Contemporary Orchestration Techniques

In my last post, I talked about some basic business ideas I thought composers should consider.  That included defining your target customer, the customer’s “pains”, your product, and your competition.  If you have not read that post, it is worth reading here.

This post is a continuation of that thought.  Here, I will discuss four mistakes commonly made by composers, along with some suggested course corrections.

(Notably, I have the most experience with aspiring film composers.  As a result, this discussion is slanted in that direction.)

1)  Greater Promotion and Sales Effort

In general, composers tend to allot an insufficient amount of time to self-promotion and sales.  This is for a variety of reasons. Most composers simply do not like sales (yours truly included). Many composers feel that writing great music means that self-promotion won’t be necessary (this is not the case). Many composers make one phone call, get a cold response from a secretary, and simply get demoralized. Others simply think one phone call per day is sufficient. Regardless, most composers would benefit from getting out of their studio and knocking on the door of a prospective client.

As a comparison, consider a typical music library (companies that license recorded music into TV shows, commercials and other multimedia). Such companies typically have no full-time composers. They’ll hire composers on a freelance basis until they have amassed a catalog of sufficient size or simply acquire another existing catalog.  On the other hand, all these companies have a significant full-time sales force, typically 1-10 employees who contact production companies and prospective licensees 40 hours a week. While the time put in by a full-time sales staff can not be directly compared to the time put in by a staple of freelance composers, we can assume that the sales effort is at least equal to that of the music production effort.  Honestly, I suspect much more time goes into the sales effort.

Similarly, a composer who spends 50% of his time composing and 50% of his time on self-promotion will likely find himself in a good position. If the ratio is 98% composing, 2% self-promotion, then some changes should be made.

2) Know Where to Look

First of all, you can meet prospective clients anywhere.  Often times, odd places (out of the office) are the best because you don’t have to get by a secretary. One individual I am currently working with was a professor of mine in business school.  I can assure you, it never occurred to him he’d have a composer in his class on film finance.  I sat next to a producer at last year’s USC-Notre Dame game.  Once I figured out she was actively making movies, I returned her Notre Dame hat (!!!), bought her a pretzel and got her card.  I met the CEO of a major music hardware company playing darts in a pub.  I’ve met many writers and directors in LA coffeehouses.  Last week, I met a director at a wine tasting at Whole Foods.

Point is…  If you are in LA, the people in the line next to you at the grocery store may be prospective clients. Talk to them.

That said, there are some standard places you can look if you ultimately want to be a film composer.

• Hollywood Creative Directory

The Hollywood Creative Directory lists contact information for every major production company, distribution company, agent, lawyer, and manager in the entertainment business. It is not free, but it is available here.

• IMDB Pro (aka Internet Movie Database)

Internet Movie Database has a free version, which tells you all kinds of things about movies. If you pay the monthly subscription (I think it’s around $9.99 per month), then the company listings include phone numbers and names.  It is available here.

• LA 411

The LA 411 lists a variety of companies involved in production and post-production. Here you can find companies that make trailers and ads, as well as companies that do audio mixing, sound effects and other post-production functions. It is available online (and free) here.

Of course, before you approach a company it’s good to know what they are working on.  You can find out who is working on what in industry trade magazines.

• The Hollywood Reporter

In addition to articles about actors and industry trends, The Hollywood Reporter lists movies that are in production and pre-production. Around LA, you can find it at magazine stands and local libraries. If you’re a subscriber, you can also access the production listings online. That is located here (scroll to the bottom for production listings).

• Variety

Variety is another industry trade magazine where you can find out who is working on what. It is available in print and online here.

In general, cold-calling companies feels like a futile waste of time.  Personally, I do not believe that it is.  I got my first job in LA by going through the LA411 (at the local library, since this was pre-Internet).  I put together a demo, cover letter and resume, picked 6 companies, and spent a day driving to each address and knocking on the door.  I ultimately got two job offers out of that one day.  Another place said, “You can come in, but we’ll only pay you in experience.” (I declined.)  Of course, that leaves three out of the six who simply shut the door in my face, but I still consider that to be a very productive day.

3) Hang Out With Potential Clients, Not Your Competition

A lot of composers hang out with their competitors and call it networking.  Hanging out with other composers is not networking, it’s hanging out with the competition.

For instance, there are often composer conventions in LA that bring together 100 or so underemployed composers. They chat with each other about how they want to write music for major movies, then listen to an impressive guest speaker.  Noone in that room is a prospective client for an unemployed composer.

If you are going to go to a convention (particularly one that is not free), then make sure the majority of the people at the convention are prospective clients rather than direct competitors.  A convention of filmmakers, broadcasters, video game producers…  Those are all great rooms to walk into.  A convention of composers is much less promising.

There are many variations of “hanging out with the competition”.

If you need to take an assistant job to pay the bills, consider being an assistant to a producer instead of an assistant to a composer.  If you have two invites to parties this Saturday night, and one is hosted by an emerging composer and one by an emerging director, go to the party hosted by the director.  If you’re dating two equally perfect individuals and one happens to work at CAA (a major Hollywood agency) and has the inside scoop on everything Hollywood, well…of course you should only marry for love.    But you get the point…

4 – Location, location, location…

I know…  In theory, you CAN work from anywhere.  Yes, your client can make their movie in LA and send it to you over the Internet.  Yes, you can then write music in your studio wherever that is.  Yes, you can then send all the music back via Internet.

But guess what?  It’s a very, very rare occurrence…

Directors and producers want to work with someone they are “comfortable” with.  That means they’re comfortable with your talent level, your professionalism and your personality.  They want to look you in the eye, size you up and shake your hand.  They want to come over to your studio, see a bunch of equipment that don’t understand, and be appropriately impressed.  If they can’t do all-of-the-above because you live on the other side of the planet, then they will not hire you in the first place.

Stated most simply, if you aspire to write music for Hollywood films, you can only create and maintain the necessary relationships in LA.

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I would like to end with a note of encouragement.  Namely, it’s hard, but it can be done…  You can go from being a complete unknown to becoming a successful Hollywood film composer.  Fairly recently, noone knew of Michael Giacchino. He’s now one of the most sought after composers in Hollywood.  (New composers do score movies much more frequently than in the past.  The ability for composers to make detailed mockups with samples has significantly reduced the risks involved with hiring an unknown composer and more producers have become willing to take the leap.)

It will be a challenging journey, and the supply of composers will always exceed the demand for composers…  But it possible to go from an unknown to a Hollywood giant and there’s absolutely no reason that the next person to accomplish that can’t be you.