I'm an American composer for film, television and video games, and a session and live drummer for radio and records.
As an international speaker and author, I'm passionate about talking to Creatives about the convergence of art and business and the strategies behind building a thriving and profitable creative enterprise as an artist.
I'm the founder and editor-in-chief of SCOREcast, the popular online consortium of worldwide film music and post-production professionals.
I author the creative resource The Conversation, which is distributed monthly to more than 550 subscribers across all disciplines of the creative arts space.
My company, Deane Ogden Creative, Inc., is a global organization that handles my music projects and advocacy endeavors, and also administers my Imaginator Music production library throughout the United States, Europe, Australia, and Asia.
Today, I officially started preparing for the gig of my life. When I was younger, I thought the gig of my life would be to play in a rock band and tour around the planet. Pretty hilarious. After that, I thought the gig of my life would be to score a primetime network television show. Then I thought the gig of my life would be if I could somehow manage to convince someone to let me score their feature film. And then... and then... and then... We are an ever-hopeful people... we Creatives. "The next one" is always going to be the one that is going to make it all come together for us. That's not a bad thing... as Creatives, we are wired that way. Creators don't tire of creating. If we do, then we aren't really balls-to-bone Creators, we're hobbyists. Totally different. The gig of your life might be...
"Ever since I was a tiny boy, I don't want no candy, I don't need no toy. I took a stick and an old coffee can… I bang on that thing 'til I got blisters on my hand!" — Todd Rundgren In the 8th grade at my Christian school, my English teacher went around the room and asked each of us to stand up and say three sentences about what our life's goals were. When my turn came, I stood up, smiled a big giant shit-eating grin, and loudly proclaimed, "I'm either going to score a film with a big star in it, or play drums on a record for a platinum-selling artist. And then I'm going to write a book telling people how they can do it too. Then, [pointing to one of the sweetest girls you'd ever want to meet] I'm going to marry Karla Roth." Fast forward 23...
I'm not stupid: I know why you come here. It's the Creative juice stuff. That's the function of this website and 95% of why I do what I do and why I love my work so much. The site analytics support that conclusion. When I post about a project of mine or a personal experience, this site takes a serious hit in terms of number of daily visits. On the contrary, if I post The Top 10 Ways to Murder Your Agent, the daily visits go through the roof. If I were to post The Top 10 Ways to Murder Your Agent (And Get Away With It), the numbers would jump even more. Humans love sensationalism. After exhaustive research, I've determined that you are ALL human. Thank god. A daily conversation with a bunch of robots wouldn't be much fun for me. That's why I occasionally score video games. Even still, certain thoughts of mine just need to come out. After...
Yesterday was an interesting day. After a pretty lengthy discussion with a handful of you in a Google+ Hangout about the topic of yesterday's post, I received some emails and saw several G+ comments about my statement "There is no such thing as a self-made man." Some people were a little defensive of that, explaining to me that they, in actuality, have carved out their careers on their own and that for me to take that away from them not only stems from an assumption I'm making based on my experience, but it's also just a crappy thing to say. I was pretty clear on my views about why I feel the way I do about the "self-made" proclamation, both in the post and in the chat that followed it, but I will admit there were some salient points made that challenged me to think a little more critically. I began having some second thoughts on...
Coming home after creatives meetings to this news is not only surreal, but sobering. As I unpack my Macbook Pro and iPhone and sit down to crank up Logic Studio and add a few necessary updates to iCal—Wow—I realize that the impact Steve Jobs has had on me cannot be summed to only a few words. I feel as though I've lost someone who has looked out for me for the last twenty years. His work has played a large role in allowing me the freedom to pursue my dreams and realize personal and professional happiness in many ways. One thing about great creators is that they never stop creating. There's no question that whatever he had up his sleeve next will be infinitely cooler given the resources he now has available. You can almost hear him—"I think it's going to be really incredible!" I miss him already. Rest in...
