Composer Deane Ogden is in the middle of an illuminating series of blog posts called Essential Skills of a Modern Day Film Composer which, as the title suggests, has the goal of identifying and improving the skills needed for getting and keeping work as a film composer.
There are three parts so far, but I’m focusing on Part 2, What Directors Want From Their Composers. Built from an anonymous survey of a handful of directors, it offers some great insights into their mindsets and approaches to music in their films and touches on everything from what they look for in potential composers to the drawbacks of temp scoring.
Filled with direct quotes and pretty pie charts, it’s a great read, not just for film composers, but for anyone interested in the collaborative creative process.