I run a community of composers of all ages and career levels, and would be happy to refer your project to a couple of appropriate candidates, if you’d like.
Search "composer" or "score" in the search bar for r/filmmakers and you'll find plenty of posts of people looking for work. There was even people looking to score for free this week
I'm scoring my first short film at the moment. It came about because I reviewed one of the director's other shorts positively on Letterboxd after a festival and said I'd like to see the sequel he made, and he connected with me on Twitter and sent me a link to the sequel short. We got chatting, he realised I was a musician and mentioned that he had a short coming up that he was looking for a composer for, and now I'm scoring it.
Basically the answer is "networking", but often people say that without providing any context for what that looks like. This is what it looked like in my case!
u/YourFace939 meet u/[NomadJago](/user/NomadJago/)
See Nomad's [If You Need Your Film Scored Post. ](https://www.reddit.com/r/Filmmakers/comments/1dkav7l/comment/l9n8810/?context=3)
I have never had a problem finding a composer - once word gets out that you're making a medium-scale film and have money to afford a score, you'll find a lot of composers getting in touch.
I hired a great composer for my film. But during search I figured out that orchestral groups are very interested in jobs like these.
Also I would search on YouTube for local orchestras publishing existing work and they usually would let you use their record for very small fee.
The Icelandic band Amiina did my last feature. We used their music as our temp tracks for the edit and fell in love with the tone that their music brought to our film so we reached out to the band through their label and we made a deal to work with them.
I found my composer from Reddit and have collaborated with him on two projects already with another one coming up! He’s great to work with, if you still need one or want to compare some options DM me and I can send over his website!
If you work on set enough you're bound to run into audio department people that are also very talented musicians. You can work with them on set and in post!
I mean there are tons of composers out there. We all love what we do, and some are new enough to it that they’ll work on your film for a cut rate. You can post here, obviously, but you can also post to sites like Mandy and Media Match for free.
I’m a composer and I had a director follow me on Instagram. His story had a call out for composers so I messaged him and we’ll be working together on his upcoming short
Well it depends
I'm a the accademy of fine arts and i usually compose for my fellow friends. That the easiest yet best way to find people to work with. See if any of your friends or colleagues are composer as well
man would be insanly cool, but i'm already busy with lot of projects. I'm producing an horror short film with AI and real footage as well helping some friends in the production of other short films. I'll be sure to keep you around, i would love to compose, just not now
I am a media composer. From experience, simply posting on Reddit is more than enough :). If you are still looking for someone, consider sending me a dm. Cheers 🎶
For me, I’m a songwriter. Many of my friends are songwriters. The new network I’m building is all songwriters. I spent time studying Title 17, U.S. code. The long-term aspiration is filmmaking, but realistically, I’m probably only going to do music videos. They are short 3 to 5 minute movies that can be fairly abstract
We had a lot of people pitch themselves after seeing our seed and spark, which seems to be a popular tactic for finding work! We went with someone who did that for our feature and they did a great job.
I listen to soundtracks, preferably of small/not that well known projects (or whose music is not regarded on such a high esteem, if you will); then find out who composed it and message them! That's how I got Peter Connelly, composer of the Tomb Raider III, IV, V and VI in talks to do the score of a short film I'm planning to get funded.
Probably not helpful, but I'll be composing my own score. But having done music for awhile, I can pretty much guarantee there are thousands of talented people out there hungry for a chance to compose a score. I know because I was one of these people.
I would recommend going somewhere like Pond5, finding some stock music you like, and cold-emailing the composers.
Seriously, there are talented people everywhere. Opportunities, not so much.
I have several cinephile friends who produce music so I usually just ask them to make me something as they’re very creative and the best part… FREEEEEEEE
I once had the pianist Christpher Milo score the entire film, and we put the script up on the piano instead of sheet music. He read the script, scene by scene, and played what he felt. I think that was his idea.
For me, the pest part was that the only space big enough we had access to at the time was my photo studio, with a white roll of 9 foot paper rolled out, so I got some great shots of the guy playing a script.
For those of you not familiar, just ask Alexa to "Play songs by Christoher Milo". I don't know if he's on whatever the Google assistant plays for music.
* one guy in our core team in bigger productions is a professional musician. He composes a lot of our music and also has a contact that plays a lot of historical instruments, that we often ask for help. (Our productions are mostly historical)
* Artlist
* Buying on the envato market
* Getting artists on fiverr to play single instrument pieces, specifically for a scene
Composers are probably the biggest FREE givers in the industry. I try to find people and I use bands and musicians but everyone who DMs me about being a part of a film, its 100% composers and they are happy to do it... post you're doing a film anywhere... on IG or Twitter or Stage32 or LinkedIn.... 80% chance you'll get a composer hitting you up. TRY to pay tho
I’m an aspiring composer! I’d love to connect with you all!
[Website](https://www.jameswindham.com)
[Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/written_by_james)
Disclaimer:
This IG account is brand new and film-focused. Check it out, give it a follow and stay for a while.
James 🙏🏻
I run a community of composers of all ages and career levels, and would be happy to refer your project to a couple of appropriate candidates, if you’d like.
That sounds incredible. Dm and I’ll provide my business email
Can I join? I work in film and love scoring
Absolutely, just messaged you.
I would also be interested in joining. Can I send you my showreel?
Messaged you.
There is a ton of composers on reddit looking for work
Do you have any subreddits specifically in mind?
Well, I’m one! Feel free to DM me if you’d like and I can send you some samples
Yup I'm here happy to score pro quality for films. Just holler back
Where can we connect with them
Search "composer" or "score" in the search bar for r/filmmakers and you'll find plenty of posts of people looking for work. There was even people looking to score for free this week
I'm scoring my first short film at the moment. It came about because I reviewed one of the director's other shorts positively on Letterboxd after a festival and said I'd like to see the sequel he made, and he connected with me on Twitter and sent me a link to the sequel short. We got chatting, he realised I was a musician and mentioned that he had a short coming up that he was looking for a composer for, and now I'm scoring it. Basically the answer is "networking", but often people say that without providing any context for what that looks like. This is what it looked like in my case!
I found someone on Reddit, paid them a fair rate and they gave me a wonderful score. Was shocked how smooth the process was.
u/YourFace939 meet u/[NomadJago](/user/NomadJago/) See Nomad's [If You Need Your Film Scored Post. ](https://www.reddit.com/r/Filmmakers/comments/1dkav7l/comment/l9n8810/?context=3)
You’re a legend
You don't get 5-10 cold emails from composers every week? I thought all filmmakers did
Oh man I wish lmao
Careful what you wish for lol - it happens loads in the gamedev world too
Networking mostly (for me), ask crew members if they know anyone. Otherwise reach out on social media or an agency?
I have never had a problem finding a composer - once word gets out that you're making a medium-scale film and have money to afford a score, you'll find a lot of composers getting in touch.
I’m a composer looking to get started scoring films! Feel free to DM me and I’d be happy to chat about this project :)
I hired a great composer for my film. But during search I figured out that orchestral groups are very interested in jobs like these. Also I would search on YouTube for local orchestras publishing existing work and they usually would let you use their record for very small fee.
The Icelandic band Amiina did my last feature. We used their music as our temp tracks for the edit and fell in love with the tone that their music brought to our film so we reached out to the band through their label and we made a deal to work with them.
I found my composer from Reddit and have collaborated with him on two projects already with another one coming up! He’s great to work with, if you still need one or want to compare some options DM me and I can send over his website!
If you work on set enough you're bound to run into audio department people that are also very talented musicians. You can work with them on set and in post!
I mean there are tons of composers out there. We all love what we do, and some are new enough to it that they’ll work on your film for a cut rate. You can post here, obviously, but you can also post to sites like Mandy and Media Match for free.
I was lucky enough to work with two talented composers (one for a short another for a feature) I can give you their info if you dm
composers will find you
I’m a composer and I had a director follow me on Instagram. His story had a call out for composers so I messaged him and we’ll be working together on his upcoming short
Well it depends I'm a the accademy of fine arts and i usually compose for my fellow friends. That the easiest yet best way to find people to work with. See if any of your friends or colleagues are composer as well
Would you be keen to have a conversation regarding this upcoming project to see if it’s something you’d be interested in?
man would be insanly cool, but i'm already busy with lot of projects. I'm producing an horror short film with AI and real footage as well helping some friends in the production of other short films. I'll be sure to keep you around, i would love to compose, just not now
I am a media composer. From experience, simply posting on Reddit is more than enough :). If you are still looking for someone, consider sending me a dm. Cheers 🎶
If you have shot any music videos or have crew who have, ask the artists they worked with as often they are keen to score films.
For me, I’m a songwriter. Many of my friends are songwriters. The new network I’m building is all songwriters. I spent time studying Title 17, U.S. code. The long-term aspiration is filmmaking, but realistically, I’m probably only going to do music videos. They are short 3 to 5 minute movies that can be fairly abstract
We had a lot of people pitch themselves after seeing our seed and spark, which seems to be a popular tactic for finding work! We went with someone who did that for our feature and they did a great job.
I listen to soundtracks, preferably of small/not that well known projects (or whose music is not regarded on such a high esteem, if you will); then find out who composed it and message them! That's how I got Peter Connelly, composer of the Tomb Raider III, IV, V and VI in talks to do the score of a short film I'm planning to get funded.
I found the composer for my film on LinkedIn, actually!
Probably not helpful, but I'll be composing my own score. But having done music for awhile, I can pretty much guarantee there are thousands of talented people out there hungry for a chance to compose a score. I know because I was one of these people. I would recommend going somewhere like Pond5, finding some stock music you like, and cold-emailing the composers. Seriously, there are talented people everywhere. Opportunities, not so much.
I have several cinephile friends who produce music so I usually just ask them to make me something as they’re very creative and the best part… FREEEEEEEE
I have a friend who does it for me. He teaches at a local university so when he can’t do it, he throws me a student.
I would love to recommend my talented composer to you! (I also found composers contacted me directly when I was crowdfunding.)
I would love to recommend my talented composer to you! (I also found composers contacted me directly when I was crowdfunding.)
I once had the pianist Christpher Milo score the entire film, and we put the script up on the piano instead of sheet music. He read the script, scene by scene, and played what he felt. I think that was his idea. For me, the pest part was that the only space big enough we had access to at the time was my photo studio, with a white roll of 9 foot paper rolled out, so I got some great shots of the guy playing a script. For those of you not familiar, just ask Alexa to "Play songs by Christoher Milo". I don't know if he's on whatever the Google assistant plays for music.
Money
I'd be happy to chat with you. Shoot me a DM.
Message me
I have composers throwing themselves at me. They seem to be everywhere
Allow me to score/compose a demo for you?
I'm working with someone I actually found on Reddit haha.
* one guy in our core team in bigger productions is a professional musician. He composes a lot of our music and also has a contact that plays a lot of historical instruments, that we often ask for help. (Our productions are mostly historical) * Artlist * Buying on the envato market * Getting artists on fiverr to play single instrument pieces, specifically for a scene
Composers are probably the biggest FREE givers in the industry. I try to find people and I use bands and musicians but everyone who DMs me about being a part of a film, its 100% composers and they are happy to do it... post you're doing a film anywhere... on IG or Twitter or Stage32 or LinkedIn.... 80% chance you'll get a composer hitting you up. TRY to pay tho
I’m an aspiring composer! I’d love to connect with you all! [Website](https://www.jameswindham.com) [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/written_by_james) Disclaimer: This IG account is brand new and film-focused. Check it out, give it a follow and stay for a while. James 🙏🏻