Intro - meet Frank and his girlfriend Mieke

Frank's piece in its original form

Tip 1: Hold Stuff Back

Tip 3: Vary Melody & Accompaniment

Tip 4: Change up the Patterns

Tip 5: Don't think like a theorist

Tip 6: Think about register

Tip 7: Direction of Register

Tip 8: Musical Metaphors

Tip 9: Integrate Ideas

Tip 10: Overall Balance

My re-worked version of Frank's piece.

Reactions from Frank and Mieke

Introduction

How did you get started as a film composer?

How do you write music for a documentary?

Challenges with short deadlines

Intro

What is a DAW?

What is MIDI

Inputting MIDI

Sample Playback Engine

How does it work?

Demo

Adding MIDI Data

Loading a Virtual Instrument

Conclusion

Is It Easy To Get this Work

Three Main Areas of Employment for Composers

The Games Industry

Is It Easy To Get In

What do composers do?

What is a score?

What do you have to learn and know about music to be a composer?

How long does it take to write a piece of music?

What do you use to compose?

Where do you like to compose?

Where do you find your inspiration?

How do you come up with musical ideas?

What does a music composer do?

How to be a good media composer

The Number 1 Job of a Composer

What is Composing?

The Prolific

The "Can I Copy Your Homework?"

The One Hit Wonder

The Prodigy

The Virtuoso

The Romantic

The Female Composer

The Experimentalist

The Tortured Soul

Bonus: The Meme Genius

Question 1: What has it been like to score huge movies from a much more challenging social community?

Question 2: When you were composing "News of the World", which is a character piece and smaller instrumentation and highly emotional, were you thinking of that at all as the characters were experiencing forces of nature and thinking about the significance of our own moment as you were hearing that music played back remotely?

Question 3: Was having the recordings of the winds, brass, and strings separate, creatively helpful in terms of the control it gave you in mix and other creative stuff? Does that occur ever outside of the pandemic in terms of giving the studio and editors more ability to play with different variations, or is that pretty unheard of because you want the 70 people all in the same room and for it to feel like a symphonic performance?

Question 4: How do you think about spotting from a thematic perspective? Does your spotting inclinations ever conflict with what else is happening in the narrative in terms of sound design or dialogue?

Question 5: Because your demos are so well thought out, does that mean that there are no surprises in modern scoring, or do you find that there are still changes as you meet with the musicians and director?

Question 6: What is your process for writing your demos when given a film for the first time, and how often do you play into your sequencer and improvising as opposed to the more traditional approach of sketching music out? Also, how do you compose in a way where you don't let the demo process dictate your musical choices?

Question 7: What tactics do you use to get out of a rut when composing to ensure you are doing the best you can?

Question 8: How do you think about instrumentation?

Question 9: How often do you bring in a soloist for your scores?

Question 10: Do you have any advice for what makes a strong film session musician?

Question 11: What advice or words of wisdom would you tell yourself as a young player and composer just getting started?

What do music directors do?

Composers

Work Opportunities

Popular Music Composers

Preview

Becoming Ambassador for RCM Creative Careers

Working with RCM students

Eric's career journey

Advice for young musicians

Being an entrepreneur

Leaning from failure

Eric's approach to his work