I was wondering if someone could help me! I am 17 years old and I love film and music. I was wondering if someone could tell me who decides what music goes into tv shows or movies. I would love this job!! what would I major in for this career? music or film?? What are some other careers that involve film & Music? Thanks
The musical director is usually seperate from the director, and reports to him. Generally these folks have worked their way into the role starting with being an assistant to the musical director or working in some capacity with the sound group, as a assistant sound engineeer, sound engineer, sound librarian or in some other capacity.
Most of these folks have a fairly strong background in music, including a college music major of some sort as well as a good amount of non-film crew sound work either in theater, radio, recording or some other capacity.
It's not a hard area to get into, but it is a very hard area to excell within. The starting jobs pay crap, and you pretty much have to live in LA or NY, which means you'll be working 1, 2 or 3 side jobs to pay the bills, and those side jobs can be very hard to keep because film schedules tend to be very wierd things indeed.
Still, if you want to pursue it, get into a good liberal arts school (having a great music program isn't essential, being recognized as a good all-around liberal/performing arts school is), and take a music major with a theater minor. Pick up as many BUSINESS courses as you can, if you can find a way to get a second major in business, do it.
Volunteer for everything you can find time for that has to do with sound work -- running the sound board for local school shows, off-campus theaters, interning at a recording studio or radio station, whatever you can do to get involved in sound production. If you can land an internship at a tv station to work in their sound/music production you'll be golden.
Even if you don't end up working in film, that background will give you plenty of career options, and if you've picked up the business degree, even if it's a minor, some of your options will be very lucrative junior management type things.
In the meantime, you're 17 so you probably have a year left of high school. Go out now and find a job working with sound at a local theater. If you aren't in an area with lots of choices, find your local community theater groups and figure out how to help them with sound production. Volunteer if you have to, the experience now is worth far more than any salary you'd make anyway. Start asking at the local music stores for folks who do recording studio work and go see them. You're looking for any chance you have to get your hands on a sound board and learn something. Don't spend this time working at your local Burger joint . . . if you really want to have a career in music in any capacity you have to spend this time learning about music, not about how it feels to be an exploited worker.
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- HST
One of the most amazing (to me) film music people is John Williams. Astounding what that man has done with things like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Superman, Jurassic Park, Jaws...Some of the most famous movie theme songs ever.
It seems like a really challening job to me, Patzer's advice seems really good. Good luck with it.
