Physically being where the 'market' is or no?

[Stephen Tammearu]

With the success and reliability of Mac's MobilMe, RSS feeds, YouSendIt, etc...is it still essential nowadays to physically go to LA, New York, Nashville, or where ever the music/film scene is hot? I've done big projects all through the internet with the minimum of trips to those locations for sessions or even just serious storyboards...

So...really....is it necessary for a composer to physically pick up and move everything across the country when it can all be done at your desk no matter where you are (if you do the research, of course)?

[Stephen Tammearu]

Really? Not one person here has any input for this?

[Adrian Ellis]

Hey Stephen,

I will give my very humble opinion on this. My answer would be two-fold:

1. No, it's not necessary, in terms of deliverables. All the technologies you mentioned make it entirely possible to work at a distance. A great document of this are the videos showing James Newton Howard liaising with Jackson while scoring King Kong... full res files via T1.

2. Yes, it's necessary, in terms of networking, face-time, building presence and trust. I too have worked on projects which I found, applied for, got hired for, and completed online without ever having ever met the producers/directors, etc, but all serious work past a certain level (and I don't mean that as a judgment of quality, but rather as a factor of budget - ie: projects that are working with one, the 'next level') are unlikely to conduct their business without a lot of "face".

Of course, if you are a 'known entity', these rules are probably subject to change; again, King Kong serves as an example of this.

My experience is that in terms of the level of the industry player, you eventually hit a wall when going purely virtual. It's kind of like working the phone - they always say "Pick up the phone and call!". Emailing someone doesn't necessarily render the same results as a call - it's seen as more 'serious'.

Cheers and best of luck!

Adrian

[Stephen Tammearu]

That's helped me out quite a bit; especially with the weird economy happenings, currently. Thanks.

[Evan Evans]

It is necessary. I've tried the remote thing, and I have graphs which show the results. DECLINE. Since I've moved back to Los Angeles, I've been much more successful.

To give an example, I called a Director and he was interested in me but couldn't yet decide. So I called up the Editor of the film, who was in Burbank, and told him the Director said to burn off REEL 4 for me so I could do a spec demo, and that I'd be by in 2 hours to pick it up. I drove over there, grabbed it, and went back and wrote my demo. Long story short, I didn't get the gig, but that is the kind of hustle that gets you the gigs in the long run statistically.

Also to be near A class musicians who can come over and play on your demos and recordings in a jiffy is a plus.

Also, I teach privately here, something you can't get elsewhere. :)

[Chris Alpiar]

Never saw this discussion. I will comment now tho - if you want to 'score film' as a career then you must be in LA. Period. End of story. If you want to have 'music placed' in TV, film, etc via production music libraries, its unnecessary. If you want to do game music, you will do a LOT better if you are in the city the game is being developed, but game devs are a bit more savvy so its not as big of a problem. If you do advertising music, it doesnt matter as long as the agency you work through is ok with you. THough you would probably do better in NYC or Nashville or Atlanta. The 'remote work' concept works *after* you have connections and jobs that are steady from a group that you are tight with. Like after 10 years in LA you might have opportunity to move to some place out of the city where you are comfy yet can get in to the city when needed. I would say when you have enough income from royalties to pay your basic living expenses and can get choosy about your projects, thats when its probably ok to live remotely. Trust me. I used to live in LA, and now I am in Dayton (for a few reasons, which I wont get into here) and my work-load has dropped by about 70% since I left. So... now I am making plans to move back to the lovely City of Angels and Smog, probably next year

[Deane Ogden]

Great question...

Chris is absolutely right about this.

We just recorded a roundtable of vet composers at the SCOREcast podcast on this very topic. The conclusion was that yes... you can pretty much live anywhere in the world and survive as a professional composer thanks to Web 2.0 tools that are at hand these days. The real question is, "What kinds of projects do you want to be doing?"

Emphatically, you will not be able to sustain a career as a studio feature film or network television composer while living outside of the major film/television hubs of the world (LA, NYC, London). It just will not happen because the studios won't allow it to. You will be just fine working on indies and local cable stuff, even trailers and commercials, but network TV and studio features only happen in LA and NYC. This is because the studios will not entrust their 7-10 million dollar budgets to people outside the beltway. They require locality in the people they work with. There are too many things that can go wrong in the post-production process, and the studios will not risk the time/money it would take to confab back and forth with someone 2000 miles away.

After you achieve a modicum of success as a composer, then you will be able to move wherever you want. I can think of several A-list composers that live outside of the LA/NYC area that are able to simply fly back and forth to those cities and work when necessary. However, not only do they have the money to do that, but they also enjoy a reputation that was built during years and years of living in those cities, working their way up through the ranks,

Deane Ogden
http://www.scorecastonline.com