Why Your Indie Film Needs a Custom Score (Not Library Music or AI)

Working with Composers| Filmmaker Resources| Library Music

October 08, 2025•10 min read

Why Your Indie Film Needs a Custom Score (Not Library Music or AI)

You've probably done it. We all have.

You're in the edit, that one scene isn't quite landing, so you open up your library music subscription, type "emotional piano," and scroll through 723 identical tracks until you find something that's... fine. Close enough. It'll work for the rough cut. It's decent temp.

Then you keep it in the final cut. And now your film sounds like every YouTube video, corporate presentation, and wedding montage from the last decade.

Here's an uncomfortable truth: library music and AI-generated scores are killing the emotional impact of independent films. They're cheap, they're fast, and they're making your project forgettable. They are passable, but nothing memorable, lasting, or helping your film keep an impact.

Let's talk about why a custom score isn't a luxury, but the difference between a film that gets into festivals (and people actually watch online) and one that feels like it was assembled from spare parts.

The Library Music Problem

Library music (also called stock music or production music) isn't inherently bad at all. There are some insanely talented and successful composers writing exclusively for libraries. It all serves a purpose. But that purpose is not scoring your narrative film. It wasn't created to exactly match the vision and mood for your coming of age indie drama, or the deeply emotional scene between Grandma and Grandchild helping the find their true self.

It Wasn't Written for Your Story

That epic orchestral track you licensed? It was written for literally anything. Car commercials. Real estate videos. Tech startup promos. Maybe even other films.

The composer who made it had no idea what your protagonist's emotional journey would be. They didn't know your film's pacing, your color palette, or your thematic arc. They wrote something "generally inspiring" or "vaguely tense" and hoped someone would buy it.

Result: Music that sits on top of your film instead of serving it.

Everyone Else Is Using It Too

Production music libraries sell the same track to unlimited buyers. That "unique" score you found? It's in:

58 other festival submissions this year
A YouTube ad
Someone's travel vlog
A podcast intro

It Doesn't Sync to Your Edit

Library tracks are pre-made at arbitrary lengths. Your scene is 2 minutes and 17 seconds. The track is 2 minutes and 45 seconds. Now you're:

Fading out awkwardly mid-phrase
Looping sections that weren't meant to loop
Cutting at weird moments because the music won't cooperate
Adjusting your edit to fit the music (backwards!)

Thus enters the pieced-together and fragmented music overtop of your film, dragging the rest down. A composer writes to your exact scene length and hits your specific story beats. Library music makes you compromise your edit.

The Emotional Beats Are Generic

Library music is designed to be emotionally "safe." It's sad-ish, happy-ish, tense-ish. It can't be too specific or it won't sell broadly.

Your film isn't generic. Why should your score be?

Example: Your character realizes their father lied to them for 20 years. This moment needs music that captures betrayal mixed with love mixed with confusion. Library music gives you "sad piano #3847." Close, but not the same thing.

The AI Music Problem

AI music tools are getting better - much better. They're also getting worse for indie filmmakers who think they've found a shortcut. They're also getting in more and more legal trouble everyday with lawsuits and copyright infringement.

It's Not Actually Custom

You type a prompt: "sad emotional piano for film scene." The AI generates something based on thousands of existing compositions it's trained on, likely without the consent of the copyright holders

What you get:

Music that sounds vaguely like other music
Zero understanding of your story
No ability to revise based on your feedback
Potential copyright issues (more on this in a second)

What you don't get:

A collaborator who understands filmmaking
Music timed to your specific edit
Someone who can solve storytelling problems with sound
Stems you can adjust in your final mix
A human collaborate to make art and tell stories with (I imagine this is one of the reasons you started in this industry too like me)

The Copyright Minefield

Here's where AI gets legally sketchy (note: these are just my thoughts and perspective. No legal training here, not legal advice, just opinions).

Most AI music generators train on copyrighted music without permission. When they generate your "custom" score, it might be replicating elements of existing compositions.

The festival problem: Festivals can reject with anything AI-generated due to unclear copyright status and protecting artistic human creativity and integrity.

The distribution problem: If your film gets picked up, distributors will demand proof of music rights. "An AI made it" likely isn't going to clear legal.

The lawsuit problem: You have no idea if your AI score accidentally reproduced someone's copyrighted melody. You're likely one liable, not the AI company.

It Can't Respond to Your Edit

Just like library music, AI generates a track at whatever length it spits out. You can't ask it to:

Hit that door slam at 1:23 exactly
Build tension for 8 more seconds
Add a French horn for warmth in the second half
Remove the string section during the dialogue

It's a one-shot generation, not a collaborator to got back and forth with.

What a Custom Score Actually Does

A custom film score is a storytelling tool that library music and AI can't replicate. It's part director, part screenwriter, part set design, part actor, part colorist. Your composer takes all of this as inputs in order to output the appropriate score for your vision and goals.

It's Written for Your Specific Story

A composer watches your locked film, discusses your characters and themes, and creates music that only works for your film.

That scene where your protagonist walks away from their childhood home? The composer knows:

The character's emotional state
What happened 10 minutes earlier in the film
What is going to happen 10 minutes later in the film
What the audience needs to feel right now vs. later
How this moment connects to the ending

Library music knows none of this. AI tools know none of this.

It Syncs to Your Edit Perfectly

Need the music to hit the exact frame when the door closes? Done. Core part of my job. I love the puzzle of finding a way to hit those beats exactly while keeping the music feeling organic.

A composer watches your timeline and writes music that's married to your picture. Every hit, every silence, every emotional shift is intentional.

Understanding the technical side of syncing music to picture is so key for both the composer and director (really the entire post team). Berklee Online's guide to film scoring concepts explains how professional composers approach timing, form, and synchronization for technical skills that library music limits you on.

It Solves Story Problems

Sometimes a scene isn't working. Maybe the pacing drags. Maybe the emotional transition is too abrupt. Maybe you lost a shot you needed.

A good composer can use music to:

Add momentum to a slow scene
Smooth rough editorial transitions
Create emotional beats that aren't on screen
Imply things you didn't have budget to show

We are able to re-tell the story on screen in a new way or emphasize the existing emotion.

When Library Music Is Actually Fine

Let's be fair. There are times when library music works:

Source music: If your characters are in a coffee shop and you need background music playing, library music is perfect. It's meant to be background. Radio turns on in car, perfect. Have a clip of a "fake" movie within a movie? Library music is fine (actually, I'd be willing the write that as well, ha!)

Temp music: During rough cuts to help you feel pacing and tone, library music is great. Just don't keep it in the final. We'll writer about temp music in this blog soon.

Non-narrative projects: Corporate videos, event recaps, some documentaries—library music works when the music doesn't need to tell a story. This is the bread-and-butter of when I would advise stock music over custom. The corporate and ad timelines may be even tighter than films.

Extreme micro-budget with no other option: If it's literally library music or silence, and your film needs music... okay. But at least choose carefully and edit it thoughtfully. Ensure you can get all of the stems so your editor can act as a music editor and try and put together something consistent.

The Real Cost of Cheap Music

Here's what happens when you use library music or AI instead of hiring a composer:

Festival submissions: You're competing against films with custom scores. Yours sounds cheaper, even if everything else is great.

Audience experience: Music that doesn't sync to story beats or emotional moments makes your film feel amateurish, even if your cinematography, set, and performances are stellar.

Distribution potential: Distributors hear the generic music and assume the whole film is low-budget and low-quality. They pass.

Your own growth as a filmmaker: You miss out on one of the most important creative collaborations in filmmaking that working with a composer who challenges and elevates your vision. Just look at what Spielberg and Nolan talk about their collaborations and partnerships with their composers. They both have talked on how important and how much their enjoy the scoring process.

Career momentum: Your film doesn't get into the festivals you wanted, doesn't get the attention you hoped for, and doesn't open the doors you need.

That's the actual cost. Not the $3,000 you saved by using library music. The opportunities you lost.

The Competitive Reality

Here's who you're competing against in festival submissions:

Not: Big-budget studio films

Actually: Other indie filmmakers with similar budgets who invested in custom scores

When a festival programmer watches 500 submissions, they're not comparing you to Marvel and A24 movies. They're comparing you to the other indie filmmaker who:

Also shot on a mirrorless camera
Also had a crew of nine people
Also maxed out credit cards
But hired a composer for $7,500 and made their film's music sound intentional and legitimate.

That's the film that gets in. Not because the composer was expensive, but because the music serves the story and completes the picture.

What to Do Instead

If you're reading this during post-production thinking "oh no, I already used library music," here's what to do:

Option 1: Hire a composer now: Yes, even if you're "done." A good composer can replace your library tracks in a few weeks. It's not too late.

Option 2: Be strategic with library music

License high-quality, less-common tracks
Edit them carefully to hit story beats
Use them sparingly, not wall-to-wall
Make sure you have proper festival/distribution licenses

The Bottom Line

Composer = Creative collaborative problem solver and part of the core storytelling team in the film.

Library and AI = content generators

Your film is more than content. It's a story you spent months or years bringing to life. It deserves music that's as intentional as your cinematography, as specific as your performances, as crafted as your edit, as revised as you dialogue..

Stop settling for "fine" music. Your film is better than that!!

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