Composing

Happy Thursday, Creative Army! “This is a community for you, built by you.” When I was conceiving Stage 32 way back in 2009, those were some of the first words I wrote down on a legal pad I titled THE MISSION. The mission hasn’t changed. The song remains the same. Many of you know the story. During our soft launch in 2011, I reached out to 100 of my industry friends and showed them the first version of Stage 32. I asked them to join and tell me what they liked and didn’t like about the pla...

I'm an experimenter who prefers to learn by doing. In the beginning, that meant significant errors in my recording process. Getting smart, I signed up for some audio engineering courses and learned a lot. I clicked and watched as what I recorded compressed, but not precisely in the way I imagined. And I forgot to save the original recording! My tendency to click and see what happens came back to bite me. Without fail, save your original recording in raw form. It's my number one audio engineeri...

The television and film industry is often perceived as glamorous, fast-paced, and competitive. While it can be all of those things, there is one aspect that underpins success in this industry: community and collaboration. No matter how talented or driven you are, forging meaningful relationships and fostering a spirit of collaboration is essential for building a sustainable career in entertainment. Why Community Matters in Film and Television Shared Knowledge and Mentorship The entertainmen...

On behalf of the entire Stage 32 family, I'd like to wish you all a happy, healthy, and loving Christmas and the remainder of the holiday season. While the holidays are a time of celebration, I hope everyone will take a moment to reflect on the many blessings life has offered and afforded all of us. We personally feel blessed to have had so many of you enter and enrich our lives. The Stage 32 community has grown to over 1,000,000 members from around the globe, and we are beyond honored to prov...

So you landed a job as a composer for a Film. Congratulations! But now where do you start? I think a good point is to build a positive relationship with your Director. That could definitely contribute to the success of your gig. Like any other kind of human relationship, there are no rules to make it work and there is always room for improvement, but here you’ll find some tips and thoughts, based on my experience, that I think might be helpful. Let’s suppose you have negotiated the deal, the...

Podcasts are a unique way to communicate with a desired group of listeners in an episodic format. Podcasts are designed to appeal to a niche audience; therefore you have the opportunity to zero in on exactly who you want to talk to and what your topics should be. You’re straight-up targeting people. You never know… Your thoughts and opinions could very well resonate with a horde of like-minded folks and maybe even sway some of those that have different opinions than what you chat about on your...

I received my master’s degree in Composition and Technologies from the University of Colorado Boulder and I couldn’t wait to start working in the industry. My journey has been incredible and I worked hard to get where I am. You have to start somewhere, so I began my career working for Tom Holkenborg (Junkie XL) as his primary assistant, working on sound design, additional composition, studio music tech, conducting and orchestration. During those years with Junkie XL, I worked on several films in...

One of the greatest aspects of creative projects in any discipline is the synergy and surprising turns that occur in the process. You start with a vision and then one happy accident after another takes you down a rabbit hole to something far beyond expectation. This was exactly true of my re-entry into the music world with the video for my act This Mad Desire's Operators Are Standing By. To date, it has been viewed over 200,000 times on Youtube, spawned more videos, created occasions for me to p...

When you think of great original soundtracks - the best of the best, you probably think of Final Fantasy, Zelda, Skyrim, and even Sonic. Video game music is a genre in itself. It went from 8-bit synthy beeps and bobs to orchestra epic arrangements. The genre has impacted and inspired so many, myself included. I will admit that growing up, I wasn’t into the greats like Final Fantasy or Zelda. I was more into obscure games such as Spyro, Twisted Metal, Crazy Taxi, and such. It is games like thos...

Happy Sunday, Creative Army! Have you had a creative weekend so far? I have some content here for you that is sure to get the creative juices flowing, so grab your coffee, and let's dive in. First up, in this video from the Writers Guild Foundation, acclaimed showrunner Glen Mazzara (THE ROCKIE, THE DARK TOWER) discusses the challenges of being a screenwriter, advice for new writers, and the importance of including fun in a spec script. It's great insight into what a showrunner looks for whe...