Film score in the context of "City Lights"

Epic films have large scale, sweeping scope, and spectacle. The term is slightly ambiguous, sometimes designating a film genre and at other times simply big-budget films. Like epics in the classical literary sense, it is often focused on a heroic character. An epic's ambitious nature helps to set it apart from other genres such as the period piece or adventure film.

Epic historical films would usually take a historical or a mythical event and add an extravagant setting, lavish costumes, an expansive musical score, and an ensemble cast, which would make them extremely expensive to produce. The most common subjects of epic films are royalty and important figures from various periods in world history.

A musician is someone who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate a person who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters, who write both music and lyrics for songs; conductors, who direct a musical performance; and performers, who perform for an audience. A music performer is generally either a singer (also known as a vocalist), who provides vocals, or an instrumentalist, who plays a musical instrument. Musicians may perform on their own or as part of a group, band or orchestra.

Musicians may specialize in a musical genre, although many perform across a variety of styles and often blend or cross genres. Their musical output is influenced by a range of factors, including culture, skill set, life experience, education, and creative preferences. A musician who records and releases music is often referred to as a recording artist; while a musician who primarily writes and records art music, media soundtracks , and scores—including for films, theatrical stage productions, and video games—or classical music is usually called a composer. A music producer, while not a musician outright, may themselves be a musician. A conductor, by way of gestures, leads and provides live direction for, or conducts, an ensemble, typically an orchestra or choral group.

Where Eagles Dare is a 1968 action adventure war film directed by Brian G. Hutton and starring Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood and Mary Ure. Set during World War II, it follows a Special Operations Executive team charged with saving a captured American General from the fictional Schloß Adler fortress, except the mission turns out not to be as it seems. It was filmed in Panavision using the Metrocolor process, and was distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Alistair MacLean wrote the screenplay, his first, at the same time that he wrote the novel of the same name. Both became commercial successes.

The film involved some of the top filmmakers of the day and was shot on location in Austria. Hollywood stuntman Yakima Canutt was the second unit director and shot most of the action scenes; British stuntman Alf Joint doubled for Burton in many sequences, including the fight on top of the cable car; award-winning conductor and composer Ron Goodwin wrote the film score; and future Oscar nominee Arthur Ibbetson worked on the cinematography.

Incidental music is music in a play, television program, radio program, video game, or some other presentation form that is not primarily musical. The term is less frequently applied to film music, with such music being referred to instead as the film score or soundtrack.

Incidental music is often background music, and is intended to add atmosphere to the action. It may take the form of something as simple as a low, ominous tone suggesting an impending startling event or to enhance the depiction of a story-advancing sequence. It may also include pieces such as overtures, music played during scene changes, or at the end of an act, immediately preceding an interlude, as was customary with several nineteenth-century plays. It may also be required in plays that have musicians performing on-stage.

Diegetic music, also called source music, is music that is part of the fictional world portrayed in a narrative (such as a film, show, play, or video game) and is thus knowingly performed or heard by the characters. This is in contrast to non-diegetic music, which is incidental music or a score that is heard by the viewer but not the characters, or in musical theater, when characters are singing in a manner that they would not do in a realistic setting.

Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimalism, being built up from repetitive phrases and shifting layers. He described himself as a composer of "music with repetitive structures", which he has helped to evolve stylistically.

Glass founded the Philip Glass Ensemble in 1968. He has written 15 operas, numerous chamber operas and musical theatre works, 14 symphonies, 12 concertos, nine string quartets, various other chamber music pieces, and many film scores. He has received nominations for four Grammy Awards, including two for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for Satyagraha (1987) and String Quartet No. 2 (1988). He has received three Academy Award for Best Original Score nominations for Martin Scorsese's Kundun (1997), Stephen Daldry's The Hours (2002), and Richard Eyre's Notes on a Scandal (2006). He also composed the scores for Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985), Hamburger Hill (1987), The Thin Blue Line (1988), Candyman (1992), The Truman Show (1998), and The Illusionist (2006).

John Towner Williams (born February 8, 1932) is an American composer and conductor. Over his seven-decade career, he has composed many of the best known scores in film history. His compositional style blends romanticism, impressionism, and atonal music with complex orchestration. Best known for his collaborations with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, he has received numerous accolades, including 26 Grammy Awards, five Academy Awards, seven BAFTA Awards, three Emmy Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards. With a total of 54 Academy Award nominations, he is the second-most nominated person in the award's history, after Walt Disney. He is also the oldest Academy Award nominee in any category, receiving a nomination at 91 years old.

Williams's early work as a film composer includes None but the Brave (1965), Valley of the Dolls (1967), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), Images and The Cowboys (both 1972), The Long Goodbye (1973) and The Towering Inferno (1974). He has collaborated with Spielberg since The Sugarland Express (1974), composing music for all but five of his feature films. He received five Academy Awards for Best Score/Best Score Adaptation for Fiddler on the Roof (1971); score adaptation of the original music by Jerry Bock), Jaws (1975), Star Wars (1977), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) and Schindler's List (1993). Other memorable collaborations with Spielberg include Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), the Indiana Jones franchise (1981–2023), Hook (1991), Jurassic Park (1993) and its sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Catch Me If You Can (2002), War Horse (2011), Lincoln (2012), and The Fabelmans (2022). He also scored Superman (1978) and two of its sequels, the first two Home Alone films (1990–1992), and the first three Harry Potter films (2001–2004). Outside of his long-term collaborations with Spielberg and Lucas, Williams has composed the scores for films directed by William Wyler, Clint Eastwood, Alfred Hitchcock, Brian De Palma, John Badham, George Miller, Oliver Stone, Chris Columbus, Ron Howard, Barry Levinson, John Singleton, Alan Parker, Alfonso Cuarón, and Rob Marshall.