A meeting taken, usually early after the composer is hired, attended by the composer, music editor, director, perhaps the film editor and the producer(s) along with sundry assistants and gofers. The film, as then rough cut, is reviewed and discussions undertaken and decisions made about where in the picture music might or might not be beneficial or effective - where and how should it start, where and how should it end, what should it be like (suspenseful, comedic, bring out what was not executed in the acting, what style... 'blue' here, 'r&b' there, whatever). The music editor usually keeps a record of this meeting and later renders what are called 'spotting notes'. From this, one usually derives a list of the 'cues' that will later come together to make up the picture's score.
More and more, though, we now must live in the time of the 'temp track' - temporary music placed in the picture frequently at the option of a music editor collaborating with the director, usually commencing early in the post production process, many times even before a composer is selected.
Temp Tracks have become a practice in post production largely, but not necessarily only for the purpose of permitting prerelease preview audience evaluations so that the director and studio can have a sense of how their work might be received ($$$!). Most of the time, this temporary music is music excised from previous motion pictures and 'squeezed and cut' into place by digital audio editing systems. So today, most 'spotting sessions' tend to be 'friendly' debates between the composer and the director over 'style' choices the director has already made and married to the film months earlier. Guess who wins the debate! "''A' List" composers are luckier than those lower down the food chain. 'Top guns' are usually brought into projects earlier than most and can and do insist on their own music editors. Having the composer involved early, and with the composer's long-time music editor in charge of temp track preparation, can result in the building of temp tracks which are more resonant with the composer's tastes and styles. This is more likely to lead to a score more original to the composer rather than one which tends to mirror the work of his colleagues whose music was previously duped and pasted into the 'temp'.