Finding The Right Composer For The Job; A Few Considerations For New Filmmakers

Finding the right person for the job

First up is how to find the right person in a sea of creatives who are all fighting for the chance to prove themselves. 

From the filmmaker’s perspective it must feel overwhelming when you have multiple departments and priorities to juggle, you need to sort out the music and likely have dozens of composers filling your inbox with demos to listen to; I’ve seen this reach the hundreds in for low budget independent films!

So how do you sift out who is right?

Agencies

Composer Agents can set you up well and make all these choices for you and agents will only take on vetted and quality composers. You tell them what you want and they will ensure you have the right person for the job. Less decisions to make and you can spend more time thinking about the film itself. This comes at a cost but this is the price you pay for assurance.

If you are unfamiliar with agencies see - 33rpm.com, smatalent.com, ukfilmandmusic.co.uk 

There are plenty of agencies around so spend a few minutes scanning through a few and check out similarities between each roster. This will give you a base line of what to look out for.

Vetting Process

Odds on if you are a new starter you won’t have the budget for this and especially if you are self-funding a film, often, the music is the last thing to be considered as it is at the end of the production line. Don’t leave it to the end, include a brief alongside your early castings and plan ahead. 

The low budget and independent film world is the territory of the emerging composer, it’s where they earn their stripes, and where new talent vies for a chance to develop their portfolios and work on new productions. It can be a nightmare to find what you need and it could be all too easy to skim through a couple of demos and pick one you might see is the best from a quick ad post without much more consideration.

If you refine and define your process, this can make it easier for you to find who is right for your project and who isn’t.

What to Include in Your Call Sheets

Set out your expectations, the clearer your idea for the sound the easier it is to filter who can do the job.

Treat the process like your other castings, it isn’t a job anyone can do well so define your parameters clearly and look out for composers with credits on similar projects. Listen for demos that hit the sound quality rather than the exact style you are looking for. Composers are adaptive and can create a sound to your requirements easily enough. The quality is often a realistic example of what you will get so don’t expect this to suddenly change for your project (unless the budget for the previous projects is a restricting factor).

When putting out a call for composers/sound designers include in your brief the objective and synopsis, guidelines and music requirements for deliverables. Set out the basic details of the project including, genre, duration of the whole project, style of music required, and a couple of audio references you want applicants to be able to create. Often a whole film contains more than one genre of music, if this is the case say so.

In addition to what the project is about, a composer will need to know your budget for music. This is a big one to get right! Make sure what you are asking for matches the budget. Any composer worth their salt (even a new starter) will not give a second look to call sheets asking for the earth with minimal to no budget and if you are getting applicants for this you are getting the wrong people in front of you. 

So, if your project is micro-low budget you need to be thinking about how you as a filmmaker can attract quality composers if the funds aren’t available. What is the composer going to get from giving you time-work-experience for such little return… and no, credit/exposure doesn’t cut it.

How do you want to choose your composer/Sound Designer

Are you going to open up a call sheet as an open call job advert, are you targeting applications just through networking events or are you targeting industry sites. Whatever you choose has benefits and drawbacks but in each case the more open a call is the more of a headache you could have. 

Social media is one platform that can help find you a composer but be wary, an open call here can lead to all manner of things in your inbox so set out clear expectations for submission criteria. 

Set this up in a way you can easily short-list and compare demos and portfolios and put a time frame on when you will stop accepting submissions and make your decisions. 

What to do If you are still not sure

Ask! Find someone (like us!) who knows about the world of media composers and see what they recommend. If you see a composer who has great credits and demos but isn’t affordable they may know someone who is right for you. Ask the questions and don’t go back to wading through endless links to portfolios.

Get in touch via our contact page if you need any advice on how to choose the right composer or sound designer for your projects!