If you're currently directionless in your career...
If you're currently directionless in your career...
Establish your largest goals, then work your way backwards to figure out your first step. We can ask ourselves a series of questions, and the questions become goals.
Here's an example:
Q - How do we get projects that will lead to a healthy and consistent income?
A - Have enough experience so that filmmakers will trust us to score movies with large budgets.
Q - What does that sort of experience look like?
A - Become very good, fast, effective, and efficient at scoring films; be very good at building relationships with a filmmaker; get to know what makes a great story.
Q - How do we get good at understanding story, producing scores, and working with filmmakers?
A - We work on a large amount of films with people, read a lot of stories, and practice certain aspects of the craft (e.g. speed, mixing, production technique, etc.).
Q - How many films do I have to work on to reach the level I want to be at within the next 6 to 12-or-so months?
A - Completing 12 short films by the end of 2020 would give us plenty of time to get used to scoring 10 to 20 minutes of film per month, and work on other aspects of business.
Q - How do we get those 12 short films?
A - We make contact with filmmakers who have stories we want to work on.
Q - How do we make contact with filmmakers when they have so many options for music?
A - We pitch them as effectively as we can—perhaps by doing research on them and finding ways to make a personal connection through our music, personality, or both.
Q - What are effective ways to pitch filmmakers based on personal connection or music?
A - Look at what they're currently working on and write music based on that story.
Q - Where do we find movies we want to score?
A - IMDb Pro, Movie Insider, YouTube, Vimeo, Reddit, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, film school, festivals, (our neighbor's friend's cousin's coworker who's looking for a composer,) etc.
AND SUDDENLY, OUR GOALS ARE:
Find movies that are in production;
Research the directors and make personal connections;
Formulate great custom demos for the filmmakers we choose—make our demos as undeniable as possible;
Complete 12 scores by 2020
Evaluate our situation—are we good enough to score big budget films? How's the production? How are we at connecting? Either way...
Use those 12 scores to get the next project, whether that be 12 more short films, our first feature, or the first big budget project.
Get some sleep and repeat!
We can apply this process to any part of our careers or lives. Ask a question, think about it, and answer it simply—step-by-step.
It's okay to do many things at once, and it's great to take things step by step. It's okay to feel like we're not where we should be. It's good to feel unsatisfied with our current situation.
We can use all that to ask questions that will get us to our next objective, and the next one, and the next one...
Every career path is different, yet all very similar. One constant is how constantly each person has pushed forward—question-by-question.
Everything adds up to the main thing... As long as we have the main thing in mind.