Working in Film?

College Majors Music Majors
1

<p>My daughter wants to major in performance, and although she loves working with younger kids and still is considering Education, she’s really stressing her love of performance (oboe). She realizes the extreme difficulty in finding steady work in this field.</p>

<p>She is only in 9th grade, but recently I noticed her using her free time to watch movies on her iPhone. I asked why she wasn’t using the iPad, PC or TV if it was on Netflix. She said she could see it just fine. I then said why are you using the really nice earphones and not just the earbuds? She said I’m much more interested in the music then the actual scenes of the movie, so I want to hear it more then I want to see it! Ok… so I said “Are you now planning to be the next John Williams like a million other kids interested in music?” She said no, I consider him the writer and I wish to be an actor in the musical movie. I said explain that to me. She said well, I’d really like to work in film, on a movie soundstage (I think that’s the term she used–I know nothing about this–just a movie buff, which I guess got her interested in film.) She said in her view the score is a whole different movie within the movie itself which complements what you’re seeing. She wants to be an actor within the
music portion of the movie. I said 'So a musician." She said “Oh mom, I just think there’s so much more to it then that. The music in Jaws is much scarier then the rubber shark! The music is the actor in those scenes when the shark attacks. The shark is secondary.” I thought that was pretty good for a 14 year old! And it’s got her to watch movies like Casablanca, Schindler’s List, Gone with Wind, and others just to hear the music, although of
course she also watches the movie. She then goes back and listens to just the music. She’s decided Itzak Perlman was way better then Liam Neeson in Schindlers List! </p>

<p>So, what does working on a film orchestra entail? I’m completely clueless. Are you hired to
work for a studio, on a per film basis, how does that work? Is USC the only place to be or is any top music school capable of getting you there? Is there ANY stability in work coming your way if you’re a top musician?</p>

2

<p>She’s only in the 9th grade. She’ll have lots of ideas before it’s over. I’d tell her to spend some time getting really comfortable playing in an orchestra. She may find that playing in a professional orhcestra some day just may not be what she’s looking for. As for schools to get you there, I think any major school can get you anywhere.</p>

3

<p>Studio musician jobs are even more scarce and difficult to get as full time symphonic positions. Out sourcing is prevalent and becoming the norm. There are just too many fine musicians in eastern Europe who are more than willing to play for under $7. an hour.</p>

4

<p>Let me start off by saying that I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night …</p>

<p>The person who makes a difference in the music portion of a film is the composer. He is the creative talent. The rest of the people are hired for their skill. They are hired by the studio on an hourly (contract may be by the day) to perform the piece in a sound studio where it is recorded. Not much glamor at all for the musician. I imagine it is something like you see on the movie Fantasia.</p>

<p>If her passion is to create music for film, then she needs to go the composer route.</p>

5

<p>As my daughter can play all the woodwinds and has played in about 20 musicals in the pit orchestra, she has looked into this a bit and taken some lessons with a local professional doubler. He, like everyone else we talk to, says that studio work has pretty much dried up. Recordings, outsourcing to eastern Europe, etc. There is some work left, but this pretty much goes to the woodwind players who can play at a professional level on several instruments, not one. there might be some studio work for the single-instrument musician, but that musician makes their livelihood doing something else and is only called to play in a studio occasionally.</p>

<p>And 9th grade is not too early to look into this! My daughter was getting paid to play in pit orchestras already in 8th grade. If your daughter learns clarinet well, she could get herself some pit orchestra experience and have better insight into the studio world.</p>

6

<p>

Actually, that was the Philadelphia Orchestra in the 1939 movie Fantasia. Here is a quote from then-president Joe Kluger concerning their 1992 lawsuit against Disney, for not receiving compensation for DVD videos. It’s from a New York Times article:</p>

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<p>Ten years later, the digital world has changed the music industry even more than could probably have been imagined in those days. With technology changing so rapidly, it’s hard to imagine the future for freelance musicians. What might have been a stable source of income 50, 30, or even 10 years ago is no longer an option.</p>

7

<p>Maybe she’d like to be the person who puts the sound effects into the film? I’ve no idea howthat job market may be.
The music is regularly farmed out to other sources as others have said, so the job she’d love to do doesn’t exist unless you’re the composer.</p>

8

<p>There is a lot of pressure on freelance musicians or on traditional jobs. For example, Broadway producers for years have been looking for ways to cut down the number of musicians they use, by using synthesizers or even canned music. So far it hasn’t worked, among other things audiences paying 200 bucks to see a musical don’t sit well listening to recorded music or some guy on a synthesizer, but it is likely to not go away. </p>

<p>With movies it was always difficult to get into, even when the studios had their own orchestras. Eventually it became freelance based, but it was a very inbred group of musicians, for example they would have one horn player they regularly used and a student of his might ‘inherit’ his seat doing soundtracks…and what little work is left in this is even more inbred.</p>

<p>If you look at movies like Star Wars or Close encounters or Raiders of the lost Ark, a lot of the time you would see professional orchestras like the London Symphony doing the soundtrack, these days it very well might be musicians from Eastern Europe or obscure ocrhestras from those places doing the recording, because they are cheap. </p>

<p>Then, too, a lot of movies use synthesized soundtrack music and skip the orchestra entirely…</p>

<p>My take quite honestly is for a musical student, to try and focus as much on the broad possibilities as possible, rather then the narrow. Focusing strictly on getting into a top level orchestra, being a member of a chamber group, being a soloist, being a movie music musician, playing broadway pit orchestras, an opera orchestra, etc, all have varying degrees of difficulty (with the key word being none of them is easy or all that likely to pan out as a full time job). My recommendation to you D is to focus on a)learning her instrument or instruments to the best of her ability, gaining as much peforming experience as possible (solo, chamber, orchestral), having the best teacher you can find and afford, and then getting into a music program that can further driver her further. One hint working musicians give my son all the time is focus on the interpersonal skills in ensemble work, not only be part of an orchestra, but form informal groups with other music students, and take any performing opportunities she can get…and be prepared to use those skills in networking with other musicians to get gigs and such. </p>

<p>In the end I suspect it is going to be the music student with the broadest range of skills that ends up making it is in music going forward, that if a position in the NY Phil or BSO or whatever opens up and they make it, great, but in reality until that great gig opens up, going to take a lot of things.</p>

<p>One suggestion I have, there is this guy, Clayton Halsop, a violinist, who has done a lot of work in the movie industry as cpncertmaster and such, he has a website out there, maybe your D could send him an e-mail through the website and ask him about his experiences with doing movie music and any advice he has.</p>

9

<p>redeye41 - She has a very interesting take on the music. I am still unclear on what she wants to do. Probably too many metaphors for me. Does she want to write the music or perform the music?</p>