ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

5 years, 9 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

I really feel for composers. There is *such* competition for paid film work, it's painful. I've had calls from composers agents the same day a film was announced in Variety to an unlisted number where they had to do some real work to track me down. And other films I've had composers offer their services several a week later in production. I've never advertised for a composer.

I give you this for a bit of context - so you can see how you may need to chase work rather than rely on job postings. I don't have a "right" answer for you, but encourage you to take spec composition work on short films to develop and prove your skills. I'm sure other composers will have more useful suggestions, just wanted to let you know not to take it personally if people aren't reaching out directly and that you need to do legwork! :-/

5 years, 9 months ago - Lloyd Morgan

Thanks for the reply Paddy I really appreciate your time.

I expected the film composing scene might be competitive these days, it sounds like the production library market. When I started supplying music to libraries in 2005 they would except anything, these days they are getting thousands of submissions a week and rejecting tracks left right and center.

I'm happy to write music for short films unpaid for the experience and learn new skills, I would just like to be involved in a film production as part of a creative team.

Thanks again

5 years, 9 months ago - Molly Cowderoy

Hi Lloyd, welcome to SP! Make sure you sign up to the Music Video & Film Music Bulletin which goes out twice a week, with news and jobs. https://shootingpeople.org/bulletins/ Best of luck, Molly

5 years, 9 months ago - Lloyd Morgan

Thanks Molly, that's great i've just subscribed!

5 years, 9 months ago - Richard Anthony Dunford

I've had a ton of cold emails from composers over the years. I've never personally hired any of them but some filmmakers might from that route. I've found composers from putting out job ads and once I found a really good one who I also felt is on the same wave length I pretty much use them every time now.

Worth doing some unpaid shorts to build your showreel and then just keep applying. Here and mandy are good places to look for the starting out level.

Only apply if it's actually for a composer though. I've put up job postings for other crew roles and got loads of composers apply; they might think that's showing initiative but it just puts them on the idiot list.

5 years, 9 months ago - Lloyd Morgan

Thanks Richard I really appreciate the advice, I totally agree i'm happy to work unpaid just for the experience. I can fully understand why composers do it but I didn't want to be one of those guys. I'll keep an eye out for those composer job Ad's

5 years, 9 months ago - Kays Alatrakchi

I'll tackle this one. 20+ year award-winning professional composer for studio and indie features, advertising, TV shows etc. etc. (look me up if you're curious).

About 10 years ago I dropped out of the composing race to focus on directing/producing and most importantly develop original IP that I control.

Why? Well, I saw where things were headed and I had enough of an insight to get the hell out before losing my shirt. Particularly in the past decade, I have seen the systematic crumbling of music composition as a career. Now keep in mind that I'm not in the middle-of-nowhere, I live in Los Angeles. One might also counter that perhaps I'm not particularly good as a composer, maybe I have a bad attitude, crappy to work with, maybe I smell bad...and on and on. Perhaps that might be true, but I have a very large network of fellow composers, some of which you might even have heard of, and they have all experienced the same exact decline.

Taking a small sample of my friends who were once full time composers for studio features, video games, and TV, I would say about 25% of them now rely heavily on their partner's income (and for the most part have focused on tending to their kids), about 25% of them now teach full time, another 10% have become sample developers and make a living by selling their products, 20% have side-stepped into supporting roles such as orchestrators, music editors, sound editors/mixers, one of them is now a renowned DJ, and the rest are scraping by on music library work and other odds and ends while living with roommates or with their parents.

Out of about 50+ fellow composers that I still know, there are exactly 4 who are actively working and making a living as composers -- one of them, my neighbor, composes for schlocky sci-fi movies that pay virtually nothing up front but which result in back end royalties (not sure how that will work once everything is on streaming platforms, but I'm sure he's already feeling that impact), and three of them happen to be Canadian and have been able to successfully leverage the incentive program to get work.

As others have already mentioned, as a Producer I get inundated with unsolicited e-mails from composers. I would say that compared to other skillsets/agents, composers and their agents outnumber all the other requests combined by a solid 5-to-1. I would not want to hire a single one of them and I have not heard of any other director/producer hiring from an unsolicited e-mail.

Sorry to paint a bleak picture, but it's bleak out there. And if you live in a smaller production market it's even harder.

I am not going to discuss the 'how-did-we-get-here' reasons for this situation, as I could easily write a book about it.

Rather I'll give you some practical advice:

- First of all, if you enjoy writing music, then write music. Nobody is keeping you from doing that, and you absolutely don't need some dimwit director to give you permission to do so.

- Consider writing for music libraries, but only reputable ones. BMG, Killer Tracks, Universal, Sony, etc. Stay away from fly-by-night operations or small unproven boutiques, they will not get you anywhere. Absolutely stay away from the likes of Pond5, Envato, and all those bottom-feeding one-price-fits-all WalMarts of the filmmaking world. They're great for low budget consumers, horrible for the creators. (P.S. It sounds like you already write for music libraries, so there's your music income right there)

- Don't expect that scoring a no-budget short or feature will somehow get you to where you want to be career-wise. If you're that kind of optimist you're better off buying lottery tickets. Do it because you like the project and it's a fun thing that you think you would enjoy.

- Diversify. Be an artist. Be creative. Don't limit yourself to music alone.

I think that's all I got for today. Best of luck!

5 years, 9 months ago - Lloyd Morgan

thanks for the detailed reply, I agree the music landscape has changed a lot over the last 25 years I've known it
those music libraries you mentioned are super hard to get into these days next to impossible unless you have a contact

5 years, 9 months ago - Paddy Robinson-Griffin

What an informative and generously detailed post Kays, this is what makes SP special.

5 years, 9 months ago - Tim Benjamin

Cold calling / emails are not a way to get work, as has already been said. You need to physically meet people, make friends, share a common passion, then make films together. And networking works with bigger organisations (eg places like the BBC). Composers have the special problem of not working in person for many days with the other crew, so tend to be loners somewhat, and networking opportunities are fewer.
To the person who said music libraries are hard to get in to, well yes and no. If you have a good, distinctive proposal and some fantastic demos for the proposal, it's not really hard at all, and it pays pretty well if your music is used. The key people to approach are easy to find. But that first bit (ace proposal and release-quality demos) is very hard work.
In fact it's all hard work becoming successful as a composer, and for a start you do need to be actually good (very good, and reliable, and quick, and a nice person) at writing music of some kind, that's maybe only the first 25%. There are no easy answers to this oft asked question, sorry, but the main thing is to enjoy doing it first, and not to expect a living from it for a long time, unless you are fantastically lucky as well as fantastically good. But it's not impossible, the journey is fun, and it's probably easier than becoming an astronaut!