Originally I come from a very talented country which is one of the tiniest countries in the world - namely the Faroe Islands. More info on that - Google it :) Having far most of my contacts there I started wondering how I would recreate a contact list of musicians as I knew that I would need one (film school is an ideal resolution for a want-to-be film composer)! For my part I went to a church and instantly started out with some contacts there. But I knew that I had to somehow get into a community of musicians.
When I first had written the score for Autsch! (The german 35 min short) I instantly went to UWL and when we managed to get it on their student-blackboard (web portal for their students) musicians gradually applied. Now do keep in mind that this is a project for Creative Commons license (please check that out via google!) and thus all for free! If you decide to pay them you will most likely have reasonably better luck than we did! And on the other hand, the more instruments you need the harder it becomes. For my part I wrote for 17 instruments all in all and that is quite a lot to start out with (supposedly none of them knows you). But please do try this out if you are starting a project as this might give you access to great talents!
After a while I tried to find different local orchestras and to e-mail them. Here I experienced that no-one replied to my e-mails, probably because of the same reasons as those above (stranger and no money). Either way I strongly encourage you to try this out if necessary as it might lead to something good! And please be understandable if they don't get back to you since it can be strange to get an unfamiliar e-mail.
With this said, the one thing that helped me most was to post an announcement on www.professionalpeople.org. In my case (equally to most people who want to start a portfolio) I had to post a No Pay job and to my surprise this is possible to do on ProfessionalPeople! There are so many people out there that are desperate for performing and recording music as well as helping out on stuff because they have a passion for it! And not to mention that they want contacts and portfolio... Just post an announcement, choose "no pay" if you're out of budget, describe the project as neatly and honestly as you can (you don't want to fool people) and wait for the results.
Lastly I want to add that if you want to be in the entertainment industry whether it is film, music, theater or something else, then please do consider one of the big places where most of this is going on. It varies from people to people both whether they want to "go big" or if they like it in a smaller area and whether they want Hollywood, UK, Bollywood or something completely different. But whatever you prefer you should find out where it's most realistic to achieve and then consider investing towards it. In my case to move from Faroe Islands to England. Fortunately the internet is widespread today so it is possible to co-operate from almost anywhere in case you don't feel like moving (but in many cases this would make it much harder to achieve).
Again, do be encouraged to go for what you love doing and don't let pessimists hinder you in trying every possible way! - You can't say it doesn't work until you've tried it!
Monday 19 March 2012
Friday 16 March 2012
My first project! :D Autsch!
I will now explain about my current project and its story so far... (I am VERY excited!) :D
When I started on my film school in October 2011 I ended up in a group where an experienced filmmaker from germany told us about a short film he had recently done in Germany. He told us about great methods they had used, how they had asked many places to shoot and eventually they got a house they could "set on fire" (only a LOT of smoke), the whole fire department was willing to help out, they got a bank where they would film a robbery and they found a practical way of shooting car conversations. First of all this was very inspirational! Some days after this I came to talk more to him about our interests and such where I told him that I was a composer and I preferred composing for classical orchestras. That was when he told me "be careful because I just might use you!" - and soon after he did!
He asked me if I wanted to the music for the half an hour short film and I said "I would love to! What kind of film is it?" expecting it to be drama, action, thriller or something like that. "It's a comedy" he replied and my first thought was "what??". I had imagined that my first film (and most films) would be adventurous, action and intense drama but I actually liked this challenge. I say challenge because the funniest melodies are all mostly taken now a days. He explained to me the story and I went home to start creating a main theme.
At first I wanted to make it for only a woodwind quintet and so I did. He gave me a rough cut of the film and I started picturing the atmosphere transferred into music and what parts would not need any music (sometimes the sound should just speak for itself). Then there came a busy time in the school and we didn't do anything. In december 2011 he asked me for a deadline because he needed something for the premiere. In February I thought it would be about time that I started to finish this off and started to look for a studio engineer to record it all (I wanted to make sure that it would be recorded). I googled and the first I found was www.darrenportfolio.com and I contacted him straight away. After this I spent three days to make all the soundtracks for the film so that I instantly could start looking for musicians.
The first thing I did was to announce it in UWL which is the university that my school is a part of. I thought that they might help me out with this as they have music students themselves and film music is very popular today. Long story short, they didn't help much out. We ended up asking several people before we finally got it on their student website. There we eventually got some musicians but not enough. (Don't feel discouraged - I'm simply writing about what in this case works and what not). After a month I started panicking because I had a very busy module coming up so we decided to have the recording days on the 12th and 13th of May 2012. I started e-mailing all the local orchestras with no reply. After one week I decided to call a number I had found online but that wasn't well liked - and I didn't get much help from there. This started to be a bit tricky.
Suddenly one evening the director told me that there was a website where you could look for musicians. I instantly posted out my need and that it was all done for Creative Commons license and thus for free. The next day a violinist applied and soon after a guy called Andrew Farid who offered me a his own whole orchestra! We instantly got in touch and tomorrow we are going to meet up to discuss and arrange everything.
Hope you found this encouraging and maybe you can try some things out / share some of your ideas.
- Samal
When I started on my film school in October 2011 I ended up in a group where an experienced filmmaker from germany told us about a short film he had recently done in Germany. He told us about great methods they had used, how they had asked many places to shoot and eventually they got a house they could "set on fire" (only a LOT of smoke), the whole fire department was willing to help out, they got a bank where they would film a robbery and they found a practical way of shooting car conversations. First of all this was very inspirational! Some days after this I came to talk more to him about our interests and such where I told him that I was a composer and I preferred composing for classical orchestras. That was when he told me "be careful because I just might use you!" - and soon after he did!
He asked me if I wanted to the music for the half an hour short film and I said "I would love to! What kind of film is it?" expecting it to be drama, action, thriller or something like that. "It's a comedy" he replied and my first thought was "what??". I had imagined that my first film (and most films) would be adventurous, action and intense drama but I actually liked this challenge. I say challenge because the funniest melodies are all mostly taken now a days. He explained to me the story and I went home to start creating a main theme.
At first I wanted to make it for only a woodwind quintet and so I did. He gave me a rough cut of the film and I started picturing the atmosphere transferred into music and what parts would not need any music (sometimes the sound should just speak for itself). Then there came a busy time in the school and we didn't do anything. In december 2011 he asked me for a deadline because he needed something for the premiere. In February I thought it would be about time that I started to finish this off and started to look for a studio engineer to record it all (I wanted to make sure that it would be recorded). I googled and the first I found was www.darrenportfolio.com and I contacted him straight away. After this I spent three days to make all the soundtracks for the film so that I instantly could start looking for musicians.
The first thing I did was to announce it in UWL which is the university that my school is a part of. I thought that they might help me out with this as they have music students themselves and film music is very popular today. Long story short, they didn't help much out. We ended up asking several people before we finally got it on their student website. There we eventually got some musicians but not enough. (Don't feel discouraged - I'm simply writing about what in this case works and what not). After a month I started panicking because I had a very busy module coming up so we decided to have the recording days on the 12th and 13th of May 2012. I started e-mailing all the local orchestras with no reply. After one week I decided to call a number I had found online but that wasn't well liked - and I didn't get much help from there. This started to be a bit tricky.
Suddenly one evening the director told me that there was a website where you could look for musicians. I instantly posted out my need and that it was all done for Creative Commons license and thus for free. The next day a violinist applied and soon after a guy called Andrew Farid who offered me a his own whole orchestra! We instantly got in touch and tomorrow we are going to meet up to discuss and arrange everything.
Hope you found this encouraging and maybe you can try some things out / share some of your ideas.
- Samal
Hollywood film composers
There are so many film composers in the world and therefore I'm going to specify it whenever I write about film composers and composers in general. Right now I am going to share some film composers from Hollywood.
Two of my personal favorites (whom most of the world knows) are Howard Shore, Hans Zimmer and John Williams. When you start your journey and interest of film composers you are bound to know these two among many others!
John Williams was the one who created the music for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, E.T., Harry Potter, Schindler's List, Jaws and more than 130 others. John is usually composing all the films by Steven Spielberg among others.
Hans Zimmer is from Germany but then moved to London and started composing for the independent film industry. Barry Levinson (Director of Rain Man) heard his music and went from Los Angeles to London and asked him to come to LA and compose the music for Rain Man. Since then Hans has composed fantastic music for films such as Gladiator, Black Hawn Down, Batman, Inception, Pirates of the Caribbean (first one by the great Klaus Badelt!) and about 140 more!
Last and definitely not least there is Howard Shore that has created the music for more than 80 films. Here it is enough only to mention the Lord of the Rings. To make this absolutely astonishing trilogy come to life would almost not be possible for any other composer today! I know it's a very harsh statement to make but Howard Shore was so spot on when he made the music for LOTR that it would be hard for anyone to compete with him! I will strongly encourage everyone to listen to his Lord of the Rings concert as it completely took my own breath away!
That is enough for now! If you wonder where you should find all this material I would suggest Spotify as it will guarantee good quality and it's legally free :)
Two of my personal favorites (whom most of the world knows) are Howard Shore, Hans Zimmer and John Williams. When you start your journey and interest of film composers you are bound to know these two among many others!
John Williams was the one who created the music for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, E.T., Harry Potter, Schindler's List, Jaws and more than 130 others. John is usually composing all the films by Steven Spielberg among others.
Hans Zimmer is from Germany but then moved to London and started composing for the independent film industry. Barry Levinson (Director of Rain Man) heard his music and went from Los Angeles to London and asked him to come to LA and compose the music for Rain Man. Since then Hans has composed fantastic music for films such as Gladiator, Black Hawn Down, Batman, Inception, Pirates of the Caribbean (first one by the great Klaus Badelt!) and about 140 more!
Last and definitely not least there is Howard Shore that has created the music for more than 80 films. Here it is enough only to mention the Lord of the Rings. To make this absolutely astonishing trilogy come to life would almost not be possible for any other composer today! I know it's a very harsh statement to make but Howard Shore was so spot on when he made the music for LOTR that it would be hard for anyone to compete with him! I will strongly encourage everyone to listen to his Lord of the Rings concert as it completely took my own breath away!
That is enough for now! If you wonder where you should find all this material I would suggest Spotify as it will guarantee good quality and it's legally free :)
Introduction
Hi there! I am currently in film school in London (Met Film School in Ealing Studios) and my aim is to become a film composer. Why go to film school then? Well... Because I love making films!! I started making films around 5-6 years ago and have loved it ever since. But why then a film composer? In short: because I have been a musician since I was 11 years old where I instantly started composing music. I have always been a composer and this is what I really want.
Since many people have asked me many questions about music and composing, I have had great discussions about music and films and regarding my (rather narrow) knowledge of the vast swarm of composers out there is the world, I want to start sharing my journey within this blog. First of all I'll write about my own journey, projects, people I meet and work with and how I manage to write music, get in contact with people and so on. Now you might think that I am a major superhero that instantly gets into contact with the right people all the time. This is obviously not true as I struggle to find people just like most of the people in the industry. By reading my blog I hope you will find it encouraging and start your own journey to break down walls and find the right contacts.
I will also write about different music, composers, instruments, orchestras, films, stories and what else will come to me as I go on this journey. I want to make it easier for people to find good and inspirational material and to discover great talents and pieces!
Now here is my first word of wisdom/encouragement: Go and do what you aim for and never be afraid to fail! Have fun with it, learn from it, show it to other people, discuss the good and bad parts, evaluate and recreate it! Most things in this world have been through hundreds and thousands of stages in development until they finally came to the right form! And you are the only one who knows when you're creation is finished.
Take care and welcome to my journey :)
- Samal
Since many people have asked me many questions about music and composing, I have had great discussions about music and films and regarding my (rather narrow) knowledge of the vast swarm of composers out there is the world, I want to start sharing my journey within this blog. First of all I'll write about my own journey, projects, people I meet and work with and how I manage to write music, get in contact with people and so on. Now you might think that I am a major superhero that instantly gets into contact with the right people all the time. This is obviously not true as I struggle to find people just like most of the people in the industry. By reading my blog I hope you will find it encouraging and start your own journey to break down walls and find the right contacts.
I will also write about different music, composers, instruments, orchestras, films, stories and what else will come to me as I go on this journey. I want to make it easier for people to find good and inspirational material and to discover great talents and pieces!
Now here is my first word of wisdom/encouragement: Go and do what you aim for and never be afraid to fail! Have fun with it, learn from it, show it to other people, discuss the good and bad parts, evaluate and recreate it! Most things in this world have been through hundreds and thousands of stages in development until they finally came to the right form! And you are the only one who knows when you're creation is finished.
Take care and welcome to my journey :)
- Samal
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