# Clarification of how many minutes per day a TV/Film composer has to produce...



## Farkle (Jul 31, 2015)

Hi, all!

A question about the nuts and bolts of how much music a TV or film composer in the "Hollywood chain" produces...

I was reading a Facebook group for film and TV composers, and the moderator was answering a question about how many minutes a composer should produce per day as a film or TV composer. The moderator responded with a couple of comments (quoted below):

"When practicing speed you should be able to eventually cough up ten minutes in an hour. But in order to do that you have to be willing to compose disposable music, and that is an extremely important part of the process. It turns out that the brain has to get used to the crazy speed of making decisions quickly first, and then your decisions get better and better. A working composer should be able to produce at least 10 minutes of quality fully orchestrated music a day."

(response from a forum member):

"That's a heck of a lot of music... scored and mocked up?"

(response from moderator)

Yes, scored and mocked up. I can't tell you how many composers have to do that at least once a month on a regular basis. I know composers who put out about thirty minutes of music a week, every single week!

I wanted to ask the group here, is this how TV and film is nowadays? I've been out of the loop for 5 years, and am now re-inserting myself into film and TV, and this seems very heavy, in terms of sheer content. It may be that much, I'm not disputing that, but it just feels like a lot per day. When I was an orchestrator on the Wonderpets, I was orchestrating 12 minutes a week, and it was brutal, 80 hour weeks. The idea of 30 minutes of composed music a week, or, worse yet, 10 minutes a day, seems insurmountable! 

So, my question is, is this par for the course? Or is this a small slice of the industry, a small market of composers? "cause, honestly, these numbers scare the bejeezus out of me. 

Thank you all for any insight on these statements!

All the best,

Mike


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## benatural (Jul 31, 2015)

Some random thoughts from my own personal experience assisting on a few shows. The way to hit those kinds of minutes per week is to have some help, and to use libraries that do a lot of heavy lifting. Many shows use a temp, and the expectation is that you follow it, and that certainly helps since you're not necessarily reinventing the wheel each cue. Oh and the ability to operate at full capacity while sleep deprived certainly doesn't hurt.

I know I couldn't do 30 min a week fully mocked up and sounding great, not now at least. I'm tapped out at around 12-15 min with no frills mock ups. And that's a 60ish hour week. Polished mockup is more like 70+... I do know guys who are very fast though, and their mock ups sound great, so 30 min / wk might be possible.


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## benatural (Aug 1, 2015)

A couple other thoughts. No absolutes, just thoughts.

Style of music is a factor. Wall to wall action cues? Good luck with that!

You also have to resist the urge to be too precious about what you're writing. And sometimes that means resisting your own musical instincts. In a way you have to trust that even though the music you're cranking out doesn't satisfy your inner critic, that you're audience probably will never know whether you spent 20 minutes on 8 bars or 2 hours. At this point 'art' is a luxury IMO, it just needs to support the picture and sound convincing. If you get some art in there, consider it a bonus.

Also, just doing the math here... To hit 30 min in one 40 hr week, you'd have to write and mockup .75 minutes per hour. .5 if pulling 12 hour days. If you look at it that way it seems maybe doable if you really focus and are a machine. And what happens if you have to do revisions? And what about delivering stems? You would have to be extremely organized and disciplined.

Wow, ok this thread really got me going. Bed time for me!


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## mverta (Aug 1, 2015)

I've been composing for a living for 25 years, and I can't write and orchestrate 10 minutes of quality music in a day, reliably, and I wouldn't write "disposable" music because WTF; nor would I work for somebody who valued music so little that they provided no time to do it right - even John Williams only gets out 2 minutes a day.


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Aug 1, 2015)

That's a terribly ugly scenario Farkle is describing. I don't even know why anyone would want to do that kind of thing. It's completely bizzare. Why would anyone force themselves to mass-produce completely meaningless music 60 hours a week, while stressing themselves like a madman to do it - after making a craft out of supressing their natural creative instincts as effectively as possible?

It's not as if it was this highly lucrative and stable carreer ... It almost reminds me of bulimia. You know it's wrong, it feels terrible, but for some reason, you need to do it, even if it means sticking your fingers down your throat.


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## Daryl (Aug 1, 2015)

mverta said:


> I've been composing for a living for 25 years, and I can't write and orchestrate 10 minutes of quality music in a day, reliably, and I wouldn't write "disposable" music because WTF; nor would I work for somebody who valued music so little that they provided no time to do it right - even John Williams only gets out 2 minutes a day.


Agreed. I aim for around 3-4. Obviously more if it is a copy/paste type track, but if I'm actually writing music, I doubt that I could do more. However, I don't mock anything up any more. Just type a score in Sibelius, and that's it, unless I'm also using synths, in which case I use a kind of Rewire scenario.

D


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## dgburns (Aug 1, 2015)

mverta said:


> I've been composing for a living for 25 years, and I can't write and orchestrate 10 minutes of quality music in a day, reliably, and I wouldn't write "disposable" music because WTF; nor would I work for somebody who valued music so little that they provided no time to do it right - even John Williams only gets out 2 minutes a day.



I'm on an assignment now that sees me doing about 2 1/2 min a day.That's about all I can do on this project.Luckily,I have the days to get through the 22 minutes till the music review meeting.
This is an animation show for a major hollywood studio for tv.Because animation seems to have a "specicifity" to how cues are married to the visual,it seems mostly that making sure music "hits" the images in a certain way is taking alot of time setting up.And the music shifts from orchestral to just about anything else in the blink of an eye,so unlike other genres where you can set up a palette and pretty much run with it,I get stuck having to evolve the sound base to include more modern types of music quickly.Finding sounds becomes a bit of an achilles heel,and a time waster.I find myself avoiding any soft synth that I have to menu dive for more then a few minutes or the brain goes cold and out of music making mode.
That all said,in the MOW world,you get about three weeks to do roughly 90 min of music,so that is about 30 minutes a week.But because it's more a cinematic style,you can run with a different level of intensity,and possibly get through more minutes.I've seen a few shows get scored in a way that the music just fits a certain scene,and while I don't like that paint by numbers approach,it can come in handy if you need to re-write a section I guess.(as in the music fits one scene and another cue picks up for the next scene)
One of the funny things is that the more you do it,the easier it gets as I think the brain starts to take it in stride.If fact I'd say your best work comes when your about 3/4 of the way in the show season,as the higher ups tend to leave you alone a bit more and you can follow your own methods based on what feedback was provided.
It is a hard way to live,but also it helps to have a rich imagination.I find it easy to fall into my imaginary world and so in my case,I don't reference ANY music ,even the temp and prefer to go my own way.I find chasing other music can lead to time wasted trying to copy someone else's style.You get into a doubtful mindframe,at least I do,where you question everything your doing.Also,if you think about it,you're hired to bring something to the table,after all,so best make it your own.After a while,you find you have more things to say.
But I have been avoiding as many of the one finger held down libraries as possible.One possible reason is I'm tasked with creating melody and themes,so while that is less seen in the drama world,it is still a bit of a thing in the animation world.

All to say,much respect for anyone who pounds the keyboard/daw and delivers their stuff ontime and to the clients satisfaction day in day out.Not an easy life and yet very fulfilling somehow too.

peace bro's (and girls)


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## chillbot (Aug 1, 2015)

Jimmy Hellfire said:


> That's a terribly ugly scenario Farkle is describing. I don't even know why anyone would want to do that kind of thing. It's completely bizzare. Why would anyone force themselves to mass-produce completely meaningless music 60 hours a week, while stressing themselves like a madman to do it - after making a craft out of supressing their natural creative instincts as effectively as possible?



I don't think it's that bad.... I don't stress much, I golf a lot, I drink beer a lot, I see my kids a lot, and I'm not sure the music is completely meaningless... maybe just partially meaningless?


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## Jimmy Hellfire (Aug 1, 2015)

chillbot said:


> I don't think it's that bad.... I don't stress much, I golf a lot, I drink beer a lot, I see my kids a lot, and I'm not sure the music is completely meaningless... maybe just partially meaningless?



I guess as long as you still manage to play a lot of golf and drink a lot of beer with your kids, it's still far from the point where it becomes physically and spiritually unhealthy.


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## Wooloomooloo (Aug 1, 2015)

Has anyone ever come across examples of this 'disposable' music? Something that was churned out in a day?


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## chillbot (Aug 1, 2015)

Wooloomooloo said:


> Has anyone ever come across examples of this 'disposable' music? Something that was churned out in a day?



I find the term 'disposable music' mildly offensive because it tends to be used for anyone who produces a lot of music per day with the assumption being that if you write 10 minutes of music a day it can't possibly be any good. That's not to say it is any good, just that it doesn't necessarily have to be bad.

'Disposable music' to me is more about being realistic about knowing when to stop. Yes I may not be writing the best music I'm capable of writing, but it's not far off.

How long would it take you to write and produce one minute of music to the best of your abilities? For me the answer would probably be roughly 10 hours. If I spent 30 hours on a track it would not be any better than if I spent 10 hours on a track. So 10 hours is the most time I would be able to put into a track and have it be the best possible track I could write with the best production. Granted I may not be the most talented composer or have the best production skills but I know my limitations. 

I can spend 1 hour writing the same track and (in my opinion) it will be at least 90 to 95% as good. So yes it's not the absolute greatest track but I'm getting 90% of the quality for 10% of the time. It would be so impractical to do anything else. I realize other people may not work the same way but this is how I work. Do you have to spend x amount of hours slaving over a track for it to qualify as art?

Would it be more fulfilling to spend 10 hours on the same track and make it smoking? Not to me, I would get bored, and I'd make 1/10th the amount money. So in that sense yes I find writing 'disposable music' is quite fulfilling and more interesting to me.


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## chillbot (Aug 1, 2015)

Actually 1 hour is a bit of an exaggeration I realistically spend 90-120 minutes to produce one minute of music. To answer the original poster's question I don't feel that this is too far off of the norm. I've done 10 minutes in a day many times BUT that is at the extreme end (takes me 12-16 hours I'd guess) and after a day or two like that I need a day or two off, there's no way I could maintain that. So in the end it will average out to 5 minutes a day.


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## Wooloomooloo (Aug 1, 2015)

chillbot said:


> I find the term 'disposable music' mildly offensive because it tends to be used for anyone who produces a lot of music per day with the assumption being that if you write 10 minutes of music a day it can't possibly be any good. That's not to say it is any good, just that it doesn't necessarily have to be bad.



I took the term from the original poster's quote

""When practicing speed you should be able to eventually cough up ten minutes in an hour. But in order to do that you have to be willing to compose disposable music, and that is an extremely important part of the process."

I wasn't suggesting quickly composed music is poor or disposable.

For me, I usually get the basic composition of a track down in a few hours - but could spend 10x that time adding parts, substituting chords, tweaking sounds etc, and then spend 20 - 30 hours mixing, and getting things like reverb right etc. But then I am not a professional musician and probably have 10% of the skill you do.

I'm genuinely interested in what kind of music can be pushed out by one person, week after week, at such a highly sustained rate of production. It must be exhausting.


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## chillbot (Aug 1, 2015)

Sorry I didn't mean you in particular it's just a term that gets used a lot around here and generally seems snooted upon, if that's even a word.


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## benatural (Aug 1, 2015)

chillbot said:


> Do you have to spend x amount of hours slaving over a track for it to qualify as art?



This reply is a touch OT, but definitely no. It's so subjective right, but some of the music I'm happiest with is something that I stumbled upon without the intent of doing so. Happy accidents and what not. The art comes from recognizing when you've got something good.


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## InLight-Tone (Aug 1, 2015)

I could never maintain a schedule such as Farkle described but I guess I'm a wimp/lazy that way. Then again if you listen to this Junkie XL interview http://collider.com/junkie-xl-mad-max-fury-road-batman-v-superman-interview/ or you watch Daniel James early videos where he was blogging during a film scoring project, these guys did just that producing over 5 minutes of finished music daily for weeks to meet the deadlines. Seems that bigger success demands that kind of sacrifice at times which is why I'll never be THAT successful. I want to go out running and jump in a lake everyday instead of spending 16+ hour days stressing myself out...


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## benatural (Aug 1, 2015)

Thing to remember is some of these folks have help, they aren't doing it alone (I'd be surprised if they were, though I'm happy to stand corrected). If it were me and the money was there (TV money can be very good), I'd get a team in place, write sketches, do a very rough mockup, and hand it off to someone else to polish or also have them write too as needed. This kind of thing is pretty common place for some, no?


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## Assa (Aug 1, 2015)

I also was worried about this topic a lot and so a while ago I tried to find some statements from composers that I would consider an inspiration for me. Bottom line was, it settles down somewhere around 2 minutes per day. I think maybe they can write twice as much or a little bit more as that if absolutely necessary, but that's not the standard I guess. 

So for me personally being able to write 2 minutes of solid music a day is the goal. When I read Farkles initial post I instantly had to think about the last time I zapped through tv channels and heard all those inappropriate Action Strings/Damage etc. loops while some cook was cutting vegetables in a tv show. Didn't dare to turn on the tv again since.


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## chillbot (Aug 2, 2015)

Assa said:


> I zapped through tv channels and heard all those inappropriate Action Strings/Damage etc. loops while some cook was cutting vegetables in a tv show. Didn't dare to turn on the tv again since.



I probably wrote that, though I don't actually own action strings. In my defense, before you judge the music based on situation realize that 90% of the time in non-dramatic TV we have no control over where the music is placed. That hi-tension over-the-top aggro track very well *might* have been a decent piece of music that some idiot editor cut in over a cook chopping vegetables because they think it makes the scene more exciting. Probably the same editors that make these shows unwatchable by inserting 45 cuts every minute.


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## dgburns (Aug 2, 2015)

Assa said:


> I also was worried about this topic a lot and so a while ago I tried to find some statements from composers that I would consider an inspiration for me. Bottom line was, it settles down somewhere around 2 minutes per day. I think maybe they can write twice as much or a little bit more as that if absolutely necessary, but that's not the standard I guess.
> 
> So for me personally being able to write 2 minutes of solid music a day is the goal. When I read Farkles initial post I instantly had to think about the last time I zapped through tv channels and heard all those inappropriate Action Strings/Damage etc. loops while some cook was cutting vegetables in a tv show. Didn't dare to turn on the tv again since.



Again,imo,this is bang on the money.i'm agreeing with the first two sentences.Not so sure about the third one myself.
Of course one can always have a vanity project to get your ya-ya's out and go as far as you like down the rabbit hole.


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## Farkle (Aug 2, 2015)

Daryl said:


> Agreed. I aim for around 3-4. Obviously more if it is a copy/paste type track, but if I'm actually writing music, I doubt that I could do more. However, I don't mock anything up any more. Just type a score in Sibelius, and that's it, unless I'm also using synths, in which case I use a kind of Rewire scenario.
> 
> D



Everyone, thank you for your responses. I feel much better! Daryl, can I ask a question about your response? You basically type up a score in Sibelius, and don't worry about realizing it into your DAW with samples? Can you get into a bit more detail as to how you get your score to be rendered? Do you only use live instruments? Do you hire out a Synthestration service to produce your mockups?

I ask only because I'm very much a pen and paper guy, and I'd love to find a way to do more composing, less producing, if at all possible. Thank you for any insights!

Mike


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## Daryl (Aug 2, 2015)

Farkle said:


> Everyone, thank you for your responses. I feel much better! Daryl, can I ask a question about your response? You basically type up a score in Sibelius, and don't worry about realizing it into your DAW with samples? Can you get into a bit more detail as to how you get your score to be rendered? Do you only use live instruments?
> 
> Mike


No need to mock anything up if it's all being replaced by live players. The people I work with would be happy with a rough piano demo because they trust me. If I was working on a film score I would do it backwards; rather than hiring orchestrators I would hire programmers. Much quicker for me to work this way.

D


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## Farkle (Aug 2, 2015)

Daryl said:


> No need to mock anything up if it's all being replaced by live players. The people I work with would be happy with a rough piano demo because they trust me. If I was working on a film score I would do it backwards; rather than hiring orchestrators I would hire programmers. Much quicker for me to work this way.
> 
> D



Very cool, thank you, Daryl! Yep, makes perfect sense. In fact, this is reminiscient of the golden and silver age of scoring, composers producing a piano sketch of the cues, and then expanding it out to live musicians for the recording sessions. It's a great way to work!

Mike


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## cc64 (Aug 2, 2015)

Farkle said:


> The idea of 30 minutes of composed music a week, or, worse yet, 10 minutes a day, seems insurmountable!
> 
> So, my question is, is this par for the course? Or is this a small slice of the industry, a small market of composers? "cause, honestly, these numbers scare the bejeezus out of me.



Hi Michael,

having to write 30 minutes of music a week is what i'd call a "good/fun" problem! A lot better than having zero minutes to write, no?!? If i may say so, i think you're tackling the problem upside/down. Get the gig and then do/figure what you have to do to deliver...

Around 2005 i was scoring a 52X 15' wall-to-wall animation series and i split the work on a 26 X 24' wall-to-wall mystery show with 2 other guys. So basically i was delivering 23 minutes of finished music each week.

My schedule at the time was from 5 AM to 12 AM. 17 hour days.

One time, the production team on the animation series decided that they needed 3 shows in 1 week and one of the composers on the other show was ill and i had to score his 8 minutes of the mystery show. Wich lead to my personal all-time record: For some reason, deadlines etc... one day i had to deliver 31 minutes of finished music from scratch. That day lasted from 5 am to 2 am ; ) 

I did 1X15' episode and 16 minutes of the mystery show. Believe it or not that particular episode for the mystery show got me a Gemini(canadian equivalent of Emmy or BAFTA) nomination...

How is it possible that i did 31 minutes of music in 1 (very long) day? As i said, i was writing/producing music 17 hours/day for weeks...months. I had my recipes for these shows AND i was at a place where after rewriting the 1st few episodes 2 or 3 times each without whining, i had finally gained the filmmakers' total confidence so there weren't any rewrites for the rest of the series, just good spotting sessions...Also i had developed a system where i rarely had more than 5 to 8 tracks per cue. Honestly, in underscore if you can't say what you have to say with 5 to 8 tracks...After all, The Beatles had 4 ; P

Obviously, you can't do 17 hour days 12 months/year! The pay and/or back-end has to be reasonable too...!

A few guys on this list write a lot of good music each week, Charlie Clouser, JeffC, Bill Brown( don't know if he's a member) etc.. Would be great to have their take on this!

Best,

Claude


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## Farkle (Aug 3, 2015)

cc64 said:


> Hi Michael,
> 
> having to write 30 minutes of music a week is what i'd call a "good/fun" problem! A lot better than having zero minutes to write, no?!? If i may say so, i think you're tackling the problem upside/down. Get the gig and then do/figure what you have to do to deliver...



Hi, Claude! First, I wanted to thank you for your in depth breakdown of some of the schedules that you (and other TV composers) have had to work with, in terms of sheer music. And, the tips you gave about keeping your template lean for underscore. It makes a lot of sense. Goodness, 31 minutes is herculean! Congratulations! 

Second, your quote above made so much sense for me; I'm actually printing it out and putting it on my studio wall as motivation. It's great advice! Thank you! 

Off to optimize my template, and write 2 min of music! 

Best,

Mike


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