When to Start Looking for Scoring Gigs

It is never too early to start scoring movies. I often hear excuses like “I want to perfect my writing skills before I do the first film project” or “I need to buy some more sample libraries in order to create music properly.” as a justification for not actively looking for film scoring gigs.

This is a pretty unhealthy attitude regarding your career for two big reasons.

1. The craft to score a movie needs to be learned as well. You need a few movies to gain experience before you actually will be able to score a movie on a professional level and get an understanding about how drama works. This is a very “learning by doing” heavy thing so the best way to get better at it is to actually do it.

2. If you want to work in that field, you need to start networking as soon as possible. There is practically no chance to be able to make a living from this job out of nowhere. It takes months and years of networking and working your way up to eventually be able to pay your bills from that job.

So starting off with amateur or student movies as soon as possible is just as important as buying better samples or becoming more proficient in writing music. Even if your first few attempts will not be brillant, you need to make them in order to become a good film composer.