Texture and Timing in the Score-Stop
Gerardo Lopez · 2024
Abstract The focus of this analytical essay is on the use of the score-stop technique in movie trailers, also known as the “sudden soundtrack stop” (TV Tropes), “music stop” (Film Editing Pro), or “stopdowns” (Lieu, 2020). As its name indicates, the score-stop technique is “the stopping of the music to undermine, highlight or draw attention to a particular line of dialogue, joke, or visual” (Film Editing Pro). The movie trailers discussed in this essay include Cruella (2021), CODA (2021), Kimi (2022), Prey (2022), and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022). The analytical remarks and observations made in the essay focus on how textural cues, metrical context, and silence contribute to the making of a score-stop moment. From the perspective of a student, this essay models how one might answer the question “Wow, that one moment in the movie trailer sounded so cool! Why is that?”