NEW LIVESTREAM - Hollywood Film Music Vlog DAY 2
DAY 2
I thought I would talk a little bit about this concept of "breaking into the industry". When do you get your "big break"? This is a bit of a misconception, a bit of that Hollywood glamor that they sell you. Because even after working in this industry for several years, I don't feel like I've "broken in." Even people who are making a living, they don't feel like they've made it. There's this conflation with being successful and being famous. And if you're not famous, then are you successful? Fame doesn't mean success and success doesn't mean fame. That's very difficult for a lot of people to deal with, especially here in Hollywood. So I thought I would just touch on how you can "make it" so to speak, how you can find success in art or in film, cinema, music, or whatever you're doing.
SHOULD I MOVE TO LOS ANGELES?
If you decide to move out to Los Angeles, consider that things are changing these days. You don't actually have to move out here. There's a lot of remote work available, but I'd still recommend that you find a hub of art or filmmaking or music-making or whatever your passion is because people are your business. So if you can't be around people - if you can't be in touch with the right people that are gonna open doors for you, that are gonna give you job opportunities - then it doesn't matter that there's remote work available. If you can't get in front of the right person, if you can't be talking to the right people, then you won't make your "big break" in Hollywood.
WHY SHOULD I LISTEN TO YOU?
Here's a little bit about my background. I was fortunate enough to go to a grad school film music program up in Seattle, at the Seattle Film Institute, (shoutout to Dr. Hummie Mann!) Hummie was an orchestrator in Los Angeles for decades. For those who don't know, an orchestrator is part of the music team in the film music department where they actually help translate the composer's ideas into sheet music for the players at the recording session. So Hummie was a composer in his own right and an orchestrator in Hollywood for decades before he took up teaching. So he actually had plenty of contacts out here already. And a lot of people he knows will just send job opportunities to him and he'll disseminate those to his students. So I've had a few of those emails too, which say something like, "Hey, we need music for X, Y, Z project". So if you're still school, start there: the people you're studying with, their student projects, etc. Do your professors have any professional contacts? That's a great way to start building those relationships.
THE MYTH OF "BREAKING IN"
Let's dispel that notion right now. Get that out of your head that you're gonna "make it". Someone's just going to hand you a $100k ticket and you're off to the races? That's not usually how things work. That's the lottery. You can hope you win the lottery, but hope isn't a strategy, right? The people that you're in school with or the people that you're working with, those can be your first relationships. Listen, you're not going to get in the same room with Steven Spielberg, sorry, but you can get in the room with the film school student who in 20 years is gonna be compared to Steven Spielberg. That's the kid you know right now, and I guarantee you probably know someone like that today. So for all you musicians trying to make it big, look right next to you right now. Look in your neighborhood, look where you're at.
STARTING FROM ZERO
Let's say you do decide to come to LA. If you get out here to Los Angeles and you're like, "I don't know anybody, I don't know anything!" you can still do music and filmmaker meetups, you can sign up for SCL, ASMAC, and other professional music groups. You can pay the dues and do internships here and there. But if nothing's working out, if can't find someone to connect with in the industry, do something non-music related. I've probably run into 5-10 people that are doing photoshoots hiking up to Griffith Observatory. They are talking about films. These words I'm writing are taken from a live stream I made about music on that very same trail. So go do some non-music activity. Get out of your element, get out of your room, try to get some sunlight and just express yourself.
Talk about your art. Get in front of people, talk to people. I'm going to keep trying to hammer that home. You're not going to get the job of your dreams just waiting around for someone to hand it to you, right? That's never going to happen. You have to go out and get it. You have to go talk to people. Grant Cardone, the billionaire business mogul entrepreneur, says "Contacts are contracts". That is a really big thing for all artists to learn is that you're not gonna get a contract or a big project until you know someone and they trust you and they know that you can do the job AND they know you're available. And they won't know all these things until you're in front of them. So whether that's social media marketing or going out and playing beach volleyball with the gang and realizing, oh, you're all a film crew. Get out there!
NETWORKING MADE EASY
I was literally just at a party the other night. And I didn't know who was going to the party. It was an invite from a friend. And we're watching The Room and Disaster Artist (it was a great double feature). Anyway, the point is, I'm sitting on this couch and the guy next to me says he was on an episode of Euphoria. I'm like, oh, that's cool. He's a background actor with a young face and they need adult actors to play teens because it's a heavy show. But then his friend sitting next to him, she's like, oh I was in that too! So I jokingly said "Am I the only one on this couch who isn't in Euphoria?" Everyone there raised their hands. They were ALL in Euphoria. They're all background actors. That's their friend group. But because I knew the guy hosting the screening party from a completely different event, all of a sudden, I now know a bunch of background actors in Euphoria.
I wasn't planning for that party to be a networking opportunity. I mean, I knew it could be becase I knew there were going to be creative people there, but you don't force it. You just build relationships with people and then be genuinely interested in what they're working on. (Check out Dale Carnegie's book How To Win Friends and Influence People for more on this.) So attend social events, consider your education, see who's around you already. And there's one more tip: Social media.
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
If you can get in front of people where they're at, you can build your business. People are on Facebook.
I've seen people watching my livestreams, and even if they don't interact, they're watching. If you can get in front of people where they're at, where your audience is at, that's going to be the best thing you can do for your business. Your audience is all on social media. Everyone's on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram. You need to be there too. You need to be active. Don't worry about the analysis paralysis. If you don't know how something works, just start just creating content. Just create things. You don't have to be an expert at it. The more content that you put out, the more consistent your voice, the more you're going to be heard. This will build trust because people are going to put a face to the name and they're going to understand that you're in this town, you're working with these people. You're able to leverage social media to establish yourself as an expert in this field.
And like I said, the more people who know what you're doing, the more people who know who you are and what your voice is as an artist, the more people who see your face and see you actually interact, and they know you're real - you're not just text on a screen or you're not just a resume - then the more opportunities you're gonna have.
So there's just some quick little tidbits I thought I would share. I'm gonna try to do more of these Hollywood vlogs/blogs, completely unfiltered, unscripted. Just sharing my experience and knowledge. Let me know if you have any questions or comments, feel free to share your thoughts. Let me know what else you wanna hear about or what you guys are up to, I'd love to hear more about that too! Until next time.
Ciao!
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