# How Much Money Does the Average Film Scorer Make?



## bachader (Feb 12, 2019)

The figures given in the link below (both 2 million and 50K a year) do not seem convincing to me. Maybe someone could present more plausible rates.

https://work.chron.com/much-money-average-film-scorer-make-15385.html


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## Desire Inspires (Feb 12, 2019)

The article said “The reality is that your first film score will very likely pay less than $5,000. Many composers have done their first score without any pay at all, simply for the credit and the modest amount of revenue that may eventually come from BMI or ASCAP royalties.”

So yeah, that sounds about right.


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## bachader (Feb 12, 2019)

Isn't 50K/yr too low considering the technology investment required, hardware, software, samples, let alone the day and night hard work and tight schedules?


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## Desire Inspires (Feb 12, 2019)

bachader said:


> Isn't 50K/yr too low considering the technology investment required, hardware, software, samples, let alone the day and night hard work and tight schedules?



No, not at all.


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## Studio E (Feb 12, 2019)

bachader said:


> Isn't 50K/yr too low considering the technology investment required, hardware, software, samples, let alone the day and night hard work and tight schedules?


Sadly yes, it is too low. Honestly, depending on your location, it's too low for any skilled labor, but we don't really value human grist for the mill in this country. It may very well be accurate, and where the industry is at, but you are correct in saying too low. Most people scoring films on a regular basis with their home studios probably have that much invested in equipment and software, and many have invested a LOT more.


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## X-Bassist (Feb 12, 2019)

bachader said:


> The figures given in the link below (both 2 million and 50K a year) do not seem convincing to me. Maybe someone could present more plausible rates.
> 
> https://work.chron.com/much-money-average-film-scorer-make-15385.html



Best quote of the article, after 30 years in post production, this is true of sound design, mixing, and composing:

“In all cases, your job is to figure out the score that benefits the film most that your client will acceptand then find a way to sell that score to your clients. You can follow all the instructions in the world, but if the score doesn't work – doesn't add drama, emphasis, impact and depth to the film – your score is probably going to get replaced anyway. Conversely, you can write a beautiful score that generously benefits the film, but if your director and/or producer doesn't get it, the score will never be heard in a theater.”

So true. Sometimes it’s an easy sell, other times it’s changing direction. But as long as your flexible and open to new ideas, usually you can work something out. Then there was that one time...


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## erica-grace (Feb 12, 2019)

bachader said:


> Isn't 50K/yr too low considering the technology investment required, hardware, software, samples, let alone the day and night hard work and tight schedules?



Not necessarily. If you rent an apt for $800 per month, and don't drive all that much, and don't eat out hardly ever, and don't buy the priciest cuts of meat, and caviar, and lox, and all things expensive, and if you deduct your hardware, software, samples on your taxes, you can make it work.

Or, maybe you have a spouse who earns 50k per year - now you have a household income of 100k per year, which in most parts of the USA is pretty darn good.


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## bachader (Feb 12, 2019)

What about the high end (2 Million)? Could it be true? Considering the other expenses (orchestrators, music copyists, studio time, players, recording, mixing, music editors etc.), are movie producers so generous to pay the composers such figures? I think the high figure is a bit exagerated. I hope someone with true industry experience would chime in and enlighten us.


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## MatFluor (Feb 12, 2019)

It's less about "being generous" than about paying the price. 2M sounds reasonable - considering as you said the everything - paying studio time, engineers, musicians, copyists, orchestrators and then of course your assistants - look at the two dozen people that work in a high end film in some cases - apart from the orchestra itself you pay salary in the end to 5-30 people (depending which big guy).

As said, it's not generousity that pays, but the studio. You want that big guy? He's gonna cost you. The studio says "yes, get that big guy, then we know the score will be good".
Or maybe I got it wrong - often the composer pays the mentioned things, a package deal. You hire him, you get a score back, recorded, mixed. So from these 2M as said all the other stuff gets paid by the composer in most cases. And then still, it's the UVP of that composer. You see how much football stars are worth when they get bought and sold from team to team. Uniqueness equals money


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## chillbot (Feb 12, 2019)

bachader said:


> What about the high end (2 Million)? Could it be true? Considering the other expenses (orchestrators, music copyists, studio time, players, recording, mixing, music editors etc.), are movie producers so generous to pay the composers such figures? I think the high figure is a bit exagerated. I hope someone with true industry experience would chime in and enlighten us.


High end, 2+ million, is entirely accurate, for what, 8-10 film composers I can think of? It's a nice living, if you're one of the few, and 2 million might be on the low side. Don't quote me on that, I have no insider knowledge. Tough gig to be one of the few. But, I can think of at least 20+ tv and/or trailer and/or library composers that make that much or more, and there's probably a lot more than that.


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## storyteller (Feb 12, 2019)

chillbot said:


> High end, 2+ million, is entirely accurate, for what, 8-10 film composers I can think of? It's a nice living, if you're one of the few, and 2 million might be on the low side. Don't quote me on that, I have no insider knowledge. Tough gig to be one of the few. But, I can think of at least 20+ tv and/or trailer and/or library composers that make that much or more, and there's probably a lot more than that.


Well considering the top two are at least $30 million plus annually at this point in their careers...

Edit: On second thought, that site is rubbish. I had heard $47 million for Williams in 2016 and was looking for that... but I think that site i linked to is just strangely created gossip. I removed the link...


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## charlieclouser (Feb 13, 2019)

bachader said:


> What about the high end (2 Million)? Could it be true? Considering the other expenses (orchestrators, music copyists, studio time, players, recording, mixing, music editors etc.), are movie producers so generous to pay the composers such figures? I think the high figure is a bit exagerated. I hope someone with true industry experience would chime in and enlighten us.



That $2m figure is easily true - and way more beyond. There's a sheet floating around the internet that details the entire production budget for M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village" (code-named "The Woods" in the document), including a detailed breakdown of the music budget. Two seconds of Googling and I found it. Here it is:

http://wlmager.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Budget-The-Village-Shyamalan-copy.pdf

Scroll down to section 74-00 (starting on page 69) you'll see James Newton Howard's fee - and that was strictly his creative fee and did not include many of the expenses he incurred en route. Copyist, orchestrations, conductor, choir and orchestra, recording and mix engineers, studio time, music editors (including building temp scores during post), and a mysterious item called "JNH electronics package" (maybe his mockup rig? programming rig? the kid making cinematic pulses on the modular synth in the back room? just a blanket fee for the tech side of his writing operation? not sure) - all of those items, even the Auricle operator - all of that is outside of JNH's creative fee. Besides air travel and hotel bookings at the scoring sessions in London with black car service from door to door, at that level the composers are billing the production separately for everything they can - it's by no means an "all-in" deal - so none of the things that you listed come out of that fee. But of course this is in response to the question "what about the high end?" and as such is not an answer to the question posed by the thread title.

But, hey... JNH is a triple-A-list composer with multiple Oscar nominations, a top talent at the top of his game with a top team on deck, so nobody at the studio will be wondering, "I wonder if he can really pull this off?"

Keep in mind that this document appears to be the "proposed budget" and not the actual final tally of what was spent, so the grand totals spent by the time the movie hits theaters may be very different - but the document is a great insight into the planning and budgeting that goes into making a big-ass movie. Very interesting to see every single line item, from camera rentals to creature effects, detailed right on the page.

Within today's ever-changing landscape even some high-end composers are taking all-in deals, where the risks and rewards of getting the score recorded on the cheap are theirs to reap, and studios often like this as well since the amount they're spending on the score is not subject to change. Need to re-work some cues? That's on the composer's dime. So even some big orchestral scores are being budgeted this way, just as if they were the all-in deals that smaller in-the-box scores get. But of course this can represent a big risk for the composer, who must have the ready cash to finance the entire process, along with any overages that may occur, and be prepared to eat those overages as they erode his all-in fee - and if their score gets rejected and a new composer is hired, the original composer must then make do with their "kill fee" which may not even cover their cash outlay up to that point. So it can be a huge risk.

On the flip side, although "The Village" was twelve years ago, many scores at the highest levels are still budgeted in that "old way" because then the studio has more control, and the money they can save by recording on their own stages with their own staff then can be spent on more CGI, and doesn't wind up in the composer's pocket. It's very dependent on how the studios want to balance the risk vs reward on a given project.

And let's not forget BMI / ASCAP royalties. For many composers, and not just those at the highest levels, the creative fee is but a fraction of what the ongoing royalty stream will amount to over the years.


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## erica-grace (Feb 13, 2019)

I think it has been said that The Village was an anomaly, and is not representative if what film composers actually get. Save for, as in this case, an occasional exception.


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## charlieclouser (Feb 13, 2019)

erica-grace said:


> I think it has been said that The Village was an anomaly, and is not representative if what film composers actually get. Save for, as in this case, an occasional exception.



I'm not surprised - that budget reads like an example of the good old days of free-wheeling, high-spending, pre-Netflix Hollywood. But it's one of the only examples of that kind of thing I've seen in the wild, so it's kind of all we've got to go on. 

It's still interesting stuff though, even if only to see how many days they allocate for orchestrations and copyists, how many minutes of score they hope to get done in each 3-hour session, etc. It's a great window into something, even if that something is wildly different to what we're working on.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Feb 14, 2019)

FWIW, the OP asked about average composers’ fees, not A-Listers.


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## Parsifal666 (Feb 14, 2019)

Average I receive for independent movie scores: $4,350 (this is figuring in over a ten year period, not accounting for inflation).

" " " for independent movie trailers: $450 (give or take one hundred, depending on the budget, and that goes for above as well)


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## bryla (Feb 14, 2019)

On topic: €15-20k is what I see mostly from European filmmakers. Think a reasonably succesful local German, Danish, French feature that is only shown in that country. Spanish and English can have greater budgets given the vastly greater potential audience.


douggibson said:


> A number of times I have heard from the composer the director has approved the cue, and then it gets sent to "the studio" for final approval. Getting it from there to me, has sometimes been
> ....well.... like in the old Airplane film "Looks like I picked the wrong day to give up Methamphetamines."


It seems like directors are the bottleneck for piling up cues from the composer to get approved. Instead of each cue being evaluated as the composer finishes them (which is really unproductive from a director standpoint) they look at a batch at a time which means that often large numbers of cues are thrown into orchestrators arms at the same time


douggibson said:


> ...All the films I have worked on for major releases have been *by far *the most pleasurable because of the high level of professionalism. It was the student films, and a few smaller indies that were the most stressful.


My experience as well.


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## Parsifal666 (Feb 14, 2019)

bryla said:


> On topic: €15-20k is what I see mostly from European filmmakers. Think a reasonably succesful local German, Danish, French feature that is only shown in that country. Spanish and English can have greater budgets given the vastly greater potential audience.



Damn, maybe I should start dealing with those European markets! Most I ever made was about seven years ago for one of my two trailers for major motion pictures (that didn't do so great)...I don't even think it was $5000.

Edit: I checked my receipt, it was for 2, 750 US (embarrassed by the unintentional exaggeration).


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## robgb (Feb 14, 2019)

charlieclouser said:


> Scroll down to section 74-00 (starting on page 69) you'll see James Newton Howard's fee


It's funny, I was just listening to an interview with him last night and was wondering what he gets paid for a picture...


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## bachader (Feb 14, 2019)

Does the fee paid to the composer also depend on how the final soundtrack is produced? ( I mean pure sampled instruments vs live recording). The composer producing the soundtrack is probably spending more time when the whole soundtrack is all in VST. In thus case, the producer will spare some recording etc. expenses. On the other hand, the composer will prepare a mock demo anyway even if a live recording will follow. But, I guess less time is spent for the demo than the former case. In fact, John Powell says everyone has to prepare a demo except JW below. See link below about 1:12


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## charlieclouser (Feb 14, 2019)

Ned Bouhalassa said:


> FWIW, the OP asked about average composers’ fees, not A-Listers.



FWIW the OP (and not even a thread de-railer, but OP themselves) asked SPECIFICALLY:

"What about the high end (2 Million)? Could it be true? Considering the other expenses (orchestrators, music copyists, studio time, players, recording, mixing, music editors etc.), are movie producers so generous to pay the composers such figures? I think the high figure is a bit exagerated. I hope someone with true industry experience would chime in and enlighten us."

So I linked to that document which details A) that fees can easily rise above $2m per year for "the high end", and B) that "other expenses" do not come out of the composer's fee when operating at "the high end" - which was precisely what OP asked.

I specifically did not attempt to address the question about "how much money does the average film scorer make" as stated in the thread title because I have insufficient data to do so.


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## Ned Bouhalassa (Feb 14, 2019)

You're right, my bad. I was just looking at the title. Sorry.


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