-score-invent-instruments-sounds-soundtrack-oscar-2022/