<p>I'm a sophomore in Music Composition, and I'm frankly wondering if I'm in the right school. I love composing, but I know that I specifically want to do Film/TV/video-game composition, and my school doesn't offer anything in that specific field, though I feel that overall it's a great place to learn 'just' composition, as it were. From a rather cursory search I've seen USC Thornton, Columbia, and Berklee as top results in Film Scoring specfically, and Berklee is the only one I see as an undergrad program. I'm just wondering if it makes more sense to get a more general mastery of composition first, and then get into more specifics of how to apply music to film, or if I should be trying to get into a more specific program, since I know exactly what I want to do?</p>
<p>Any thoughts on this/recommended schools for me to look into would be immensely appreciated.</p>
<p>Dear Nephrite,</p>
<p>I’ve heard that the University of North Carolina State School of the Arts (UNCSA) has a great program for film scoring. Not sure if it’s graduate or undergraduate, but it would be worth checking out. Good luck!</p>
<p>It makes more sense to get a more general mastery of composition first - which is why, except for Berklee, and possibly NYU now, all the film scoring degrees are graduate level. The alternative would be more technical programs which combine composition with production - such as PAT at Univ. of Michigan. But I highly doubt one could transfer into a program like that, rather than start as a Freshman.</p>
<p>Columbia? I did not know they offered film scoring. Are you perhaps thinking of NYU?</p>
<p>I recommend you seek out students in the film dept at your university, if it has one, and offer to score their student films for them. If there is no department there’s still probably someone making a video of some sort, if just for fun…</p>
<p>^Columbia College Chicago</p>
<p>Nephrite, I’m with Spirit Manager 100% on the general advice (master comp first) but depending on the school you’re at it <em>might</em> be possible to transfer to the UMich PAT program if they liked your portfolio and liked your school – eg. if they would accept your comp core courses and maybe music theory, musicology, etc. You would have to very aggressively sequence up in the film courses because you don’t actually get to do the film production composition, sound design or foley work until you’ve taken the film department’s generic courses that allow you to take the upper level courses.</p>
<p>With respect to gaming, are you currently competent at C+…or in the case of mobile games, C sharp? If not, take courses…your skill set would be more desirable.</p>
<p>If you love where you’re at, I suspect you’d do just as well to continue and develop your composition skills, add some valuable programming knowledge and then in terms of ECs, volunteer to score a few student films etc. so you have a reel/portfolio over time.</p>
<p>Best wishes.</p>