I'm an American composer for film, television and video games, and a session and live drummer for radio and records.
I'm also very passionate about creating resources for and providing mentoring opportunities to creative artists all over the world. I am founder and editor-in-chief of SCOREcast, the popular online consortium of global 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.
I speak internationally to creative artists about the convergence of art and business.
I'm interested in working with incredible people who love to initiate extraordinarily creative projects. If that resonates with you, please get in touch and let's do something great together!
sal•a•ble |ˈsāləbəl|(also saleable ) adjective definition: fit or able to be sold. DERIVATIVES: sal•a•bil•i•ty |ˌsāləˈbilitē|noun You aren't selling your music. You aren't selling your acting chops. You aren't selling your cartoons. You aren't selling your new book. You are selling YOU. If people don't like YOU, then I'm sorry, but you're not salable. People want to collaborate with people who are easy as hell to deal with. No drama, no incidents, no issues. Just results. They don't have the time to put up with your crap. Not having yourself together or not being where you are supposed to be when you are supposed to be there. That's kid stuff. And frankly, there are a bunch of kids that are NOT doing those things now... and they are taking your jobs as a result. Making Yourself Saleable It's not hard. Seriously. It takes more thought than it does action. With the right tools, you can...
We've all been in the place of losing a gig and not knowing why we lost it. It's a horrible feeling. It can be creatively devastating to work super hard on a presentation, a demo, or a sample only to be met with a callous "no" with zero explanation as to the reason for the rejection. Your mind starts asking all the desperate questions: Why didn't I get that job? What didn't they like about me? What didn't they like about my portfolio? My music? My performance? My writing? What was wrong with what I did? What's wrong with ME??? What You Can See Sometimes the reasons are obvious. Why you didn't get the gig is staring you in the face. Presentation First impressions being what they are, is your presentation the most kick-ass thing people have ever seen? If you are a composer, is your demo rock solid and fresh with...
Today, I'm starting a series of talks called Essential Skills of a Modern Day Film Composer. I believe there are some things that every composer who is working today possesses that are simply necessary to achieving huge success in this gig. Can you get there without them? Absolutely. But I think it will take you longer. Without some of these, the journey will be a little rougher and certainly a lot more challenging. Let's start with the assumption that you are writing on a deadline. Writing on a Deadline If you are a working media composer, you already love to write music. If you don't, you are in the wrong business. Most of us who are in this gig find ourselves needing to write a certain amount of minutes a day when we are on a deadline. The formula is simple: Divide the number of total minutes of music in the project by...
Let's talk about our Directors. Actually, let's do one better—let's talk to our Directors! I wanted to do something different that I thought would be a lot of fun but also incredibly informative. This is something I've never done before, and it might be a bit flawed in its execution, so, fair warning. Regardless, I'm excited to present it to you as the next piece of this "essential skills" set. I hope you enjoy it, and please, feel free to retweet, share, "plus", and pass it around to whomever you think might find it useful. "The Director Survey" Series Part 2: The Indie Directors VIDEO: Letter From a Hollywood Director The Plan Via an email form letter, I asked ten questions of thirty known Hollywood directors. I asked all thirty directors the same ten questions, each with a selection of multiple choice answers. Each question also had a blank space...
Video Introduction From Deane If you cannot see the video below, click here. "The Director Survey" Series Part 1: The Hollywood Directors VIDEO: Letter From a Hollywood Director The Plan Via an email form letter, I asked ten questions of thirty independent film directors. I asked all thirty directors the same ten questions, each with a selection of multiple choice answers. The questions are the exact same questions that were asked of the thirty Hollywood directors who were also surveyed in this study. Each question included a blank space wherein anyone was free to enter further explanation or an anecdote that he or she felt would help to inform their answer. The Participants I used a little bit different process in selecting the independent directors than I did in selecting the Hollywood directors. In order to obtain solid data by which I could draw some hard conclusions, some ground rules were established...
