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ASCAP publishes Guerrilla Film Scoring article

ASCAP published an article which I wrote today. It’s in their We Create Music publication titled Finding Work As A Composer. Based around some of the material from my book Guerrilla Film Scoring, it gives a few little nuggets of wisdom for surviving the industry.

There are no guarantees in any culture in the world that art is going to be sustainable and provide you a good living. As a composer you might become well-paid eventually, but you will never have a steady or predictable career path. (read more…)

Pierce Brosnan film

Pierce Brosnan stars in The King’s Daughter, a new film scored by composer Grant Kirkhope. It is based on the historical/sci-fi novel The Moon and the Sun by Vonda N. McIntyre, and Brosnan plays King Louis XIV. The film will be released later this year by Paramount. I orchestrated for Grant with the extraordinary Penka Kouneva.

Presenting at the ASCAP Expo

The ASCAP “I Create Music” EXPO is the first and only national conference dedicated to songwriting and composing. Today I was on the “Composer’s Survival Kit” panel, moderated by the awesome Joel Douek. The panel was very much like my book Guerrilla Film Scoring, basically a survival guide about how to navigate our insane media music business. I was in great company with composers Joey Newman and Didier Rachou, and entertainment lawyer Brad Shenfeld.

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Guest lecture – Teaching at UCLA

Today I taught film scoring at UCLA, taking over professor Fletcher Beasley’s class for a day. The class is using my book Guerrilla Film Scoring as a required text, and the topic of the day was team building in an indie world. It was great to dig in deeply with them and show them portions of the 90 minute Guerrilla Film Scoring documentary.

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GameSoundCon

GameSoundCon is a yearly convention in Los Angeles about the art, technology, and business of video game music. I did not present this year, but there was a lot of buzz about Guerrilla Film Scoring anyway! The book is striking a nerve with the creative community, and hopefully I’ll present there next year. Primarily catering to game composers and sound designers, it is an intense 2-day long series of classes, seminars, and talks. It’s a fantastic time to connect with the creative community in the game world, and since many of the biggest names in the industry are there it’s an inspiring couple of days.

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Dream Country trailer released

The trailer for Dream Country, a feature film I which scored, was released today. Directed by Robert Rollins, Dream Country is a country where it is always turning late in the year. A country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist… where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger and midnights stay. Remain as long as you like… or dare. The film will be released in 2016.

Scoring a film for Robert Rollins

I am beginning my sixth film score for director Robert Rollins for a film titled “Fortunes Fools.” I have been Robert’s composer for 7 years now, and it’s more fun to work with him every time. It’s truly a pleasure to have such a long standing creative partnership. The film will be released late in 2015.

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Winifred Phillips & GameSoundCon

I finally got a chance to meet Winifred Phillips, a video game composer and author, in person at GameSoundCon. Her book A Composer’s Guide to Game Music is a comprehensive, practical guide that leads an aspiring video game composer from acquiring the necessary creative skills to understanding the function of music in games to finding work in the field. There is nothing else like it on the market, and it’s becoming a big hit. I was her music copyist and prepared all the music engravings for the musical examples that are in her book, but we had not yet met face to face! GameSoundCon is the premiere convention for video game composers and sound designers, and highly recommended.