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I'm offering free mixes to build my portfolio

P

Philip Vasta

Member
Hi everyone,

I need a bit of help, and my hope is that it can be mutually beneficial.

I'm trying to put together a portfolio of mixes I've done for my website, and maybe build some relationships. My short-term goal is to be able to get just a couple small projects a year that pay something, but without a portfolio I have no clients, and without clients I have no portfolio...

With that in mind, I'm offering to do some work at no cost. If you know someone who is interested in a free mix, please let them know. I like to think that I do good work and that this is a pretty good deal. For what it's worth, I graduated from Berklee's in-person music production program about a decade ago and have been working on personal music projects in the years since.

Thanks so much everyone, I really do appreciate the help!


Email: [email protected]
Website: www.philvasta.com
Click to read more...
 
Philip Vasta said:
Hi everyone,

I need a bit of help, and my hope is that it can be mutually beneficial.

I'm trying to put together a portfolio of mixes I've done for my website, and maybe build some relationships. My short-term goal is to be able to get just a couple small projects a year that pay something, but without a portfolio I have no clients, and without clients I have no portfolio...

With that in mind, I'm offering to do some work at no cost. If you know someone who is interested in a free mix, please let them know. I like to think that I do good work and that this is a pretty good deal. For what it's worth, I graduated from Berklee's in-person music production program about a decade ago and have been working on personal music projects in the years since.

Thanks so much everyone, I really do appreciate the help!


Email: [email protected]
Website: www.philvasta.com
Click to expand...
Nice looking site... Do you dable with film music mixes ?
 
Philip Vasta said:
Hi everyone,

I need a bit of help, and my hope is that it can be mutually beneficial.

I'm trying to put together a portfolio of mixes I've done for my website, and maybe build some relationships. My short-term goal is to be able to get just a couple small projects a year that pay something, but without a portfolio I have no clients, and without clients I have no portfolio...

With that in mind, I'm offering to do some work at no cost. If you know someone who is interested in a free mix, please let them know. I like to think that I do good work and that this is a pretty good deal. For what it's worth, I graduated from Berklee's in-person music production program about a decade ago and have been working on personal music projects in the years since.

Thanks so much everyone, I really do appreciate the help!


Email: [email protected]
Website: www.philvasta.com
Click to expand...
I hope this works out for you and gets you a few good clients/ composers. I tried this a few years back, and even though I have 20+ years mixing films and TV, there was no response, even after bumping a few weeks.

Perhaps I should try again, so let us know how it goes, but vicontrol really disappointed when it came to composers offering up tracks to mix. Perhaps it’s just difficult for most to send out tracks unless they have a film deadline looming, and then they have a budget and/or mix engineer already mixing the film.

I actually had to start writing my own tracks to have more music to mix. Most of my film mixing has been final mix where I do sound design, but the music was already done and mixed during the editing phase… much more common nowadays.
 
kurtvanzo said:
I hope this works out for you and gets you a few good clients/ composers. I tried this a few years back, and even though I have 20+ years mixing films and TV, there was no response, even after bumping a few weeks.

Perhaps I should try again, so let us know how it goes, but vicontrol really disappointed when it came to composers offering up tracks to mix. Perhaps it’s just difficult for most to send out tracks unless they have a film deadline looming, and then they have a budget and/or mix engineer already mixing the film.

I actually had to start writing my own tracks to have more music to mix. Most of my film mixing has been final mix where I do sound design, but the music was already done and mixed during the editing phase… much more common nowadays.
Click to expand...

Thanks Kurt, I hope so too. Yeah, I’ll admit that I was initially surprised there weren’t more people interested. Even my efforts with musicians I know personally haven’t really gone anywhere. I suspect that a dedicated mixing phase just isn’t that valuable to people who are hobbyists or otherwise less established. Those people are either a) doing it on their own, with perfectly acceptable results or b) not actually recording much of anything anyway. I would bet that many people on the VI Control forums fall into those categories, especially the first one.
 
I think a couple of things play into this. There is no such thing as a free meal, and so sending your tracks out on the internet, not really knowing if a person can be trusted or not, to not steal your music is a big one. Making it clear what each party gains from collaborating makes this less scary.

Another factor is: If you wont pay for mixing services now, would you as a composer do it in the future. If not then you are shooting yourself in the foot by not learning it from the get go?

For me personally it comes down to: I have x skill, you have y skill. Want to team up so we can both learn from this? Maybe it works out and you become the next Zimmer/Meyerson combo or maybe it doesnt and you both move on with your lives having gained some experience. Also its nice to talk to other people :)
 
JCarlsen said:
I think a couple of things play into this. There is no such thing as a free meal, and so sending your tracks out on the internet, not really knowing if a person can be trusted or not, to not steal your music is a big one. Making it clear what each party gains from collaborating makes this less scary.

Another factor is: If you wont pay for mixing services now, would you as a composer do it in the future. If not then you are shooting yourself in the foot by not learning it from the get go?

For me personally it comes down to: I have x skill, you have y skill. Want to team up so we can both learn from this? Maybe it works out and you become the next Zimmer/Meyerson combo or maybe it doesnt and you both move on with your lives having gained some experience. Also its nice to talk to other people :)
Click to expand...
There are free meals. I take lunch meetings with producers and directors who pick up the tab then thier project falls through…. Free meal!

But seriously, finding someone to collaborate with can be worth it to donate a mix. The bigger problem is they assume you are an ametuer otherwise you would charge top rate, so they never contact you in the first place to find out. So you should charge sme minimum once you have a real. I mix many short films where the director is shocked that it sounds so good “you‘re an artist!” Even though I’m working at a low flat rate. But it doesn’t guarantee they will ever get financing for another project.

But I do it at a low rate because that’s all they can afford, and if they get a feature I’d like a shot at it. Truth is only 1 in 1000 get a feature, 1 in 20 come back with another short, the other 19 never make another film. Getting financing, even for a low budget short, is tough to get. But I have had a few directors come back repeatedly with shorts. Usually with a $500 minimum to $2500 max for a mix (sometimes with sound design).

Also it doesn’t have to get to a Zimmer level. There are enough features done at a lower level that can have a decent budget. The real problem for mixers AND composers is the executive producers who decide they have to use one of the 20 top people in the field or it will lose money or worse yet “not be professional”. Many in the film world (execs, producers, directors, and YES composers) feel that if they don’t get the best of the best something will go horribly wrong. Then once the decision is made (it HAS to be Meyer!) they never think about it again. Hollywood is very strange that way.

The best bet for a composer or mixer is to build a relationship with a producer or director that will fight for them. This takes time and a lot of projects together. If that means doing shorts for free, or cheap, so be it. The mnimum cost of making films nowadays just makes it difficult.
 
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