Most composers meet the film at picture lock, when every decision is already concrete. We prefer to arrive earlier — at the rough cut, when the edit can still hear us. A score spotted early does not just decorate the film; it changes how the film is cut.
The reason is rhythm. Editors cut to a pulse they feel, and temporary music smuggles in someone else's pulse — usually a famous score the film can never afford to sound like. Directors fall in love with the temp, and the final score spends its life apologizing for not being it.
Our answer is sketches before lock: simple piano or drone drafts, written to the rough cut in days, that give the edit an original pulse to cut against. The temp love never forms, because there is no temp — only the film's own emerging music.
This changes the cutting room dynamic completely. Instead of asking whether the music fits the cut, everyone starts asking whether the cut serves the music. Scenes breathe differently; transitions land on downbeats the composer actually wrote. The film and the score grow up together.
So bring the composer in before you think you need one. The cheapest time to find the film's sound is while the picture can still move — and the bravest cuts are the ones made to music that was written for them.