Film Scoring non-diatonic chord changes. Any good books?

Question

so I've been reading about film scoring and how the composers typically use non-diatonic chord progressions (M3, m3 and tritone), for example C major to E-major and C major to E-flat major; to evoke certain emotions pretty consistently. I really want to know how/why this works, and more importantly, if there is some system or framework that tells me how to compose with this in the context of an entire song because the song may have a lot of diatonic parts too. Basically, how does it all interact and fit together as a whole? I am betting there's some classic books on this subject. I haven't read Schoenberg yet because I think that goes to one end of the extreme and presents 12-tone system, which is not what I'm looking for (I think).

Answer 1

Neo-Reimannian theory commonly used for film, TV, video games, etc can be summed up in one short sentence:

"Any chord can go to any other chord that has one or more notes in common"

This is non-functional harmany which consists of successions of chords (not progressions).

As opposed to tonic and modal musics which gravitate to a final point of rest, ie. resolution, there is no set goal.

The only goal is to create a mood.

Answer 2

Check out the Chord Scale Theory by Barry Nettles. It's a compilation of many different examples of odd cadences, chord substitutions, and modal mixture applications. Also the work of Barry Harris and Schoenberg can be pretty helpful. Schoenberg's emphasis on classical technique as fundamental writing skills can help make even the most basic harmony sound lush and interesting.