Score a Scene

Write a music cue for this scene.

The scene:
"""
[DESCRIBE IT BEAT BY BEAT WITH TIMINGS, OR PASTE THE SHOT LIST]
"""

Total length: [SECONDS]
What the audience should feel, and how that changes: [THE EMOTIONAL ARC]
What the music must not do: [e.g. "not telegraph the twist", "not overpower dialogue"]
Dialogue or voiceover present: [WHERE, IN SECONDS]
Reference feel: [DESCRIBE IT, NOT BY NAMING A FILM SCORE]

Produce:

1. **The cue plan**, as a timeline in seconds:

| Time | What is on screen | What the music does | Instrumentation | Dynamic |

Every row states what the music is doing relative to the picture: setting a mood, building tension, holding still, or landing a hit. Music that stays at one intensity across a whole cue tells the audience nothing about which moment matters.

2. **Hit points**: the exact seconds where the music must change with the picture (a cut, a reveal, a door opening, a line landing). For each, whether the music anticipates it, lands with it, or answers it a beat late. Landing everything exactly on the cut is what makes a score feel like stock music.

3. **The space for dialogue**: where the arrangement thins out and which frequency range clears, so speech sits on top of it without a fight.

4. **Instrumentation**: 3 to 5 elements only, with what each one carries. Say what enters and what drops out at each stage, since the arrival of a new instrument is the most reliable way to mark a turn.

5. **The generation prompt** for [SUNO / UDIO / ELEVENLABS MUSIC]: the style field built from era, instrumentation, tempo, and production, with the structural description of the arc. Note that a generator will not hit your timing marks precisely, so specify the section lengths and plan to edit.

6. **The restraint note**: the moment in this scene where the right choice is no music at all, or the moment where the music should be doing less than it wants to. Almost every scene has one.

Rules: describe the reference feel by era, instrumentation, and production rather than naming a composer or a film. Never mask a weak moment with a swell; if the picture is not carrying it, say so.