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The Do's and Don't's of Hiring a Film Composer: The Real Story
by Ford A. Thaxton (Published in "Film Score Monthly" Journal of 90s)
1. When seeking a composer try to find someone who either: 1) Has a track record of working fast and cheap, 2) Is the current flavor-of-the-month, or 3) Is related to or a friend of the executive producer's doughter or sun.
2. Hire a music supervisor who knows nothing about music and who will try to shove awful, meaningless songs into your film written by his or her boyfriend or girlfriend. Also, this person will keep up to half of your allotted music budget for doing nothing at all.
3. After hiring a composer and spotting the film, recut the film without telling your composer and give him a new deadline of one week to write two hours of music. Also tell him that the music budget is now half of what it was going to be when he signed the deal.
4. Bug your composer every day asking him to audition themes for you on keyboards. Tell him if it's not the best score he's ever written and it doesn't save your movie, it will be the end of his career.
5. After spotting the film, tell your composer that he must copy your temp-score note for note, but it must sound different because you can't afford to license the music since your music supervisor has spent more of the music budget and your composer only has 1/4 of the planned money to spend on the score.
6. A week before recording the score with a 100 piece orchestra, call your composer and say you've changed your mind about the approach you'd like to take, and you now want a score that sounds like "Twin Peaks".
7. Keep changing the movie up until the night before the recording sessions. Composers love this.
8. After hearing the first cue on the recording stage, tell your composer in front of the whole orchestra that you hate the "tinkling sounds in the back." Also suggest changes whenever possible in order to slow recording down to a snail's pace
9. Insure your composer for a high amount of money. That way, if he or she drops dead on the recording stage from overwork, the insurance will cover the recording of the score.
10. Hire the producers of Star Trek: The Next Generation to help dub your movie.
11. On the dubbing stage, listen to your sounds effects editor and music supervisor about the use and level of the music score. Whenever possible use sounds effects and rock songs to make your point, who cares what the composer thinks?
12. When preparing the soundtrack album don't put on any score at all, nobody wants to hear that boring stuff.
13. If the movie is a hit take all credit; if not, blame the music.
14. On your next big-budget movie don't hire the composer you've just used who nearly killed himself to give you a good score for no money. Instead, hire a big name who may not have talent.
15. Rehire your music supervisor and give him or her a really big budget this time.
:-)
by Ford A. Thaxton (Published in "Film Score Monthly" Journal of 90s)
1. When seeking a composer try to find someone who either: 1) Has a track record of working fast and cheap, 2) Is the current flavor-of-the-month, or 3) Is related to or a friend of the executive producer's doughter or sun.
2. Hire a music supervisor who knows nothing about music and who will try to shove awful, meaningless songs into your film written by his or her boyfriend or girlfriend. Also, this person will keep up to half of your allotted music budget for doing nothing at all.
3. After hiring a composer and spotting the film, recut the film without telling your composer and give him a new deadline of one week to write two hours of music. Also tell him that the music budget is now half of what it was going to be when he signed the deal.
4. Bug your composer every day asking him to audition themes for you on keyboards. Tell him if it's not the best score he's ever written and it doesn't save your movie, it will be the end of his career.
5. After spotting the film, tell your composer that he must copy your temp-score note for note, but it must sound different because you can't afford to license the music since your music supervisor has spent more of the music budget and your composer only has 1/4 of the planned money to spend on the score.
6. A week before recording the score with a 100 piece orchestra, call your composer and say you've changed your mind about the approach you'd like to take, and you now want a score that sounds like "Twin Peaks".
7. Keep changing the movie up until the night before the recording sessions. Composers love this.
8. After hearing the first cue on the recording stage, tell your composer in front of the whole orchestra that you hate the "tinkling sounds in the back." Also suggest changes whenever possible in order to slow recording down to a snail's pace
9. Insure your composer for a high amount of money. That way, if he or she drops dead on the recording stage from overwork, the insurance will cover the recording of the score.
10. Hire the producers of Star Trek: The Next Generation to help dub your movie.
11. On the dubbing stage, listen to your sounds effects editor and music supervisor about the use and level of the music score. Whenever possible use sounds effects and rock songs to make your point, who cares what the composer thinks?
12. When preparing the soundtrack album don't put on any score at all, nobody wants to hear that boring stuff.
13. If the movie is a hit take all credit; if not, blame the music.
14. On your next big-budget movie don't hire the composer you've just used who nearly killed himself to give you a good score for no money. Instead, hire a big name who may not have talent.
15. Rehire your music supervisor and give him or her a really big budget this time.
:-)
