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What are your "How I got the job" tricks/stories?

Llama Butter

New Member
For instance when I first moved to la a few years ago my first step to getting work was emailing every music supervision, sound design or sync adjacent company or group I could find and then calling.

My next step was setting up lunches with them, because I was new to the city I wanted to use living here to my advantage as much as possible and I think people tend to hire someone more when they can put a face to their music. It's the same psychology behind why every youtuber has their face all looking shocked and stuff for their thumbnail, why selfies tend to get more likes etc.

Then when I actually got lunch with them I use that as an opportunity to tell them my story, where I come from and where I want to go. I also try to include as many parts of my process that I feel pretentious talking to my friends about.

I think the "trick" that has gotten me the most work came from a friend who's a freelance web designer. I'll Send a hand written card to whoever I met with, thanking them for their time and any advice they may have given over lunch.


Do you guys have any other advice/tips like this? I mean besides "write better music and people will want to use it" I guess my question is more general networking/interview tips that could be totally obvious or not obvious that you'd be willing to share that I might have missed.

Thanks in advance!
 
I think you're on the right track with the in-person networking, that goes a long way. IMO, most success is a result of networking and good old fashioned luck (being in the right place at the right time). Oddly enough, my best gig came as a direct result of cold call marketing; a simple routine email briefly introducing myself, along with a link to my website. That was ten years ago, and I am still grateful to be working with this director after all these years. Plus, that relationship lead to many other gigs....so it's a chain reaction.
 
This is not related to composing work, but it is a funny story about how one particular polka band used to add more dates to their calendar.

The bandleader, on a day off, would show up at a venue just as the scheduled band was unloading and setting up their gear. He'd go up to the venue owner and say "Hey, what's going on? MY band was hired to play today." The owner would typically stand there with a puzzled look on his face. The crafty bandleader would then say, "Well, I'll let the other band play this job today, but let's see what other dates you can offer me to make up for this."
 
I wrote a lenghty and nostalgic blog post out of it a couple of years ago, but naturally as this goes way back to 2004 things may be a bit different now. And it's not anything fancy-hollywood-hanszimmerassistant-stuff but just a small story of a small musician in a small country.

However, if you're interested on a long story with bad midi music, surf here and check it out!
 
Weirdly a surprising amount of work I am currently getting comes from the recommendation of sound supervisors, sound designers and mixers I have worked with in the past and have a good working relationship with.
When I think about it, it makes sense.
There is an abundance of aspiring composers, but a scarcity of capable sound engineers specialized on film sound on the market, at least here in germany. So the sound people get a lot of different projects and can immediately find out if a composer is attached. Most of the time they get involved in the project before shooting, which often is way earlier than the composer. If the production is still looking for a composer, they will recommend the person who will deliver quality work, good mixes, clean stems, generally stay out of their hair and respect their work. They have an incentive to recommend a composer, because a bad composer can ruin all their hard work and make the project a nightmare.

I've gotten three paid jobs on this route in the last three months alone.

If I had to give a starting film scoring student one piece of advice it would be this:
When you work with sound people, make sure the next person they want to recommend is you. Communicate clearly, treat them with respect and just generally don't be a dick. They work hard to turn out a clean mix of the movie and often they are your only real peers on the job.
 
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