I’m often asked how one gets work. Based on my own experience and from hearing stories from many of my colleagues and friends, I think I can unequivocally say there is a simple answer to this question: Network!
The reality is that the likelihood someone is going to see your name in the credits of a film or TV show, look you up and hire you is almost no-existent. The chance someone is going to stumble upon your website, fall in love with your music and have you score their movie is about as good as winning the lottery. This is doubly true if you’re an orchestrator or music editor or music supervisor. Before you start sighting examples of something like that happening – yes, on extremely rare occasions it has happened. But hoping someone will find you is not a strategy to building a career. If you want to build a career, you must actively build it.
People hire people they know and like. If they need to fill a position and they don’t know anyone, they ask their friends and colleagues for recommendations. Sometimes they reach out to an agent, and good agents or managers will actively seek out work on their clients’ behalf. But you may not have an agent, and even if you do, you shouldn’t rely on your agent to make things happen. You need to control your own career, and make sure people know you exist.
So how do you do that? Network! Meet as many people as you can. Meet other composers, music editors, music supervisors, directors, producers, music executives, picture editors, post-production supervisors… Develop relationships with them, stay in touch with them, check in with them occasionally. You never know when one of them will be in a position to hire you or recommend you for a job.
Go to industry events, not just music events, but other industry events, too. Last year I joined Film Independent and attended their annual Forum, which is geared entirely towards producers, directors and writers. I spent two days surrounded by filmmakers and most of the time I was the only composer there. There were hundreds of attendees, and as far as I could tell there were only 3 other composers at the event, and they weren’t there the entire time. I introduced myself to new people at every opportunity. Collected cards, handed out cards and most importantly, followed up by email with each and every person that offered me a card.
One of those meetings led to me scoring Nocturne Boy. I’m in talks to compose 3 other upcoming projects right now, all thanks to meetings at networking events. Whether or not any of these movies will materialize remains to be seen, but I’m now in the running for projects that I wouldn’t even know existed had I not gone out and networked. One of them isn’t even with the person I met, that person recommended me to someone else!
Here’s a good way to look at it. If the odds of landing a job are 1 in 100 and you only know 1 person that can drive work your way, there might be 99 projects before you actually get one. If you know 10 people that can funnel work your way, your odds are now 1 in 10, and if you know 100 people there’s a good chance you’ll find work right away. If you know 1,000 people, you’ll likely be turning down work because you’ll be too busy. Of-course real-life isn’t as clear-cut as theoretical statistics, but the underlying concept holds true. The more people you know that can send work your way, the more likely you are to build and maintain a thriving and busy career.
If you’re like me and you’re not a naturally outgoing kind of person, networking is hard. I’ll write more on that in another post…
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me, or add a comment.