# Your first oversees gig as a composer?



## impressions (Sep 29, 2010)

Hi, 
i'm still having a hard time finding a paying gig as a composer, even though i have a website and i use alot of tools to get new jobs, i do apply to alot of them but the competition is huge as you may know probably.
so i'm talking about guys who started getting payed in the last 2 years, not professionals who made an awesome game in 1985, even though its interesting also..
especially those composers who work online only, overseas composers..

i think most of us use the thing called "email"? 

oh-and i don't talk about sound libraries.
stuff like movies,video games, trailers etc..

no details, just a general poll.


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## bryla (Sep 29, 2010)

so what is your question?


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## rpaillot (Sep 29, 2010)

To get a gig, you need IMO to meet people in real life. It's almost impossible to do that via email / face book . 
So far, all the gigs I got were from people I met in real life.. except a short animated movie I did recently, the team looked for composers on a website forum = this gig wasnt paid. But the short won a prize and will won a lot in many festivals, thats the interesting thing.


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## vlado hudec (Sep 29, 2010)

I agree with rpaillot,

it is almost impossible to get a serious gig, when you are not a well known composer, with some credits. If you want to get a serious gig (like good games, movies, trailers), you could start at first with small projects, maybe even for free and learn the things.


This is not true, if your music is as good as TJB's or better :lol:


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## Jaap (Sep 29, 2010)

We do all our work remotely. We use skype mainly to communicate with clients and furthermore you need to setup a good architecture to share and exchange work files.
Furthermore you need to be creative in finding your clients. Post on forums, go to conferences, use stuff like linkedin etc.

We work with clients from Canada to New Zealand and so far we hardly meet any of our clients 
If we meet any then it is at conferences.

In fact we run a company already together for 2 years (we run 3 Peak Audio with 3 people) and we never even have met eachother  We are located in the Netherlands, UK and Serbia.
We mainly work for the game industry.


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## nikolas (Sep 29, 2010)

I'm with Jaap on this one.

I don't think I've ever gotten a gig via meeting someone in person! (Ok I got one, but it was a diapers informatial DVD... nothing to be proud of). 

And like Jaap, me and Thomas (Regin) are in completely different countries (Greece and Norway). But we have met each other plenty of times... even if this is another story.


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## Jaap (Sep 29, 2010)

The game industry is much more flexible then the film industry I think when it comes to working remotely. 
Most of the AAA games are made fully inhouse, but even there you see a lot of oursourcing.
Specially the casual game industry (where also the pile of money is) is working a lot with outsourcing. Loads of talks on conferences are about how to outsource and how to deal with working remotely with people from all over the world.

Diapers Nikolas? :shock: :wink:


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## impressions (Sep 29, 2010)

> it is almost impossible to get a serious gig, when you are not a well known composer, with some credits. If you want to get a serious gig (like good games, movies, trailers), you could start at first with small projects, maybe even for free and learn the things.


thing is, i've done all those free stuff, i'm not that ambitious composer that i want to make AAA films, since the realistic thing to do will be to relocate to LA, question is-how did you get your first gig? all those stuff about getting a break, and keep working hard i know, that's why i posted this - to ask about experiences, if you are willing to share of course.

jaap,
that's great to hear, but how did you get your first gig at 3peak audio(which i heard you guys, you sound awesome)-you had to know some serious clients before to get into AAA games, my question is, again, what triggered the first thing.
---
meeting real people is the best option, i had an idea going knocking on studios doors and offering them my demos, and i do know about 3 directors in person, but they didn't pay me much(zero).
my next step is actually soliciting myself on commercial houses, even though i'm not sure of my composing strength there.

nikolas,
so your first gig was a movie, a game? how, through email or advertising in forums?or something else?


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## Jaap (Sep 29, 2010)

Well before we founded 3 Peak Audio (and thanks for the compliment btw :mrgreen: ) we had all worked individually on different projects (with a different background). Before I switched to game music I was a classical concert composer. When I made the switch I worked at Blizzard Entertainment in a support role (with sound though - worked on the tech support department addressing all issues regarding sound) and learned a lot there. Took while I was working there also the path of doing some free stuff on mods to build a resume, learn a lot and build a small credit list.

Don't underestimate the use of things like Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter and different forums. It's not just to post your advertisement, but also show you are an active member that can contribute his knowlegde to the society. Even if you have not much experience in the field, you still have a lot of knowledge in your field of expertise (music) and share it with people. Show yourself not only as the one in the dozen that is looking for work, but also as one that wants to help out with sharing his knowledge and show interest in what people are doing and that you are willing to learn. People will remember you for that as well and if something rises up, you might be the one that is remembered instead of the "average Joe with a better reel" but who is not showing himself.


I posted a whille ago in this topic some things about finding some work in the game industry:
http://www.vi-control.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17983

I will quote it here again otherwise. It is also relevant I think to your question 



Jaap @ Thu Sep 16 said:


> Maybe expand your horizon and look into the world of creating audio for games. From experience I know companies often look for a combi of sound designer/composer so you might want to look into sound design and also learning a bit audio implemention (take a look at FMOD and Wwise).
> If sound design etc is totally not your thing maybe hook up with a sound designer and offer combined services.
> 
> You can make decent money from the casual game industry. We work 100% remotely with customers (we have customers going from Australia till Canada and everything in between).
> ...



Edit: One thing I forgot to say is that if you take the decision to work maybe on some free or low paid small projects, don't fall for MMO type of games. Look for small games with a small team for stuff like facebook, Iphone or whatever but which have a potential of being released soon. Don't fall for fancy looking MMO's in unfunded companies. Almost any of those projects fail hard.


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## impressions (Sep 29, 2010)

awesome reply jaag, thank you. 
so i gather you were knowing some clients through blizzard, or maybe you just did what you said and found work through those means(forums,emails etc).

and thanks for the tip,ironically, i was in a huge scale disaster mmo "inhouse" composer, which really slowed me down if i knew about all those channels before.
i'm trying to stay away from those, but i love composing adventure/RPG music so..i just no commit


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## Jaap (Sep 30, 2010)

You're welcome 

No our first jobs didn't lead directly from contacts I made with Blizzard, but it was a great learning experience and also made some good contacts of course, but not for the first jobs.
We started with the 3 of us of course and we combined our networks. One of us had a small project he was working on that became a bit bigger a little later and was a nice start. That client also became one of our steady partners which supplied us with a nice amount of work over the years  The rest came via advertising ourselves and being very active everywhere.

I see you know have been hit with the MMO stick as well :mrgreen: I also fell for it ones (btw that is also the place I met my partners so it was good in the long run) and was a great experience though, but not very fruitfull financially haha. Basically we learned there how it NOT should be :wink: (which can be very usefull as well of course)
I know the feeling on wanting to write music for RPG and adventures. Am a bit the same, but you will be suprised how many nice adventure and small rpg kind of games there are out there in the casual industry.


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## vlado hudec (Sep 30, 2010)

[/quote]
-how did you get your first gig?


I live in Slovakia, small shity country in central Europe, there is not almost any opportunities for music composers, here is only one video games company, I did some music for one game here, but was vey low paid...

So I started to send tons of emails everywhere from video game companies to library music companies all over the world. My first gig was for Groove Addicts, I made some tracks for them and now I work for library music companies like Immediate Music and RipTide Music. And in my case, I rather will work for big trailer houses, than small video game companies, which are often very low paid.

It is very important, how quality is your music, regarding composition and production skills, of course. When your music is good, it is only question of time, when you get some paid gig, I think.


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## nsmadsen (Sep 30, 2010)

> To get a gig, you need IMO to meet people in real life. It's almost impossible to do that via email / face book.



I disagree with the statement above. I live in Denver CO and have done work with clients literally all over the world since 2005. In fact a large majority of my client base has been remote instead of local. Currently I have three clients in the Singapore region, one in Germany and then several spread over the US. It's completely possible to network and get gigs solely through the Internet. Face to face interaction is always the best but with the right attitude, great communication and solid results you can definitely make a career working completely remote. 

Site note: there are some situations where on-site is the only option a client is willing to consider. In these cases the audio person often has the ability (or responsibility) to implement their own audio content into the game which I always prefer to just throwing it over the fence. 

If you're not getting any bites for your services after a good bit of time (longer than six months) then it's time to re-evaluate your approach. Are your demos up to par? How do the stand up against other demo reels? What about how you're networking and presenting yourself? Are your rates too high? Or too low? (And yes there IS such a thing...) Are you looking in the wrong areas? Are you drawing positive or negative reactions to you and your work?

Freelance work always has ups and downs so if you're going through a slower period don't fret. But if you're never getting work then something is wrong and you need to identify and fix it. 

I hope that helps, 

Nate
_
--
Nathan Madsen
Composer-Sound Designer
www.madsenstudios.com_


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