Acknowledgments
Introduction: The New Scoring Landscape
PART I: PREPRODUCTION
1—Education
2—Team Building
3—Before You Begin
4—Time Management
PART II: PRODUCTION
5—Writing
6—Demos
7—Score Preparation
8—Preparing for Sessions
9—The Studio
10—Performing
11—Producing
PART III: POSTPRODUCTION
12—Music Editing
13—Mixing and Mastering
14—Finding Work
15—Career Development
16—Music Libraries
APPENDIXES
A—Sample Contracts
B—Composer Bios
Index
About the Author
Jeremy Borum is a film composer, orchestrator, and music engraver with credits on 15 features, 2 network shows, 17 shorts, and 35 albums. An active member of the Society of Composers and Lyricists, he is a contributing author to their quarterly journal The Score.
If ever there was a perfect book for describing and navigating
today’s film scoring industry, Guerrilla Film Scoring is the
one.... If you have ever wanted to write music for movies, pick up
this book and take every word to heart. It may just be the most
important guide you’ll ever read.
*Film Matters*
Jeremy Borum’s Guerrilla Film Scoring is the first guide to provide
new cutting-edge solutions for composers to deliver quality music
with ever-shrinking budgets. . . .Borum and 20 of his celebrity
colleagues (including Stewart Copeland, Bruce Broughton, Jack Wall,
Garry Schyman, and Austin Wintory) successfully navigate the reader
through today’s volatile music industry. With over 300 written
testimonials and a 90 minute documentary film they deliver timely
solutions for education, preparation, writing and recording a
score, editing, mixing and mastering, finding work, career
development, and sample contracts. . . .A straightforward
do-it-yourself manual, this book is helping composers at all levels
to create the best-sounding scores quickly and cost effectively
without jeopardizing their art.
*Virtual-Strategy Magazine*
Jeremy Borum argues with electrifying clarity that a film composer
today must be a warrior with a multitude of survival skills. He and
his widely experienced interviewees explain the why and the how, in
an essential guide for every practicing and would-be composer for
visual media.
*Bill Elliott, professor, Berklee College of Music*
What a great book! I've been addressing some of these subjects for
several years in my USC class, but nothing as thorough and
all-encompassing as Borum has accomplished. He has addressed all of
the current scoring issues with forthright and honest information.
This book will be an invaluable tool for our next generation of
film composers. I will certainly be adding it to the top of my
mandatory reading list for my class.
*Eric Schmidt, professor, USC Thornton School of Music*
Your book is awesome and I cannot wait for it be to officially
available. I'll assign it to all my students as a mandatory read,
and will adopt many advices from it in my own artistic and
professional career.
*Milica Paranosic, professor, The Juilliard School*
Guerrilla Film Scoring contains a lot of practical knowledge, and
it systematically breaks down the realities and challenges facing
film composers today. The book includes very useful contributions
from professionals, and it will certainly be useful to anybody in
the field of scoring.
*Peter Neff, professor, UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music*
This book provides useful and timely insights into the commercial
realities of Hollywood filmmaking and the evolving nature film
music practice. This should be required reading for any aspiring
screen composer.
*Vasco Hexel, Area Leader Composition for Screen, Royal College of
Music, London*
Jeremy Borum has done something quite extraordinary. He provided a
highly organized and comprehensive summation of what a film
composer needs to know about the industry today. This is
different from the books one finds in stores, in that it is written
from an insider's point of view. In that way it is unique.
*Richard Danielpour, Grammy-winning composer; professor, Manhattan
School of Music and Curtis Institute of Music*
This is the sort of book I've been hoping someone would write for a
very long time. It's an important practical outlook on
the contemporary realities of scoring, and it will become part of
my curriculum immediately.
*Barry Schrader, professor, California Institute of the Arts*
This book fills a needed gap. There are several good technical
books about film scoring available to students. But there hasn't
been—until now—a book offering detailed, sage, and keenly practical
advice about how to organize one's working life as a film composer
and navigate one's way towards a successful career. I highly
recommend this book to every aspiring student of film
composition.
*Edward Green Ph.D, professor of composition, Manhattan School of
Music; Composer-in-Residence, Imagery Film, Ltd.*
I was immediately impressed with the easy access to the video clips
online. What a great way to provide personal insights from
composers from within the text! Guerrilla Film Scoring is a timely
and well-informed book, full of relevant information for composers
interested in entering the ever-evolving waters of film
scoring.
*Don Wilkins, Film Scoring Chair Emeritus, Berklee College of
Music*
Very entertaining, and gives great advice to the newcomer while
assuring more established composers that they're on the "right"
path.
*Patrick Kirst, professor, USC Thornton School of Music*
I like this book very much. It's the only one of its kind:
informative, insightful, and pulls the mask off every aspect of the
industry's practices. It identifies what the composer needs to
know, what he/she is up against, and addresses film composition
from the vantage point of what composers face in reality:
low-budget, do-it-yourself production vs. the studio block-buster
scores that most of the students believe they'll be working on.
They may some day, but to get there they'll be facing exactly
what is described in the book. I believe it should be required
reading for every student thinking of a career in scoring for media
or one that has already entered the trenches.
*David McHugh, director of Music Composition for the Screen,
Columbia College Chicago*
I founded and direct a film scoring program at California State
University, Northridge and I intend to make this remarkable book
required reading for my students. Jeremy Borum nails it with pithy
quotes and street-level advice for the current scoring scene.
Indeed this is "guerrilla" work. It takes guts, skill, talent,
preparation and the ability to continually evolve to succeed.
Jeremy's book should be front and center on every commercial
composer's desk.
*Elizabeth Sellers, Head and Founder of Commercial and Media
Composition Program; California State University, Northridge*
What a wonderful book and resource! I couldn’t put it down.
Guerrilla Film Scoring should be required reading for anyone
thinking about a career in music or expanding an existing career.
Borum offers not only practical advice, but also insights into how
technology has altered the landscape of music-making in one of the
most competitive and mysterious fields of the music
industry.
Making a living in music and knowledge of business have always been
intertwined, but never more so than today. Targeted mainly to
working composers, Borum’s Guerrilla Film Scoring offers up
practical, technological, interpersonal, and real-world business
advice that should be followed by anyone in any field of music.
*Dr. John M. Laverty, professor, Syracuse University Setnor School
of Music*
Jeremy Borum’s timely book brings practical experience into the
classroom. Enhanced with valuable advice from major figures active
in the industry, Guerrilla Film Scoring equips students
with powerful ammunition and strategic tactics to fearlessly
conquer the film, video game, and multimedia scoring worlds.
*Juan Chattah, Frost School of Music, University of Miami*
Refreshingly practical and to the point, and informed by the sound
advice of well-known professionals. I found this book extremely
useful.
*Pablo Ortiz, professor, University of California, Davis*
Jeremy Borum’s book contains a wealth of practical, useful
information. He has broken down the complex, challenging and often
hair-pulling world of film scoring into sensible, digestible bites.
The advice from the pros is very illuminating. Guerrilla Film
Scoring should be in the library of any modern composer, and would
be a worthwhile addition to any curriculum that deals in music for
media.
*Steven Mark Kohn, director of Electronic Music Studies, The
Cleveland Institute of Music*
A must-read for anybody interested in composing for films or media,
and suitable for academic courses as well. Veteran composers
contribute multiple perspectives throughout the book. Each chapter
is chock-full of practical advice and information for
self-motivated composers interested in not only surviving, but
thriving in the current film and media music scene.
*Joseph Klein, Chair of Composition Studies, University of North
Texas*
Absolutely wonderful and informative. As a professor who strives to
provide a practical worldview and skill set for my students, I
greatly appreciate this book and will promote it to them. Guerrilla
Film Scoring offers comprehensive advice on scoring in the
21st-century marketplace. Every young composer should own this book
before making a decision to pursue this career and lifestyle.
*Richard DeRosa, Director of Jazz Composition and Arranging,
University of North Texas*
Learn to compose a melody or structure a chord progression
elsewhere. But count on this book to teach you everything else
that’s important regarding how to prepare yourself for a career as
a film composer, as well as how to best position yourself for
success.
*Joel Leach, Founder and Professor Emeritus of Music Industry
Studies, California State University, Northridge*
Jeremy Borum writes lucidly and with an unparalleled depth of
knowledge about the current and near-future world of scoring for
film, television, and video games that rivals any book on the
subject. Guerrilla Film Scoring will quickly get the reader
thinking about his or her professionalism in terms of running a
business, producing state of the art demos and final cuts, and
navigating the ins and outs of working, and finding the next paying
project; all with a sobering eye on the way it really works in the
21st-century. An added bonus is hundreds of highlighted quotes from
over twenty of the busiest film composers in the business, each
organized around the topics Borum writes about. It's a truly
meaningful and relevant manual that will inspire and give direction
to any composer seeking to make a living in the world of film,
television, and video games. If that is you, you must read this
book NOW!
*Bruce Dudley, professor of Commercial Music, Belmont
University*
Guerrilla Film Scoring is the Book of Wisdom for any composer.
*David M. McKay, professor, Belmont University*
All by itself, the 12-page Introduction of Guerrilla Film Scoring
is worth the price of the whole book. It's a must-read for anyone
contemplating a career as a film composer in today's radically new
scoring landscape. Then, if the reader still wants to pursue that
profession, the rest of the book is an invaluable guide to the
special skills one needs to be successful at it. Jeremy Borum's
book is an invaluable addition to the film scoring literature.
*David Shire, Academy Award–winning composer, The Conversation, All
the President’s Men, Zodiac*
Jeremy Borum's book is a great nuts and bolts look at modern film
scoring as told by several of today's more successful composers.
It's a valuable resource to hear real practical experience at work.
Highly recommended!
*Jeff Rona, composer; author, The Reel World: Scoring for
Pictures*
This book confronts all the many challenges that a composer may
have to deal with in writing music for film and television.
*Charles Fox, author, Killing Me Softly; Grammy- and Emmy
award-winning composer, Foul Play*
Guerrilla Film Scoring tackles specifically low budget scoring and
all possibilities to make it awesome. The book deals with the most
current state of our biz, truly the bleeding edge, and can greatly
benefit media composition students—especially early career, fresh
out of school composers. It's brilliant.
*Penka Kouneva, composer and orchestrator, Elysium, Ender's Game,
The Matrix*
With practical advice and street smarts, Jeremy saves the readers
YEARS of trial and error in finding their way on their musical
career path. What a thorough and practical resource for composers
who want to actually pay their bills with their craft. I will
definitely use this book as a resource in teaching my composition
classes at the university. Bravo!!
*Ellen Tift, Worldwide Groove Corporation; professor, Belmont
University*
Guerrilla Film Scoring will make sure you remember all the balls
you need to keep in the air from the moment you get the gig until
you deliver the master. With a clear, easy to read style,
Jeremy Borum breaks down each step of the film scoring
process. Packed with in-depth conversations with industry
professionals, Guerilla Film Scoring teaches you how to juggle
being an artist, a craftsman, and a businessman in a constantly
evolving environment.
*Andrew Grant Jackson, author, 1965: The Most Revolutionary Year in
Music and Still the Greatest: The Essential Songs of the Beatles’
Solo Careers*
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