It’s Okay To Be Happy

Have you heard this supposedly motivational quote before: “Never be satisfied.” The idea is that if you’re satisfied, you’ll become complacent. So in order to keep improving you can never be satisfied with your output. While I get the sentiment, [ ... ]

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Finding Filmmakers

I’m going to show you an “outside-of-the-box” place where you can meet the filmmakers you need to build relationships with as a composer. But first, a quick background story… When I started teaching about film music, students would approach me, [ ... ]

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Filmmaker Relationships

Many, many, moons ago, I worked at Blockbuster Entertainment. We were a small, local store, and so our regular customers almost felt like family. When they’d visit the store, they’d not only leave with some excellent, personalised movie recommendations, but also [ ... ]

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Reaching Out To Filmmakers

Outreach is about building relationships, not self-promotion. What does that mean? Imagine you were trying to begin a new friendship online. Which of these email outreach options do you think is a better way to build a friendship: a) “Hi, I’m [ ... ]

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The Perfect Composer Website Layout

When I started building soundtrack.academy I realised that I needed to have a “proper” website. I thought I knew quite a lot about websites, having built a few in the past. Oh how wrong I was. Since I wanted to [ ... ]

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How Composers Rise To The Top

In his brilliant book, Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell aims to prove that those who rise to the top don’t always get there alone. Here’s what composers can learn from his revelations. “The tallest oak in the forest is the tallest not [ ... ]

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