Episode 07: Looking For Work

In this podcast episode, Karl Irwin discusses different ways for amateur and hobbyist film score composers to find projects to work on. He suggests making your own short film using your own footage or royalty-free footage, collaborating with friends to create a film project, and frequenting online forums related to filmmaking. He also recommends reaching out to colleges and universities with film and animation programs and offering your services as a composer. Overall, he emphasizes the importance of being proactive and seeking out opportunities to showcase your skills as a film score composer. Hello, I'm Karl Irwin, and this is Spotting Cues, a podcast for the amateur and hobbyist film score composer. On a previous episode, we were looking at various resources that you might need to actually do film score work, and subsequently we've been looking at a couple of different types of music that is required for a film. We've discussed very briefly a theory of film music, which is something we will investigate more in the future. And then in the last episode, we were looking at how to practice, how to practice film scoring, and where to get materials to do that in terms of footage, and actually, frankly, the point that you don't necessarily need to score to film to practice film scoring. Much of what you need to do in writing music for film is really just writing music, and there's a lot that can be practiced even apart from picture. However, part of that discussion was about where to find footage, and this leads to another question which may seem like a question that should have been the first episode. However, it wasn't the first episode because the assumption is that if you're listening to this podcast, you probably already do a little bit of film scoring anyway. However, assuming that there may be some there out there that do not, are just thinking about getting into this or have an interest in the topic but haven't really done any work yet, this episode is going to be devoted to getting work, getting projects, actually getting some real projects to do real work on. And I begin the conversation here with a bit of a segue from the previous episode. I want to remind you that when it comes to scoring for picture, anybody can be a filmmaker. Anybody can be a composer, for that matter, but anybody can be a filmmaker, and as we discussed with practicing film scoring, you can make a movie. There's nothing prohibiting you from creating a short film. It could be a montage of just still images, pictures, photographs with transitions, or it could be a montage of clips of film that you shoot. If you shoot, like, nature footage, go out into the surrounding area where you live, you can shoot nature footage or you can shoot footage of public spaces and create a montage in that way. And you can be very creative with your subject matter. It can be really related to just about anything. You could take out elements from your kitchen, various pieces of diningware, and set them out on your table, your dining room table, and you can do an animation in that way. It could be just still photographs in a montage or a stop motion or anything. I mean, there's so much you can do in terms of making a film that requires a little bit of work in and of itself, but I want to start with that. You can get a project just by making a film, again, using your own footage or royalty-free footage, stock footage. Pixabay is a really great place to get free royalty-free footage and images. You could do that. Sequence together a couple-minute-long montage and then write some music to that, and, you know, put titles on it, properly credit it. You can post that, and it's a short film, and you're the filmmaker and the composer. And so I do want to mention that, that that is a possibility in terms of doing legitimate work. You can be the whole thing. You can be the whole show if you want to. A lot of people do enjoy that, especially if you're into photography or videography. The second one that I want to point out, the second method to get work is similar to this, and that is to get a crew. So if you have some friends that are interested in film, maybe they do some film or are interested in doing a film, you can collaborate, get together, create something, and then you have a project for which you can do sound design and music. You know, you can work together. Some film festivals actually that cater to this kind of model, like the 48-hour film festival. I have some friends who have done that religiously for quite a while. I've never been involved in it, but they've done it, and then, you know, they'll travel all over the country to do that. There's other festivals like that. You can look them up online and find such an entry where you could get a group together and create a simple short film. It could be an animation or live action, and then you can, of course, write music to that. I would also point out that you don't necessarily have to have a festival to do such work. You can really just do it on your own with a group of people that might be interested in making a film, and make one. This seems like it might be far-fetched, but actually, when you look at young composers or new composers that are writing film music very early in a sort of career of film music, a lot of them really work this way. They just get attached to a group of filmmakers, a crew, and they're part of the crew, and that's very common. You can look at, you know, even YouTube channels and online channels devoted to the process of teaching filmmaking, and a lot of the short films that they come up with, it's people that are relatives, you know, that are writing the music. It's a brother, you know, or a cousin or a good friend, and they work together as a team. So that is a possibility as well. Going on from there, another option would be, and this is probably not going to yield results very quickly, so I will caution you on that, but you can frequent the online forums, and I know some of you listening to this probably have done that and have come up short, and again, I don't know that that's a very stable and surefire way to get any kind of work, but you can frequent the online forums that are devoted to the subject. Now what I would recommend, though, just as a theory, it's not something that I do, but I would recommend this as theoretically, you might be more interested in looking at the forums that are related to filmmaking rather than the forums that are related to film music. When you go to a forum where there is film music as the topic, everybody's looking for the same thing, and there's no clients, you know, it's just people really talking to each other about their desire to do work, but you won't necessarily have filmmakers coming to those places, those virtual spaces, to find people to do their movies. So I would recommend that you actually go to forums that are related to filmmaking and animation, and I theorize this because of the next topic that I'm going to discuss, but I do want to pitch that out there. If you are going to look online to try to solicit some work, go to the filmmaking blogs, go to the filmmaking forums, go to the filmmaking websites. Avoid the music ones, avoid the film music locations, unless you're there to talk shop with other musicians. If you're looking for work, go where the work is at, and it's going to be with people that are actually making movies, and that's where you'll find it. This is the same for games as well. I'm not a game music composer, it's not something I've really spent any time on. I've done a few layered tracks, stems, that I've put up on like Pond5 that, you know, technically could be game music or would be available for game music, but I've not done game music personally, but that is an avenue. If this is an interest of yours and you really just want to write music for a media project, another option is to go to the game forums and the gaming websites and the places where people are designing the animation, specifically 3D animation websites, where there might be sub-forums that are based on game logic and creating video games, so that's another option as well. Now, I said that this logic comes from an experience, and here's the next one. And I actually believe that most anybody who can write music, you know, good music, decent music, music that is, you know, would be acceptable to a client, will find work if you look at the college and university level. So this is really where I spend most of my time. If you submit a small portfolio, just a few examples of your work, just audio clips, not even really video, and you submit this to a nearby, or it doesn't even have to be nearby because so much can be done online these days, but submit a pitch to a school of film and animation. One of the, there's many of them out there, personally I live in western New York, I live very close to Rochester, New York, I do a lot of, I've been doing film score, scoring for students at the Rochester Institute of Technology School of Film and Animation. For the past 20 years I've done projects on and off there. In addition to projects for friends that I know and some, you know, close associates that I know that are filmmakers I've done work for, and even some of my own, you know, short films I've done, just when things are kind of dry or I want to do something specific, I've dabbled in animation myself and I've done a little bit of that work. So I've done kind of all of these except for, you know, the forum kind of route. But yeah, school of film and animation, go to a college university website, find out who's the chairperson of the school of film, send them an email, you know, explain who you are, very short, keep it simple, I'm so and so, I'm a composer, these are a couple of examples of music. You can send them a link to maybe a SoundCloud or Bandcamp site if you have it, or if you have stuff published I always send them links to Spotify of some of my music. And I have found that usually department chairs are very quick to send your information out to the student body because students are always looking for music. They're always looking for custom music, music to be written for their film. They don't really want to have to depend on stock audio. They want to have something that's written specifically for them. And if you're like me and you have a career in another field and you have a, you know, make a good living and you don't really cost anything, this is really a hobby kind of venture and you have a skill set, they'll want you. They're going to want you over the person they have to pay that's trying to make a career out of it. And I don't mean that really to devalue those that are out there trying to work out a career in film music. I'm just explaining the reality of the situation when you're looking at student films. They don't have money. They don't have really funds to pay for anybody. They really want people that are skilled that they can get for nothing. And you know, I'm that kind of a person and I'm assuming many of you may well be as well if you're on a, listening to a podcast that is geared toward the hobbyist and amateur film score composer. So School of Film and Animation, that is, I think, the number one ticket. If you really want to get work and you want to get work quickly, early on, before fall semester, send in your material, short email, a couple of examples. If you have a website, send them that. Or further listening, you can send them a playlist. And you'll be surprised how quickly you get responses. The one thing I will say about all of these ideas is make sure that you're upfront and honest about your skill set and your capability. This goes back to the practicing side. Make sure you practice all the things that you would be required to do. If you want to be able to say that you can score to picture, make sure you're practicing the timing elements of scoring to picture so that you can make a legitimate claim to that skill. Make sure that, you know, you can work within a time frame that is acceptable. Make sure you don't take on too much. I find that often whenever I pitch year to year at a school of film, I usually get a lot of people asking for work. And I have to only take, you know, a few projects. And I usually take the first ones that are acceptable to come to my plate. I'll take them on. But I want to make sure, and you want to make sure, that you're telling people about your skill sets and you're telling them the truth. You do not want to leave some student filmmaker stuck, unable to get their film finished the way they want to because you oversold yourself. So make sure that you're upfront and honest about your capabilities and what styles you are comfortable with. So that's that. The last example, the last route that I would suggest, and this is not really in tune with this podcast because this podcast is for the hobbyist and the amateur, but that is to just go the professional route. Now I'll be honest with you. As I examine other professionals out there that are doing this for a living, many of them, if not most of them, started by becoming attached to a media group, meaning that they're working for another composer and they're doing subordinate tasks. They might be doing a little bit of transcription. They might be doing some orchestration. They might just be a copyist. They might just be doing technical services. Even though they're a musician, they might just be doing mixing and mastering services or even just file copying and transfer to get started. And then over time, they work up through the chain until a point where they actually pick up a project of their own as part of a media group. And then they go on from there to have their own business and their own work after they've made some connections. Really doing the good work at the highest level is going to require having connections. So I would recommend that this is one of the routes that is probably the most frequent and the most common for professionals is to get involved in some other media group at a subordinate level, then work your way up. However, I'll say, these other routes that I've talked about are equally as likely to get you legitimate work down the road that is paying. If you get attached with a young filmmaker, you know, at college or university, and they go on and they're successful at what they do, well, you have an in. You have a relationship that can continue. And I've done some of that. I've worked with some student filmmakers that went on to, you know, create a number of films and I was able to write for them even outside of the collegiate university environment. And you know, that will go on for a few years. You'll be able to do some work in that way. So I do recommend that you create some connections. My number one recommendation for the hobbyists and amateurs to go through the School of Film and Animation route. Put your information out there, contact a department chair somewhere, and see if they can pass your information along to the student body and to the advisors at the school. So with that, those are my recommendations. On upcoming podcast episodes, we will be looking again at some more technical issues. I want to spend some time looking at timing, scoring to picture and some of the methods that are involved in doing that. I also want to take some time down the road to circle back to a theory of film music and discuss some of those matters a little bit further, because I think that can be very beneficial in helping one to formulate the music that they're writing and understand the function of the music that they're writing and how it is supposed to be used and what types of music can best be used in certain situations. So these are plans looking ahead. Also want to remind you that I have an account, Spotting Cues, on X, formerly known as Twitter. So at least log in to X and subscribe and make sure that you send me any recommendations or ideas that you might have, subjects that you might want me to cover. There's something about this craft that you have wanted an answer to. I'll do my best to give you my answer to it. And again, these are my answers. This is all my opinion and my experience based on the time that I've been doing this kind of amateur and hobbyist work in film music. So, with that, I wish you the best of luck and happy composing.