So exactly what are they and how do they work?

Why is that most films have cues like 1m3 but some like David Arnold's Hot Fuzz are M3?

Are they names for specific scenes? That's all I can guess.

Last question: when mixing complete scores on here, how do you guys figure out who did what? As in how did DAKoftheOTA deduce in his film mix that 7m58 Give it to Me was composed by Hans Zimmer and Henry Jackman? Where do you find that data?

Just some of the questions that I've been trying to figure out over the past three years of being on here.

You're kind of right; they help the crew understand where in the film a cue should be placed.
The most common format is the reel-m-cue # format (like 1M3).

Even though many movies today are made on totally digital workstations, they're split into imaginary reels in order to keep things manageable. The sound editor needs help knowing what music cues go on what reels, so the composer helps him out by assigning a slate number.
1M3 = reel 1; M means 'music'; and 3 means that it's the third cue.
It used to be that, when a composer moved on to a new reel, he'd go from 1M8 to 2M1. But now since everything digital, there's less reason for a music editor to get all confused, so younger composers will go from 1M9 to 2M10.

You've noticed that some composers do weird stuff like M3... some composers are prone to do stuff like that out of habit or necessity (Howard Shore's work for The Lord of the Rings necessitated unorthodox reel numbers because the film was so fluid in the editing room).


For RCP data, most of it comes from a dude named Hybrid Soldier who has connections to the team.
He has a website and tries to include credits where he can.
http://www.hans-zimmer.com/

Oh okay. That makes a lot of sense. So Hybrid Soldier knows the Magnificent Six?

Nope, as that wasn't a "Remote Control Productions" score. RCP includes people like Zimmer, Jackman, Balfe, Junkie XL, the Gregson-Williams brothers, and a whole bunch more.

The RCP way of working is that there'll be a "head composer" who writes all the main themes, and then he sends those themes to underlings who write all the rest of the music. There are arguments for and against it. So for 7m58 Give it To Me, I imagine Jackman integrated Zimmer's themes into a cue he was responsible for writing. Zimmer oversaw the making of the cue and made sure it sounded all right.

So it's an industry standard, essentially.

Yeah. Like I said, different composers arrange slates in different ways, but all these films use a cue number format in some capacity.

These are known as production �slate� numbers.

The only reason that scores sometimes have '1m01' is because when they're lined up in a file list, they would almost always be mixed up. For example, '1m10' would sometimes come directly after '1m1'.

The first number is always the reel number, which are usually divided into 10 minute incriments (either film or music cues). A two hour film typically has 12 reels. The middle letter 'm' has never truly received a proper definition, but it makes sense to consider it an abbreviation for music, or music cue. The number after 'm' is actually the cue number of that said reel, '1m3' is the 3rd music cue of reel 1.

You have much to learn young Padawan before you truly earn that title of Complete Score King.

(The character name "R2D2" from Star Wars, by the way, was famously inspired by George Lucas liking the sound of it when someone called for "reel 2, dialogue 2" during the making of an earlier film.)

I've noticed some composers stick with the original method of restarting the numbers with each reel. Not always, but usually. I find that Zimmer has always kept the numbers going, while JNH will restart with each reel. As will Williams and Goldsmith. They're old school.

So exactly what are they and how do they work?

They make me feel like a refined listener when I go through my scores lol.

They make me feel like a refined listener when I go through my scores lol.

:this:

They make me feel like a refined listener when I go through my scores lol.

I agree. The only thing I don't like is they're usually horribly and uncreatively written. There are people who would disagree with me, I'm sure, but I really hate 90% of film cue names. I'll never forget one cue from the first National Treasure film: Ben Thinks DOI.

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You have much to learn young Padawan before you truly earn that title of Complete Score King.

I do scores for video games. Not movies. I have zero connections to Hollywood, so I don't know how I could ever be involved in the film score scene.