FILM SCORING MECCA | Emerging composer Anne-Kathrin Elisabeth Dern – part 2
Welcome to FILM SCORING MECCA – a series tailored and curated by composer Adriano Aponte for FST. Presenting amazing and insightful articles about professionals working at top level in the film music industry. Today we continue the article by composer Anne-Kathrin Elisabeth Dern.
MUSIC DEGREE VALUE
The importance of having a music degree strongly depends on what kind of music you write and where you got your degree. Since I write fairly traditional orchestral music, it’s important to me to fall back on technique, which I acquired through attending conservatory and college. With enough self-discipline I’m sure self-study or private lessons could get you there as well. Where you study matters too – some programs are very well put together by people actually working in the industry while a lot more of them are practically useless. Vetting a film scoring program thoroughly before attending and possibly paying a large sum of money should be a priority.
Vetting a film scoring program thoroughly before attending and possibly paying a large sum of money should be a priority.
To be clear though, few people are going to look at your degree when they consider hiring you. Other factors play a much bigger role. But music education – whether it’s through a formal school or not – will always be a benefit to me. It helps me towards the end of every project when my creative energy is used up and I’m simply tired. Technique is what saves me when inspiration fails me. I can use my themes and easily fall back on technique to still get the job done on time. It also helps me be flexible and versatile for different projects. To quickly analyze things one hears or sees and detect patterns is a work tool one is taught in school, through music theory, ear training, and plenty of analysis. I don’t think there’s anything to lose from having “too much” music education. Worst case scenario, one has skills and knowledge that remain unused. The opposite – lacking skills and knowledge when needed – is much more severe.
Music education – whether it’s through a formal school or not – will always be a benefit to me.
LIVING IN LOS ANGELES
The debate of living in LA or not, firstly depend on how you define success. It means something different for everyone and not all versions of it require a composer to be in LA. In general, I’d say there’s more opportunity in LA (and of course with that also more competition). There’s such a large infrastructure for filmmaking in place that you won’t find anywhere else in the world. There are film and music events every single day of the year (except right now during Covid-19 of course), screenings, festivals, workshops, panels, initiatives, conventions, award shows, concerts – all geared toward film, TV, games, and music. Starting out, one can do internships at many composer studios, become an assistant, connect with plenty of filmmakers, connect with other members of the music department, and so much more. The studios and quite a few game companies are here, along with the executives and other decision makers. It’s not a coincidence that most high tier and mid tier composers are LA residents and why large opportunities don’t tend to go outside of this city (save for a few). As a result, a lot of large agencies are here as well. So for someone wanting to work on studio productions or larger indie films, I think this is still the place to be.
For someone wanting to work on studio productions or larger indie films, I think this is still the place to be.
People hire people they know, people that come recommended, and people who have been in the trenches of LA filmmaking for several years. There’s no real need to look outside of this city considering how many qualified people there are available right at their doorstep. Now that being said, there are definitely also instances where coming to LA is unnecessary. For example, one can write library music from pretty much anywhere these days so I wouldn’t necessarily recommend living in an expensive place like LA to do that unless it’s for an in-house staff position. The same goes for those who don’t desire to work on studio productions and who don’t want to be assistants. There’s still a lot of opportunity here for those as well but it’s not a necessity to be here. There are also plenty of game companies outside of LA that one can connect with and work for. The same goes for musical theater, concert music, advertising or any other media music. Maybe the times after Covid-19 will see a change in this, that’s hard to predict. But I would not have had any of the opportunities that I’ve had without being here, mainly because so much of my career is based on recommendations and personal connections I’ve made here over time. Doors have been opened and introductions have been made that wouldn’t have been possible elsewhere.
ANIMATION VS LIVE ACTION FEATURE
The main difference is that animation does a lot of genre hopping (if that’s a word). It usually has a little bit of everything and it switches gears fast. It’s the most difficult thing to score due to the many hit points and rapid changes but it’s also the most fulfilling and fun to me. There’s just a lot of opportunity musically since you’re not locked into one thing. Other than that, it’s not so different from live action feature films.
TV SERIES VS FEATURE FILM
Writing for TV has to be a bit more economic than for film, simply because it’s like scoring several small feature films. Schedules are usually tighter than film schedules so a lot of music needs to be written in a very short amount of time. Therefore, the teams are often a bit larger and the music editors also pull a lot of weight so the job gets done on time. On TV shows, you also often don’t work with the director (it’s usually even different directors for different episodes) so you interface a lot more with the show runner.
FAVOURITE MUSIC GENRE
I write mostly orchestral scores – that’s what made me fall in love with film scoring and it’s also my background, coming from the classical world. The film genres I score the most – animation, adventure, fantasy, family, drama – also often lend themselves to more traditional orchestral thematic writing. More so than other genres.
Coming up next in the series: FILM SCORING MECCA | part 3 of Anne-Kathrin Elisabeth Dern’s article
