scoring for film... courses?

[Rubens]

Any advice about courses, (online or not) for scoring music for film, more oriented towards art films? Or maybe you don't believe in such a thing?
I am a composer, contemporary music (classical), and want to enter this area too if it's possible... But how? I mean, which knowledge, besides technological software, I do need to have to approach this subject?
Don't believe that I will have desire to be a complete film composer like being able to work with thrillers or action movies, but some oriented art movies...

[FMiguelez]

Berklee College of Music has an awesome Film Scoring department.

You can go to Boston, or you can check out their online courses. I hear they are very good.

[Kubi]

Where are you located? Lots of good programs - Berklee film scoring dept. that Fernando mentioned is led by my pal George S Clinton, located in Boston. Columbia College in Chicago has a great graduate only program, led by my former mentor and dear friend David McHugh (and for what it's worth, I mostly work in art films). USC here in LA is another famous program with a great history. Not sure who's teaching there now. If you look for just a course or two for some basic info, UCLA Extension in LA offers a few that are not complete college programs, taught by some really good folks. And there's tons more, I'm sure a few in NYC, just don't know them.

Get a head start by reading Jeff Rona's great book, The Reel World

[ironchef_marc]

Another great book is Richard Bellis's "The Emerging Film Composer"
More practical side of the business.

http://www.amazon.com/Emerging-Film-Com ... 930&sr=8-1

[mikehalloran]

A good reference that covers the business side is this one:

All You Need to Know About the Music Business: Eighth Edition Hardcover by Donald S. Passman
http://www.amazon.com/Need-Know-About-M ... 1451682468

[HarmonicMotion]

Being someone who went to Berklee, I can safely say the program is great, but at this school 100% of what you get from it comes from what you do while you are there. They have an overwhelmingly large amount of elective credits and courses in very specific industry topics with teachers who actually score films and commercials. To give you an idea, in one elective you score an extremely low budget independent film from actual directors, while in an other you learn about making Orchestral Sample libraries sound as realistic as they can. The nice thing is there are 11 or some odd other majors which are all music industry related and almost all of there courses and electives are open to every major. There are of course the gold series of classes you have to take for the major where you analyze popular film scores, re-score scenes from A list hollywood movie's and use there film scoring studios to find performance majors at the school to conduct to videos the way it's done in the industry (if your lucky enough).

They also have a required software bundle (which is a money saver) for Vienna Ensemble and the extended instruments bundle and I believe the regular Komplete. This will be enough to get started technology wise, though to be competitive you will need a lot more than this.

They've also got just about every single solo instrument writing class from writing for woodwinds, to completely synth based classes.

What I have learned from graduating though is that basically every program teaches the same information. Berklee's program will get you about 90% of the way there on the collaborating with film people and knowledge of how to handle the beast of 75 + minutes of music for dramatic film. In terms of the technology, I feel some other schools may actually use more modern sample libraries than Berklee does. If the bundle was the Cinesamples orchestral bundle instead it would be the perfect school

Hope that helps give you some insider insight.

[ironchef_marc]

Being a film composer is as much about networking, building relationships with directors and offering a fun collaborative experience as it is about writing music and understanding film. Sadly no school seem to realize that part is essential and give it the proper attention.

There is a ton of talented skilled composers out there with the latest samples and plugins yet they can't find gigs...

[HarmonicMotion]

Being a film composer is as much about networking, building relationships with directors and offering a fun collaborative experience as it is about writing music and understanding film. Sadly no school seem to realize that part is essential and give it the proper attention.

There is a ton of talented skilled composers out there with the latest samples and plugins yet they can't find gigs...

I'd have to agree with this. I've now replaced two composers on features because they told the director something that they wanted was impossible. I'm too young to say this is a certain thing, but you should NEVER say something is impossible. If that's what the director wants, that's what they are going to get, whether it's with you or not. The other half of it as you mentioned is the sweetening... Making things fun, telling the director they have the best film on the face of the earth... etc.

These are all things that teachers at Berklee may have said, but they weren't a specific subject unfortunately. It's a tough thing to teach because every director/producer is going to be different, and every project is going to require a different set of "people skills". What the schools try to do is get you ready with the tools to move on and learn this part for yourself... it's not the schools fault that there are tons of talented composers that want to do film.

To be honest, I learned most of my people skills from working in customer service for years... not as glamorous as a classroom, but far more practical.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

The other half of it as you mentioned is the sweetening... Making things fun, telling the director they have the best film on the face of the earth... etc.

I've not posted several responses in this thread until now. First off, I didn't go to any college for music or anything else. My only qualification for commenting on such is 14 years experience teaching music in one (UCSB) and that was for dance and theater, although I did score a fair number of films during that time as well.

Anyway, that said - scoring for film is not any different than scoring for theater, or dance, or any other collaborative art form. Concert works are a different beast, IMO, but not by much. They all deal with storytelling in one way or another.

You can choose collaborators who are dictatorial and tell you what they want, or you can choose collaborators who will listen to your perspective on the narrative at hand. Personally, I detest tyrant directors. OTOH, I love harsh critical minds that not only know that something doesn't work, but why it doesn't work and can convince other collaborators that they way is the most effective perspective to take.

That can be a very fine line, and it is easy to cross over into anger in defending one's perspective (whether it be the director or the composer). This is often the fatal mistake - taking stuff personally. True, there is one director and his word is final. If he is also the producer, even better, but there needs to be ONE voice at the helm making the final decisions and yes, you defer to the director in the end.

Then again, blowing sunshine up his skirt by " telling the director they have the best film on the face of the earth... etc." is also a pitfall to avoid. If you need to coddle the SOB then you're not collaborating, your babysitting and ultimately wasting your time as far as I am concerned. Of course, the more money it pays the more one is inclined to accept a lot of BS from collaborators. I totally get that! But that doesn't mean you have to flatter them.

Honest collaboration should be as open and giving a space as possible. An "arena for creativity" as one of my favorite directors says. It is rare air, for sure. So much about "the biz" is about egos and positioning and power. For myself, I choose a slightly different path from the mainstream for just that reason.

One more thing... ownership. Dumb composers sell out their rights. Smart composers license their music. Do the freakin' legal research on copyrights and don't be an ass when it comes to music cue sheets for the PRO. It can (and will) make the difference between making money and not - assuming your work is distributed (hopefully on the TV machine).

[HarmonicMotion]

Then again, blowing sunshine up his skirt by " telling the director they have the best film on the face of the earth... etc." is also a pitfall to avoid. If you need to coddle the SOB then you're not collaborating, your babysitting and ultimately wasting your time as far as I am concerned.

I can't see this being a pitfall or a waste of time if you both finish a movie, you leave a good taste in the directors mouth, and get asked back for further films or projects. If you have the luxury of working with the directors or collaborators you want to and can still make money and survive then more power to you. Someone who is just starting out however does not have this luxury of being picky. If you do, then you've fallen into a non-existant world of collaboration where someone somehow without you having any credit or good words from directors found you and decided to give you a bucket of cash. We all need to make a living, and if you want to do it film scoring you must start somewhere. Flattering directors has only gotten me gigs on better and better films. It's sweetening, not babysitting.

Either way this was questioning school and programs, and as I stated before, schools are great for getting you a set of tools that you can go out into the real world with. Being a teacher, you should absolutely believe in that.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

I'm all for education and training - for sure. I don't believe, however, that telling someone they have a good film when you know it's not true is being particularly honest. It's not dishonest to keep your mouth shut (it's another golden rule, IMO, especially when the product sucks).

It's never been just about making money for me. I do what I love. If I make money, great. If not, I'd rather be poorer but left with my integrity intact. My aesthetic is simple: I'm a composer and can work in many areas to stay solvent. Limiting one's aspirations to "just" film is limiting on too many levels for my creative abilities. I can take 'em or leave 'em, but I gotta like the project or I'm the one to say no.

Early in your career: TAKE WHATEVER JOBS YOU CAN GET! Period!

[FMiguelez]

I can take 'em or leave 'em, but I gotta like the project or I'm the one to say no.

Early in your career: TAKE WHATEVER JOBS YOU CAN GET! Period!

...And, as you advance in your career, you can enforce the pick-two-out-of-3 item rule you've shared with us many times...

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Well, I've eliminated "cheap" from the list. It takes too long or comes out like crap. Total waste of time, IMO (except when you're starting out). Now I only work good and fast. As long as one is diverse in one's interests and skills, making money is never a problem. It's when you pigeon hole yourself into a single genre that is dangerous. Educating composers is about nurturing creativity. The technical stuff one can acquire along the way. Then again, I'm self taught and while I am happy to have taught at a university for a decent amount of time, I am also quite thankful I never attended one as a student.

[FMiguelez]

Then again, I'm self taught and while I am happy to have taught at a university for a decent amount of time, I am also quite thankful I never attended one as a student.

Interesting.

Why, Mike? How do you think it would have changed your approach to creativity and composing? Do you think it would've been to your detriment?

[MIDI Life Crisis]

Why, Mike? How do you think it would have changed your approach to creativity and composing? Do you think it would've been to your detriment?

That's kind of a trick question - and I don't want this to turn into a thread about me. To capsulize - I was offered several extraordinary opportunities to conduct, compose, and perform right out of high school in the early 1970s and lucky to be living in the NYC area, so I managed to snag a couple of really nice positions in several good places. That period would have been while I would have otherwise been in college and had I gone (I was accepted to Berkley in Boston) I would have likely not have gotten the experience & connections and certainly would not have worked with Martha Graham for as long as I did, and probably not at all. That was an advanced course in collaborations if ever there was one.

What pianistic training I did get was from a few respected university professors, but privately. Everything else I learned from books (just like at college) except piano tuning (which I apprenticed for about 3 months).

Given that perspective, I was in a much better position than someone just coming out of music school. I had a network (which lead to the U. gig) and I was experienced in theater and dance. And then I had piano tuning to "fall back" on (and i have many times in the past - but not recently, thank goodness!)

Film was alien to me and I never pursued it. It pursued me and continues to.

I suppose if I had to do it as a younger man today, I might go the college route. Still, I am a terrible student. Brash. Outspoken. Challenging. Skeptical. (just like my contributions on this forum... LOL). I'd be banished from most programs, I suspect.

What I've found interesting over the years is that more than a few graduated composers (or in the midst of their academic careers) have come to me for advice on business matters and confess that either they were never taught that in school, or were given such drastically inept business advice that the result would have been a catastrophic error on their part (usually that you can do a buyout for $1,000 or less or some similar such non-sense that most of us would find insulting). The business end of music is a critical component to a successful career. Unfortunately many of the folks who teach in higher education are either inept at it or don't really share the facts to those who may be their competition in the near future.

There is a bottom line: Do what you love and the money will follow. I know of no other way of dealing with the reality of my calling as a composer. Opportunities for experience and advancement still exist for fledgling composers. College is a path and not a bad one. Still, its a big world out there and many roads can lead you to a place you want to be. College is just one of them.