Hey Nathan. I've been in the TV/advertising realm for about 5 years now. It's great, very demanding, but gets to feel monotones in some areas. I've recently made the jump in trying to narrow in my focus on film/game, so excited to see that transition come to pass.
Hi, Nathan. Networking helps me get placements. I usually look at various sites such as Stage 32, Up work, Vimeo, and even CL if I want to score shorts. Sometimes I connect with animators at a local con looking for music, or choreographer at a dance studio... Right now, my work comes from the connections I made earlier on. I just booked a feature and a writing placement because of an internship I did years ago. Work is sometimes sporadic but it's going... It can really tough trying to find solid work back to back or get a placement in the gaming industry, right now. I notice that my success comes in bursts, so to speak. You might have a great 6 months or couple of years, then it gets kind of quiet, then another burst.
Cheers for responses guys. I'm a current composition student, so I don't actually have any paid work at the moment, currently just assignments or collaborations
Thanks for all the comments! I didn't have any work so far, to be fair I'm quite young, so this is very helpful to me! I had a look at Star Now, CL and freelancer and also Stage32. But for now I don't feel confident enough to really take over responsibility for a project. Maybe I should just do it?
Hey guys - been gone for 8 or 9 months but I'm back. Been busy both on the 'day job' (where I shoot about 20 to 25 weddings a year as a videographer) and the composing end. I have had some interesting experiences on the film end both positive and not so positive. As y'all may know, I 'draw the line' for pay at shorts which I score for free. Scored four shorts last year - one was a very long short - about 40 mins. Was on crew to shoot my first feature drama about breast cancer. The film shot last summer and then kept on delaying in post. The director kept delaying on wanting to do a contract because the whole crew except the screenwriter worked for free (they were promised money if the film earns anything, yeah right....). Eventually he asked two other composers to score scenes in the film and when I asked to spot, he just said he would give a scene and see how I did. We never made it to the money issue. The next day, I stepped off the crew. I can not score a film that way with two other composers (one was an audio engineer and the other was an r&b artist). I guess 'issues' come in bunches. Last month I was supposed to score a short for the 168 film competition in Aug. This is a four minute film for kids (pre-teens/young teens). I started with the opening 20 second scene (included the opening credits). Gave it a really cool juvenile sound (my composing instructor at school loved it). The producer nixed it. Then she suggested perhaps a high energetic opening. I suggested a contemporary Christian sound as this was a Christ-based film festival. Played her a 'sounds like' from a well known Christian group from youtube. She was OK. I did that. The director didn't like it and nixed that. He suggested a super-hero/marvel comic opening cue. So I rewrote it a third time - made it sound exactly like the track he gave me the link for. Then he said, he didn't like the arrangement and instrumentation. Three times - 20 second cue spanning 2 weeks. I never made it past the opening 20 seconds. At that point I suggested they try a different composer. The director gave me a different kid film instead. It was called "Clean Your Room". It is really cute. He left me alone and I scored it completely in just over 2 days. He loved the music and all we had to do is move the hit points in three places slightly. I actually had a great time doing a full orchestra score for the 45 seconds of end titles they gave me - straight out of the Alan Silvestri playbook! Now I am waiting for the 'speed film' - that's the one that has to be done completely from scratch in 168 hours (7 days) starting this coming Sat. Not only do I have to score, but the main character is a female rock star so I will have to write music for her to perform on screen with a Rock band (we'll record it off screen and lip sync - this will be a film first for me though I have played in a rock band myself earlier in my life). A finally there is my struggling documentarian. This is my one and only stage32 project to date. A first time film maker that is really struggling. Its about the homeless in downtown LA. He started it two years ago and I wrote some preview cues for him back then. Didn't hear from him in 2 years. Then all of a sudden he's back and wants music. But he really doesn't understand the role music plays in a documentary and he is REALLY struggling. He does not appear to have a computer and goes to the public library to get to the Internet, so today I found out when we were supposed to do a spotting session that he doesn't have the spotting sheet and does not really know where he wants the music. Neither is his film time coded and he doesn't know how to divide seconds into frames. This is going to be 'interesting'..... And in between all that in the Fall last year, I upgraded all my equipment to 32 GB of memory, mutliple 1 TB SSDs, etc. and began moving to Kontakt from 10 years of Gigastudio along with a full set of samples from Cinesamples. An interesting learning experience.... Meanwhile I continue to write for live performance, especially small Jazz ensembles (and have also done big band pieces but not recently). In fact, one of the film themes I wrote in 2013, got re-written as a smooth jazz piece. As it was a 'film noir' (sort of private detective piece), I called it "Sweat". Here is the studio version - http://www.icompositions.com/music/song.php?sid=215163 (this was my first attempt to work with Cinesamples by the way except for the sax and percussion) And here is the more recent (two thu's ago) of the two live performances of it (both different arrangements) - https://youtu.be/DvLgP91ka6k (that's me conducting though they really didn't need a conductor) So I guess I'm staying 'busy' with lots of 'interesting' experiences! :)
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Hey Nathan. I've been in the TV/advertising realm for about 5 years now. It's great, very demanding, but gets to feel monotones in some areas. I've recently made the jump in trying to narrow in my focus on film/game, so excited to see that transition come to pass.
*monotonous (had to make that edit)
2 people like this
Hi, Nathan. Networking helps me get placements. I usually look at various sites such as Stage 32, Up work, Vimeo, and even CL if I want to score shorts. Sometimes I connect with animators at a local con looking for music, or choreographer at a dance studio... Right now, my work comes from the connections I made earlier on. I just booked a feature and a writing placement because of an internship I did years ago. Work is sometimes sporadic but it's going... It can really tough trying to find solid work back to back or get a placement in the gaming industry, right now. I notice that my success comes in bursts, so to speak. You might have a great 6 months or couple of years, then it gets kind of quiet, then another burst.
1 person likes this
Cheers for responses guys. I'm a current composition student, so I don't actually have any paid work at the moment, currently just assignments or collaborations
I haven't started one yet, but my uni works with another uni who has a film writing class, and so my class writes the scores for their films
Yeah this is true! Networking is crucial
Thanks for all the comments! I didn't have any work so far, to be fair I'm quite young, so this is very helpful to me! I had a look at Star Now, CL and freelancer and also Stage32. But for now I don't feel confident enough to really take over responsibility for a project. Maybe I should just do it?
Thank you! I guess I'll try it then :)
1 person likes this
Thanks for being a star brandi
1 person likes this
Hey guys - been gone for 8 or 9 months but I'm back. Been busy both on the 'day job' (where I shoot about 20 to 25 weddings a year as a videographer) and the composing end. I have had some interesting experiences on the film end both positive and not so positive. As y'all may know, I 'draw the line' for pay at shorts which I score for free. Scored four shorts last year - one was a very long short - about 40 mins. Was on crew to shoot my first feature drama about breast cancer. The film shot last summer and then kept on delaying in post. The director kept delaying on wanting to do a contract because the whole crew except the screenwriter worked for free (they were promised money if the film earns anything, yeah right....). Eventually he asked two other composers to score scenes in the film and when I asked to spot, he just said he would give a scene and see how I did. We never made it to the money issue. The next day, I stepped off the crew. I can not score a film that way with two other composers (one was an audio engineer and the other was an r&b artist). I guess 'issues' come in bunches. Last month I was supposed to score a short for the 168 film competition in Aug. This is a four minute film for kids (pre-teens/young teens). I started with the opening 20 second scene (included the opening credits). Gave it a really cool juvenile sound (my composing instructor at school loved it). The producer nixed it. Then she suggested perhaps a high energetic opening. I suggested a contemporary Christian sound as this was a Christ-based film festival. Played her a 'sounds like' from a well known Christian group from youtube. She was OK. I did that. The director didn't like it and nixed that. He suggested a super-hero/marvel comic opening cue. So I rewrote it a third time - made it sound exactly like the track he gave me the link for. Then he said, he didn't like the arrangement and instrumentation. Three times - 20 second cue spanning 2 weeks. I never made it past the opening 20 seconds. At that point I suggested they try a different composer. The director gave me a different kid film instead. It was called "Clean Your Room". It is really cute. He left me alone and I scored it completely in just over 2 days. He loved the music and all we had to do is move the hit points in three places slightly. I actually had a great time doing a full orchestra score for the 45 seconds of end titles they gave me - straight out of the Alan Silvestri playbook! Now I am waiting for the 'speed film' - that's the one that has to be done completely from scratch in 168 hours (7 days) starting this coming Sat. Not only do I have to score, but the main character is a female rock star so I will have to write music for her to perform on screen with a Rock band (we'll record it off screen and lip sync - this will be a film first for me though I have played in a rock band myself earlier in my life). A finally there is my struggling documentarian. This is my one and only stage32 project to date. A first time film maker that is really struggling. Its about the homeless in downtown LA. He started it two years ago and I wrote some preview cues for him back then. Didn't hear from him in 2 years. Then all of a sudden he's back and wants music. But he really doesn't understand the role music plays in a documentary and he is REALLY struggling. He does not appear to have a computer and goes to the public library to get to the Internet, so today I found out when we were supposed to do a spotting session that he doesn't have the spotting sheet and does not really know where he wants the music. Neither is his film time coded and he doesn't know how to divide seconds into frames. This is going to be 'interesting'..... And in between all that in the Fall last year, I upgraded all my equipment to 32 GB of memory, mutliple 1 TB SSDs, etc. and began moving to Kontakt from 10 years of Gigastudio along with a full set of samples from Cinesamples. An interesting learning experience.... Meanwhile I continue to write for live performance, especially small Jazz ensembles (and have also done big band pieces but not recently). In fact, one of the film themes I wrote in 2013, got re-written as a smooth jazz piece. As it was a 'film noir' (sort of private detective piece), I called it "Sweat". Here is the studio version - http://www.icompositions.com/music/song.php?sid=215163 (this was my first attempt to work with Cinesamples by the way except for the sax and percussion) And here is the more recent (two thu's ago) of the two live performances of it (both different arrangements) - https://youtu.be/DvLgP91ka6k (that's me conducting though they really didn't need a conductor) So I guess I'm staying 'busy' with lots of 'interesting' experiences! :)
Awesome!! Thanks so much for that. It's really encouraging to hear all the different types of work you can get