What is a film music cue sheet?
A ‘cue sheet’ is a typed columnar, chronological breakdown of the ‘significant’ visual events appearing during the course of a ‘cue’ intended for a particular segment of the film. Typically a cue sheet has only three columns: the Medium Address of the event in the cue, the Real/Clock Time of the occurrence of the event (as accumulated from the start of the music for the cue, counting from time 0:00.00), then a terse Description of the visual event at that time and address. The Medium Address might be in film feet and frames. Nowadays, you are more likely to see the Medium Address in the form of video SMPTE Time Code. Thus a couple of lines of a cue sheet might look like this: Cue sheets are usually prepared by the composer’s music editor. The events listed are not just randomly selected. Most entries appear because they have some significance to the quality of the music required, particularly at given points (dialogue ins and outs, for example, are usually noted because you don’t want
