Bakersfield College had a special guest speaker on April 27, Bruce Broughton, an Emmy award-winning television and film composer.

His lecture was called “Music on Demand: Music for the movies.”

Ron Kean, director of choral activities/world music at BC, invited Broughton, his composition mentor from when he went to community college, to come speak.

“I look up to this guy,” Kean said. “He’s so down to earth and I thought him speaking here would benefit students in the music program who are thinking of going into the business.”

One of Broughton’s important points in his lecture was why music in film was important.

“Music helps tell a story,” Broughton said.

“In some scenes without music it would feel like something’s missing but you just don’t know what.

“Scenes can seem longer without it. Music calls attention to events.”

Broughton explained the differences between music for movies, TV and concerts. Being so versatile, Broughton has done all three, from motion pictures like “Tombstone,” “Miracle on 34th Street,” to “Rescuers Down Under.” His television musical credits can be found on “Jag,” “Tiny Toon Adventures,” and “Hawaii Five- O.”

His composed concert music includes “Mixed Elements,” “The Magic Horn,” and “Excursions.”

“Writing scores for movies is completely different from scores for concert,” he said. “Concert is whatever you want, but for a movie you have a director telling you exactly what they want or just what they don’t like.”

Broughton went on to explain how working with the director can be difficult sometimes.

“It’s usually better if the director knows very little about music,” he said.

He went in depth about his time on his first big movie, “Silverado,” followed by what type of things to expect from directors and how he got into the business.

“I was listening to the radio one day, and a song came on that really moved me,” he said. “I realized I wanted to write music that would make people feel good.  It only took me a couple minutes to come up with music for movies.”