<p>I love this blog post by Michael Levine about what it was like to work for Hans Zimmer. I think it's very illuminating about what film scoring really is all about these days:</p>
<p>Why</a> Hans Zimmer Got The Job You Wanted (And You Didn't)</p>
<p>After reading this post, I realized I had a lot of misconceptions of what being a film composer meant.</p>
<p>Thanks for posting!</p>
<p>What were your misconceptions? This blog seems to describe a process that I might have imagined, and in some ways resembles choreography (much of which is collaborative). I have read that Zimmer doesn’t like discrete categories such as “composer,” “arranger” and “orchestrator” because he sees it as a team. </p>
<p>The idea that one can create music without any formal music training or even ability to read music is appealing to some. Certainly with the technology available today, it may be true. I do think there are musicians in many non-classical genres who have a sort of reverse snobbery about this, but there are also just as many who feel insecure. In fact, the reverse snobbery may even coverup some insecurity.</p>
<p>Zimmer seems very proud that he had maybe only “two weeks of piano lessons.” I am not really sure what that means for others, particularly the many young people who come on the music forum to ask about film scoring. We tend to recommend foundational studies in music first, and a school like USC reserves film scoring for grad school.</p>
<p>Any person in any field who knows how the power structure works and can negotiate it will tend to do well.</p>
<p>My main takeaway was that Zimmer has a process, works really hard, and is flexible in dealing with others. Good advice for musicians and everyone else, too!</p>
<p>I’ve been regularly watching SoundNotion TV - which has podcast interviews and discussions about New Music - but it also turns out they host a monthly podcast on film music. These podcasts are skyped discussions, news about current projects on the horizon, interviews, and reviews. The latest one, about halfway through the hour has an interview with Bear McCreary, for instance. For those seriously considering entering the film/tv scoring world there should be nuggets of interest in these hour long podcasts. [Streamers</a> and Punches | SoundNotion.tv](<a href=“http://www.soundnotion.tv/sap/]Streamers”>http://www.soundnotion.tv/sap/)</p>
<p>Another very interesting post about film scoring - Bear McCreary shares words of wisdom from Elmer Bernstein. [Bear</a> McCreary ? Official site](<a href=“Bear McCreary | Composer of Film, Television, and Video Games Scores”>Bear McCreary | Composer of Film, Television, and Video Games Scores)</p>