Oscar Music Rule Changes Likely to Meet With Approval by Film Music Community

Changes in Oscar’s music rules, as announced today, will make a lot of film composers happy.The major change is that an original score no longer needs to consist of at least 60% of the total music in the film.

That number has been substantially lowered, to 35%, potentially increasing the number of eligible scores each year.This has been an issue in recent years, as filmmakers have increasingly relied on pre-existing, licensed music as well as music specifically composed for their movies.Last year, for example, Thomas Newman’s “Let Them All Talk” and Howard Shore’s “Pieces of a Woman” were among the high-profile film scores disqualified as failing to meet the 60% threshold.

Terence Blanchard’s music for “One Night in Miami” and the Mark Isham-Craig Harris “Judas and the Black Messiah” score were not even entered, probably because both were deemed likely to be disqualified due to brevity.

Read full article