The music composer crafts the film’s original score or soundtrack (vocal or instrumental). The music composer’s work enriches the film’s mood and deepens audience engagement through sound. Students in this role should develop musical themes that support character development, film pacing, and overall tone. Students should include drafts, notations, digital compositions, and mixing choices in their work. Students are also responsible for researching and maintaining any sound equipment or software required to produce the film's score or soundtrack.
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In the IB Film Portfolio, students must demonstrate an understanding of the collaborative nature of filmmaking by selecting specific production roles on which they base their portfolio. These roles mirror real industry jobs and help students explore film as an art form and a communicative medium. This post will explain the various film roles students can consider taking on for their IB Film Portfolio.
IB Film Portfolio Roles
Cinematographer
The cinematographer controls the film's visuals through camera movement, framing, exposure, lens selection, and lighting design. Students in this role must show the reason behind each visual choice by referencing cinematic techniques and genre conventions. Students must justify why these choices support the director’s vision and the film’s purpose. Students should also explain their technical setup, including lighting plans, camera tests, and shot lists. Students can also discuss factors like resolving technical challenges and using visual composition to guide audience interpretation. For a more in-depth guide to the cinematographer role, check out this PDF.
Director
The director is responsible for the overall creative vision of the film. Students taking on this role must articulate how they shaped the film’s vision, style, and narrative. This includes directing actors, guiding performance choices, planning shot composition, and making decisions about pacing, symbolism, and visual storytelling. IB students taking on a director's role should justify stylistic decisions using film theory and show how they collaborated with other crew members to unify the film’s artistic direction. This role often requires leadership, communication, experimentation, and problem-solving during production. For a more in-depth guide to the director role, check out this IB handout.
Editor
The editor constructs meaning by shaping the flow and structure of the film post-production. Students taking on the editor role must explain how they selected, organized, and refined footage to strengthen the film's narrative clarity and impact. This includes decisions about pacing, continuity versus montage, transitions, and sound-image relationships. Students must reflect on how their creative decisions influenced viewer engagement and how the edit improved the raw footage. Students can provide evidence such as annotated timelines, before-and-after comparisons, or reflections on alternate versions. For more details about the editor role, click here.
Sound
The sound designer creates and manipulates auditory elements such as diegetic and non-diegetic sound, effects, ambience, and audio mixing to enrich the film’s ambience. Students must demonstrate how sound contributes to factors such as emotional tone, spatial realism, character perspective, or thematic motifs. Students must justify each sound design decision, supported by diagrams, cue sheets, or mixing notes. Students in this role often solve audio challenges, design soundscapes, and understand how sound interacts with visuals to guide audience interpretation. For a more detailed insight into the sound role, check out this document.
Writer
The writer creates the film script and shapes the story’s structure, characters, and themes. Students in this role must show cinematic storytelling through scenes that communicate meaning through dialogue, action, imagery, and sound. Writers must justify their creative choices by referencing genre conventions, narrative theory, or stylistic influences, and should reflect on how their script evolved throughout the filmmaking process. Students must keep detailed notes on any changes made to the script, along with explanations of why these changes were made. To learn more about the writer role, click here.
Other roles
In addition to the main IB Film roles above, students may also choose to focus on the supporting roles below. Students must pick 3 roles in total for their IB Film Portfolio; however, only ONE role may be chosen from the "Other Roles" section. The other two roles must be chosen from the sections above. A brief description of each additional role is provided above, but for a more in-depth look at each role, click here.
Animator
The animator creates motion-based visuals that enhance or replace live-action elements, using techniques such as stop-motion, claymation, hand-drawn sequences, or 2D/3D digital animation. Students in this role must design, create, and edit all the film's animation and must justify how the animated elements reinforce themes, mood, or character perspective. The animator’s portfolio should show creative design, including how the colour, texture and look of each scene were determined.
Costume designer
The costume designer shapes character identity and visual storytelling by using clothing. This role requires students to consider how colour, texture, style, and cultural context communicate personality, relationships, and thematic meaning in the film. Costume designers must justify their choices through research (e.g. cultural, social), sketches, mood boards, and practical adjustments to costumes made during production. Students must ensure that each character’s appearance supports the film’s setting and reinforces the narrative.
Art director
The art director is responsible for the overall visual style of the film, coordinating sets, props, costumes, makeup, locations, and design elements to enhance the film's aesthetic. Students in this role must show how visual space influences narrative tone, genre, and audience interpretation. Through production design plans, diagrams, and colour palettes, students must demonstrate how each design choice contributes to the film's atmosphere. This role highlights creativity, planning, and spatial storytelling.
Music composer
We hope you found this post helpful in learning more about IB Film Portfolio roles. For more useful materials associated with the IB, check out the wide variety of IA, EE and TOK exemplars available at Clastify and other guides available on our blog.
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