Film Composer

If you’ve ever found yourself next to a tiny housewife on the treadmill at the gym, and caught her mouthing the words to “Eye of the Tiger” as she clutches her bejeweled iPod — which, incidentally, matches her pink velour jumpsuit — you know that music can motivate people to do great things, or at least jump from level four to five in the midst of their Tuesday power walking routine.

As a Film Composer, you make music that emotionally moves movie audiences in the same way that it physically moves moms on stairclimbers. Just like Directors, your job as a Film Composer is creating immersive experiences in which moviegoers get lost. What they do with story, however, you do with sound. In “Jaws,” for instance, the Film Composer composed the creepy tuba solo that’s now synonymous with shark-infested waters.

Subtle yet powerful, your music is at once invisible and omnipresent, playing in the background beneath a film’s dialogue and action. To create it, you’ll meet with Directors to discuss concepts, then write music that matches individual scenes in both spirit and length. You might also hire Musicians, then conduct them during recording sessions that you’ll often manage. Once it’s written and recorded, you may even be involved in mixing and editing the final score, which requires familiarity with both music and technology.

Finally, if you’re the best of the best, you’ll eventually don formalwear and accept your Oscar at the Academy Awards, where you’ll thank your parents, God, and that pink velour jumpsuit that inspired your career in the first place.