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!
Normally, I don't have much time for watching television, but thanks to my recent subscription to Hulu Plus, I can save all the stuff I'm interested in for months and then watch it all over a long weekend or while I'm on holiday. Being a freak about business, I've recently discovered Shark Tank — a show on ABC where ordinary people with a business idea scramble to get in front of five top-line investors and pitch their company to (hopefully) convince one of the "sharks" to partner with them in their venture. The panel shifts a bit from season to season on the show, but most recently has consisted of people like Kevin O'Leary, Daymond John, and my personal favorite, Mark Cuban. There are a few other people who are on the show, some very interesting people — but each of them is a highly successful and respected business person,...
It's been a little over a year since I started The Conversation Project on Quora and LinkedIN. Since that time, the project has grown to include over 700 people worldwide. The design plan over this next year is to offer readers more in the form of conversations started by members of The Conversation community, video Conversations, and a regular "online follow-up meeting" option that I'll be announcing very soon. Conversation #12 I'm sending out the twelfth issue of The Conversation in the next weeks. I'm particularly excited about this issue because many conversationalist subscribers have asked for a discussion on best practices of being a small boutique artist, versus being a more recognized artist in your genre. In the spirit of that, I've focused this issue on five things you can do as a beginning artist to play at a larger level, and five things you can do as a recognizable artist to maintain your...
I'm a composer by trade and passion. That's what I do. I write music, play it, produce it, delivery it, release it, perform it. There is nothing else creatively that makes me happier than when I'm working on music. But there is much more to Deane Ogden. I also love to write words. Obviously. There's a whole website of them here at [deaneogden.com]. There's a whole other website of them over at [scorecastonline.com]. There's yet another bunch of even deeper writing at The Conversation Project. And there is an even deeper version of many of those ideas in the book I just finished. For me, crafting words and authoring ideas is another form of artistic expression that satisfies something in me that music — as much as I love it — cannot. My friend Tina Guo is an incomparable cellist, but you might not know that she's also an accomplished photographer. My...
Tomorrow (Monday, March 19th) will mark our sixth Creative Hangout. I will be focussing the discussion on "software helps", meaning I'll ask you to talk about a piece of software in your studios that has helped you in your creative business. That could mean a software sampler or synth for a composer, an online color schemer for a painter or digital artist, or a spreadsheet program for anybody who needs to keep organized. We'll be talking about how we use these tools in our workflows and how you can integrate them into yours for faster creating. I did this a week ago with my brain trust composer hangout and I came away with a dozen new things to add that are going to help me write music faster and with greater efficiency. It was a very productive time, and I think this one will be just as beneficial, maybe even more. "The...
I had a wonderful show and tell with one of my directors today — an action/science fiction film that I am scoring this month for full orchestra and taiko ensemble. The conversation was awesome. My collaborator is quite versed in the film music pantheon. We are able to reference scenes and situations from films that most people wouldn't even remember. Just the most obscure stuff you can imagine. During our discussion this morning, we referenced Valley of the Dolls, Heat, Zardoz, and Event Horizon.... all in the same sentence. That's not easy! Technically, a director might be the most proficient at his or her craft. Your director might have extensive knowledge of subjective camera angles, racking, trucking shots, or swish pans. She might have a workable understanding of production sound, colorization, or neorealism. Those are all part of what we call logical technique — essentially, the technicalities of putting a film together properly. The "Logical Technique" Composer Unfortunately, logical technique is...
