If there is like 100,000 enteries, how are they even gonna view them all ?!
Unpaid interns! It's a great opportunity for someone who wants to get into the music supervisor world!
Only half kidding. But, yeah, if there are thousands of entries then you can bet there will be a first tier of filtration somehow, where someone other than HBO execs and Ramin himself will be grinding through the submissions, rating them with 1-5 stars as you would rate your Uber driver, and maybe categorizing them as "orchestral vs electronic, thematic vs sound-design-y, overt vs subtle, forceful vs gentle" etc. Or maybe it's not even that sophisticated - it might be as simple as "Oh Christ, look how many there are....whittle this pile down from 1,000 to 50 so we can deal, keeping only that which does not suck ass."
As to wasting time / not getting paid / working for free / etc. - I feel like there's multiple phases one passes through on the way to... wherever:
- Phase One (just starting / haven't started yet status) = I'll do any ridiculous amount of work for no money if my brain fools me into thinking it represents some shred of opportunity. Score an indie film shot on an iPhone by a 15-year old? I'm down. Quit my job and live in my car while spending two months composing music for a student film for zero dollars just in case that student goes on to be the next Nolan? Sounds reasonable. (aka the "Lemme at it" phase.)
- Phase Two (I'm a pro and it's beneath me to work for free status) = Now I've made some money at this stuff, and I feel like if I don't assign value to my time and work, then that gives everyone else the justification not to assign value to my time and work. Or, I quit my damn job for this, and I got assistants to pay and plugins to buy, so I don't / can't do anything for free. Frack you, pay me. (aka the "L'Oreal: Because I'm Worth It" phase.)
- Phase Three (up and running status) = OMG I'm doing this, I'm really doing this! So I can take a few days to grind out a few audition cues for a project I really want while my assistant deals with the day-to-day on my tv series, and not expect or need to be paid for the time I spend doing the audition cues. If they like 'em, maybe I'll make the final three. If not, screw it - stick 'em in the "to be pillaged" pile and maybe we can repurpose them if we get in a pinch someday. (aka the "Sure no problem" phase.)
- Phase Four (baller status) = I got money coming in the mail so fast I don't even read the statements, I just look at end-of-the-year pie charts my business managers create that summarize which projects / territories / networks are generating the most fees and royalties. Now money has become almost meaningless in the sense that I don't count how much goes out vs how much comes in on a per-project basis, since the amount coming in is always bigger than the amount going out. So I'll spend out of pocket to hire a full orchestra just to do audition cues, even if that means I can't really pillage those demos for other projects because now there's external players on the tracks and I can't just use the recordings they played on for whatever, whenever, without getting them on paper and paid for that re-purposing. Not right (and not legal) to take buy-out performances done for an audition cue and use them later on a paid score that's going on networks or in theaters. Gotta get 'em on paper. But no biggie, spend the money, make the recordings, and if we don't get the gig we'll file 'em away in the "idea pile" that maybe we use on a reel or something, but never on a paid, "for air" thing. (aka "A/B/C List" phase.)
- Phase Five (artiste status) = Money is meaningless to me, and 'twas ever thus. I don't even look at the pie charts anymore - maybe I never did, or maybe there aren't any damn pie charts anyway. Maybe money doesn't matter because I made / inherited zillions elsewhere, maybe it doesn't matter because I live on a glacier in Iceland and reindeer milk is cheap, or maybe it doesn't matter because I do my scores on $50 worth of bowed wineglasses and an iMac (or all of the above). I'll spend six months writing music based on a five-minute conversation about a project that a producer/director is only thinking about
maybe doing someday, or writing a whole album / suite / concerto based on a book I liked, just because I liked the book, and not strictly "just in case someone thinks about turning it into a movie someday". (aka "Brian Eno" phase.)
I almost think of those phases as if they were the years of college - like "freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, doctorate" levels. In all but the second (sophomore) phase, getting paid for a demo / audition / submission is just not part of the equation. So wanting / asking / demanding to get paid for a submission, or considering unpaid auditioning as not worth your time, feels kind of sophomoric, and quite possibly the people dishing out the auditions might think of it this way as well. Their view is like, "No way can we pay five or ten composers a demo fee, and why should we? Anybody worth a crap is going to have the ability to demo for this thing on their own dime without having to sell a kidney or cramp their style. The fact that they're even being considered means they've already made the cut to some degree, they should be happy!" Maybe when they're down to the final two and it's going to cost some big bucks to record both Silvestri and Shore's takes on the big superhero theme so they can compare the real thing and not mockups (if those guys even DO mockups anymore?), then the studio will shell out - but now we're talking about the rarefied atmosphere at the top of the mountain where mortals fear to tread.
I had a situation where I spent about a week doing a set of three audition cues for a feature, and lost out on the gig to someone who spent their own cash to record a real orchestra just for the audition! Yes, that composer tacked those recordings onto the end of their weekly full-orchestra sessions for a big cable series they were on the third season of, but still, they had to pay for those extra few hours -it's not like the music contractor would let that slide for free, and at that level it's not like he could pretend those cues were for the show that was on the books and "oops, we didn't use them for the show so I used them as a demo for something else". That ain't gonna fly. So I wasn't surprised or disappointed when my one-week all-in-the-box audition didn't beat out a full orchestra. And I didn't get the gig. No biggie. In the end that composer spent WAY more doing the actual score with a full orchestra than the fee they received. I am friends with one of the producers who told me that, yeah, in the end the composer was upside-down on that gig for hundreds of thousands, but felt it was a fun project and a good opportunity and was therefore worth it to him (although he didn't do the sequel.) There was a score budget of X and it was all-in, no wiggle room, take it or leave it (or at least that's what they told my people). I figured I could do it in the box for X, or with a real non-union orchestra in somewhere like Prague for 2X, and dude said he could do it in town with a real orchestra for X and eat the overage, so.... duh. That's a no brainer for the producers. Plus his music was probably "more right" for the film than mine was anyway! (I watched the movie when it came out and the score was fine, nothing world-shattering, nothing too special really, but fine in an ordinary way. Dude probably busted it out without breaking a sweat.) My producer friend was like, "Sorry bro, it wasn't entirely my call to make, and dude's demo was killer with a full orchestra and the director fell in love, so I waved your flag but in the end I couldn't overrule cause I don't have the power." And of course my genuine response was, "It ain't a thang, totally get it, still love you bro. Next one." And we're still buds.
But I digress.
The process of doing something that didn't work out adds to the knowledge pile, even if it's only to shine a light on why you didn't get that gig once you hear what they wound up going with - or if it makes you think, "Well crap. Never doing THAT again..."
All experience is good experience - even bad
experiences. If that makes sense.
