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My regrets of higher education in film scoring

I'm 29 with no music degree. I moved out to LA two years ago to pursue film scoring so take what I have to say with a grain of salt...

My experience has been, if you're persistent enough and can really embrace not knowing what comes next, you can land a job writing music and getting paid for your work. The problem is, these gigs are not enough to pay the rent. So having some kind of side-hustle is important, and will keep you from burning yourself out.

In my experience, burnout is the thing you want to avoid more than anything. Even if it means you have to divide your time in a way where you're not dedicating 100% of it to music.

Unless you're one of those people who's already established yourself, this has probably been the hardest year in human history to be a composer in LA. Give yourself a break, and know that opportunities are out there for you, if you're willing to do what it takes. Compromise is part of the process sometimes.
 
I'm 29 with no music degree. I moved out to LA two years ago to pursue film scoring so take what I have to say with a grain of salt...

My experience has been, if you're persistent enough and can really embrace not knowing what comes next, you can land a job writing music and getting paid for your work. The problem is, these gigs are not enough to pay the rent. So having some kind of side-hustle is important, and will keep you from burning yourself out.

In my experience, burnout is the thing you want to avoid more than anything. Even if it means you have to divide your time in a way where you're not dedicating 100% of it to music.

Unless you're one of those people who's already established yourself, this has probably been the hardest year in human history to be a composer in LA. Give yourself a break, and know that opportunities are out there for you, if you're willing to do what it takes. Compromise is part of the process sometimes.
Getting hired as a composer and still not making the rent and expenses means you are not getting major projects from major studios, which are extremely difficult to get. This is why building a career as a film and tv composer is almost impossible to achieve as one has to be absurdly lucky for those breaks to play out. Getting paid chump change to be a composer usually leads to nothing when one is building your career. This is not a knock on you at all, it just shows how hard this biz is to establish oneself. This is not just about 2020, its always been like this for composers who want to build real careers in the industry. Unless one gets preposterously lucky, which none of us control, the odds are one cannot pursue this biz for very long if you need to pay bills.
 
You make a valid point - Film Composition requires project management skills. Project Managers are always in demand. The job is flexible and one can earn a decent living income. It beats working in a low paid, soul destroying dead-end job that leaves you little time to work on your music. For anyone interested, a good place to start is the Project Management Institute's website: www.pmi.org - There is lots of free useful info and a free Introduction to Project Management course.

Keep working on your music and making contacts. Good things will come.
I am a project manager in a large tech company who wants to be a film composer someday. I have worked on two volunteer 48 hour film projects in Seattle and have found a way to contribute to the overall production as a project manager as well as composer. I have found that helping out in any way I can through pre-production planning that comes naturally to me has enabled me to learn a lot about film production and develop relationships that may or may not turn into something else in the future. One thing I know for sure - it has been a ton of fun learning how all of this works and getting a few composer credits along the way.
 
I recently participated in a podcast where we discussed a lot of issues around starting out in the industry and expectations versus reality. Some folks may find it helpful. I posted about it on the forum HERE.
 
I am a project manager in a large tech company who wants to be a film composer someday. I have worked on two volunteer 48 hour film projects in Seattle and have found a way to contribute to the overall production as a project manager as well as composer. I have found that helping out in any way I can through pre-production planning that comes naturally to me has enabled me to learn a lot about film production and develop relationships that may or may not turn into something else in the future. One thing I know for sure - it has been a ton of fun learning how all of this works and getting a few composer credits along the way.
The people who succeed as film composers are mostly lucky so this is not a career one can pursue with any kind of certainty or structure. One needs to be primarily lucky to succeed in this biz and if this is a career you must pursue be prepared to lose everything to pursue it and you still may never succeed in this biz. Succeeding in this biz is not about talent, charisma, persistence, determination or hard work. One must be preposterously lucky more than anything else. It's a given that one has talent, is determined and will work very long hours, but those traits have nothing to do with success.
 
The people who succeed as film composers are mostly lucky so this is not a career one can pursue with any kind of certainty or structure. One needs to be primarily lucky to succeed in this biz and if this is a career you must pursue be prepared to lose everything to pursue it and you still may never succeed in this biz. Succeeding in this biz is not about talent, charisma, persistence, determination or hard work. One must be preposterously lucky more than anything else. It's a given that one has talent, is determined and will work very long hours, but those traits have nothing to do with success.
Some of it is about talent, though.
 
Luck might get you in the door, but it’s talent, communication skills and work ethic that will keep you there.
Agreed. Partially you can make your own luck, by actually being good at the job, and having skills. The number of people who moan about "not being to get into films" and it turns out that they not only can't play an instrument, but can't even read music. Sure, there are people who became successful whilst being able to do neither, but they are the exceptions. The number of people who don't have those skills who also didn't become successful is huge. By having skills, you make yourself employable, which can get you a foot into the door of the profession. Once you are part of the profession, it is much easier to "meet people" and make your own luck.
 
The people who succeed as film composers are mostly lucky so this is not a career one can pursue with any kind of certainty or structure. One needs to be primarily lucky to succeed in this biz and if this is a career you must pursue be prepared to lose everything to pursue it and you still may never succeed in this biz. Succeeding in this biz is not about talent, charisma, persistence, determination or hard work. One must be preposterously lucky more than anything else. It's a given that one has talent, is determined and will work very long hours, but those traits have nothing to do with success.
I don't know anybody who was talented, had charisma, persistence, determination, worked hard and didn't make it.
 
Haven’t read any of the posts except for the first. Never regret your education man. It’s a journey. Tell me you didn’t gain something life sustaining from it. Met some good people maybe? Learned and shared from their life experiences which made yours something better?
 
I do, but most of the people I know who didn't make it had few skills and often were lazy.
Some people decide to do something else, realize it's not for them, but are they persistent in this case? Not saying they are wrong by the way, it's nor a career for everybody... actually I would say it's not a career for most people, but if they really want to do it and are persistent, then they probably won't give up easily.
 
Cool to see this thread alive and kicking!
Things have turned for the better which i'm thankful for. Money is atleast not an issue right now.
Im busy, but still not happy with my success within the film/game scoring world. Was some years since I last worked on a feature. Been mostly commercials for me as of late.

But thanks for the support yet again!
 
I don't know anybody who was talented, had charisma, persistence, determination, worked hard and didn't make it.
You just are not aware of the vast multitude of talented composers that will never make it no matter what they do and how hard they try. Talent doesn't rise to the top, that's complete bullshit. The most successful are the most lucky, that's all. Some of them like John Williams are incredibly talented, but many are not nearly as talented and just got lucky. And even John Williams, as brilliant as he is and as much as I adore his scores, is notorious for ripping off the classical catalogue more than most. This is true in most industries, not just the film biz. There are endless numbers of talented people that never make it no matter how hard they try in every industry in the world, that's life. You don't have to agree with me, but when you've been around long enough you will find this is an axiom of truth.
 
Luck might get you in the door, but it’s talent, communication skills and work ethic that will keep you there.
It's a given that a film composer has to have talent and work very hard in this biz to get the job done, but there are an enormous amount of film composers that will never make it if they don't have luck on their shoulder in the most significant way because not only is it fairly impossible to get the gig, its very hard to get the gig over and over and over again no matter how talented one is. You have to hope that an A-list director only wants to work with you over and over again to be able to carve out a significant career in this biz.
 
is notorious for ripping off the classical catalogue more than most.
...only among those who take the most cursory glance at this stuff and come to the most cursory conclusions. Most of the typical examples of this people cite in his music are pretty tenuous.
 
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