There are just as many different types of director as there are film composers and they all have their own system and ideas.

Having worked on films and TV directed by heavyweights such as Steven Soderbergh and Sam Raimi, Greg Tripi is ideally placed to provide an insight into the sorts of conversations that go on between director and composer.

“Some of them have very, very detailed instructions about what it needs to sound like and they’ll make a temp track with pre-existing pieces of music laid into the movie so you can see exactly how they want the music structured, and sometimes what they want it to sound like.

“Other times it will be a very blank slate. They’ll say: “go and be creative and come up with something”. They really want to hire a composer to give them what they’re searching for. You find that the directors you get along with - these are about relationships and friendships, ultimately - are the ones where you enjoy working together, but also ones where you kind of have a dialogue where you understand each other’s job.

“I can’t speak all the director terminology, but I know enough about making movies that I can communicate with them with my caveman speak about how to make movies and likewise they can communicate to me about music without using music theory. Sometimes there are a lot of adjectives - a lot of things to describe - emotions and moods and more abstract notion of what the music is doing.”

To produce the kind of tension required in thrillers or horrors especially, timing is so important, with the director often specifying exactly where they want the music to get “bigger” or “smaller”, “fill out” or “get manic”.

Tripi says: “Sometimes, the dialogue between director and composer says: “well this is an important scene where, even if we don’t see what’s on the screen, we want the audience to know that they should feel tension here. They should feel like something’s going to happen”. And that’s really where film music can really shine and add something great to movie-making. It’s that you’re really adding a piece to the whole story that isn’t right there in front of you.”

Of course, each film has a different tone and atmosphere that must be portrayed. What Tripi learnt when scoring the emotionally traumatic Dark Places was the importance of contrast. Despite the subject, the music didn’t have to be dark and foreboding all the time; it actually proved to be more effective to intersperse the darkness with lighter and more melodic moments.

A recent score that particularly impressed Tripi was Jóhann Jóhannsson’s Sicario: “I think it’s really just fantastic and amazing - very very different to his Theory of Everything score [Jóhannsson was nominated for an oscar for best original score for both) but a super cool use of orchestra and sound design.”

The life of film composers such as Tripi and Jóhannsson is very much an independent freelance capacity - musicians frequently operating out of expensive home studios. However there are signs that things might be changing.

In 2014, the famed composer, Hans Zimmer, created Bleeding Fingers Custom Music Shop - a collaboration between Sony and Zimmer’s Remote Control Productions. Based in a state-of-the-art facility in Santa Monica, it is a team of composers combining to fulfil what the website calls a “growing demand from broadcasters and program makers for a power player to enter this space”. Is this a sign of times and will we soon be seeing the lone wolves forced to join packs?

For now at least, Tripi thinks not. Zimmer’s company is focussing on reality TV in which shows traditionally use library music. “I’m hoping that if anything, Zimmer’s business will persuade more of these reality TV companies to pay for quality music again. Most of them have gotten into the habit of taking music for free with the promise of backend royalty payments. Guess we’ll have to see what happens.”

And what of the composer’s role in the influence of TV and film on society? Is this something he is aware of and would he ever turn down work for a morally dubious project?

“Over the years", says Tripi, "I have been offered some less-than-fair deals for work, but nothing that was morally wrong. I could see a situation where someone could ask me to compose music for a subject matter that just didn't jive with my beliefs, and turning it down, like a Donald Trump campaign commercial. Fortunately, that hasn't happened yet.”

Currently collaborating on a project with the renowned composer, Danny Elfman, and with further Cliff Martinez collaborations likely, we can expect to hear much more from Tripi. Despite ten years in the business, he is only just beginning to harness what you might call the curse of the professional creative and set aside his professional instincts in his downtime: “I love watching movies so I’ve got better about just relaxing and not critiquing it so much, just try to sit back and enjoy it, but the production side of my head is always thinking about how I could make the music sound better if I had the chance.”

For more on Greg Tripi visit his website here.