SCU: Orchestration 101—Part 1

Mastering the art of orchestration takes a lifetime of study, research and application. But, we all have to start somewhere, right?

10 Lessons on “Breaking In”

I often get asked for a checklist of things one can do to break in to the business. Here is my personal “top ten” of lessons learned.

James Olszewski: Delivering Micro-Projects

To a do-it-yourself composer working on student films, non-paying gigs, super-low-paying gigs, and other micro-projects (although don’t call them that!), delivery may not seem like that big of a deal.

Sometimes it isn’t; sometimes “delivery” amounts to emailing an attachment to the dude you’re working for and saying, “Here you go.” If your uncle is working on a home video and wants you to throw something together in exchange for him washing your car, go for it—do it that way.

But what happens when your career jumps up from micro-projects to mini-projects; or from mini-projects to legit projects? Wouldn’t you want to already have the professional delivery processes and habits, and lessons-learned in place from the start? Micro-projects are a great learning ground. So go learn—make your mistakes while the stakes aren’t high. All of us, regardless of how small the project is, should at least try to deliver professionally. If you don’t, you won’t make any mistakes at it until it counts, and then it’ll hurt.

A-List Film Composer Habits for Any-List Film Schedules

The Creative Process. It’s a tough thing to talk about for me because my creative process (CP) is in such a constant state of flux all of the time. From project to project, my CP changes up drastically. And then sometimes, what worked on one project also works great on the next. What I will offer today is a sneak peek into the creative habits of some of the composers that I’ve worked with over the few years that I’ve been assisting. From these great composers, I’ve gleaned many secrets, tricks, templates, skills, and techniques – some that I use in my own work, and others that I don’t, but might someday. The thing that…

How to NOT Compose for Television

It is pretty daunting to look at the TV landscape and the people who are already involved with scoring for television and ask yourself: How in the hell am I ever going to get a shot? So many shows are in production, not to mention the fact that television is not just about the “regular season” anymore — it’s about a fragmented “season” that now runs year-round. The big networks are now starting to show the signs of a marathon runner trying desperately to keep up with the young bucks that are also on the course. These “youngins” are starting to become directly responsible for some of the best drama and comedy on television, with…

How to Work on Multiple Projects and Stay Sane

As a media composer, work is like buses. There’s nothing for a while, then three projects come along at once. In the last six months I have been inundated with composing and sound design work for film and theatre and I am constantly thanking my lucky stars. This is exactly what I wanted when I started out many years ago. Isn’t it? Stay sane in the midst of chaos! Just kidding – of course it is, but on a day-to-day basis it can be a little bit of a challenge to keep the many, many minutes of music flowing, pouring out your heart and soul on demand, whilst maintaining a vague level of sanity. It’s…

Phases of the Game (the Quiz)

A beginning is a delicate time… or so I’ve heard. So I want to begin my column here on SCOREcast with what I’m going to try to cover—which is nearly everything—and a few words about my plan of attack. I like to work “big to small.” In other words, I try to start with the overarching concept, and then work out the details as I go. That way, if I’ve omitted anything, you have the larger context, and can figure out the details yourself. If you’re cool with that, read on… Today’s Big Picture has to do with self-assessment, and it’s a metaphor from (American) football: coaches talk about their teams’ performance in terms of…

Jim Well: The Journey

This monthly column, Inside The Outside, takes you inside one man’s ongoing journey to a composing career. I’ll be thinking out loud about challenges as they hit. I can’t say for sure I’ll arrive intact. But if you’re a fellow traveler, we’ll confront the same demons. May The Farce be with us. “Who is this Jim Well guy?” you wonder. I didn’t start out to be a composer. As a kid, I longed to be a music guy. Dad said, “Son, be an engineer instead. Do music on the side.” Taking his advice, I went to the Dark Side, while Muse took a nap. Can’t say I regret my eons as an engineer. It put…

The Balance of The Byrds

My passion to create music for film drives me. I am still a university student, and therefore am learning the essentials, but the real valuable lessons I have learned about this business have not been from lectures and exercises in harmonic theory. The most important things I’ve learned about building and maintaining a career as a film composer have come from two things: Watching my boss balance his personal and professional life, and looking into the eyes of my 9-month-old daughter every night when I get home from the studio or from a long day of classes. You see, my equation for success in all of this looks something like this: Experience + Values =…

Maximizing Your Time: The Essentials

So here I am, responsible for getting these columns off to a delinquent start! But, I have a legitimate excuse, which I am going to use to kick off my first post here in my series “Composer as Producer.” Before I get started, I’ll take a quick moment to explain the purpose of my column. As a lecturer at UCLA, my personal goal is to train students in the skills they need to bring their music from the initial moment of creativity to the finished product, whether it be a live performance, an electronic recording, or a combination of the two. Even as the prices of music production equipment continue to fall, and the opportunities…