Don't be put off by Failure - Tony Longworth

Here's a another post from our resident indie film composer, Tony Longworth. As usual, his post gives great insight into the world of indie filmmaking and his story is equally pertinent to indie filmmakers as it is to indie composers. As usual, if you have any questions for Tony, shoot me an email and I'll get it answered...

Yes, it comes to us all. I’m not talking about death here, although that does come to us all at least once in our life. I’m talking about failure. And it’s not just any old failure, its failure of something you’ve put your heart and soul into as well as your time and hard earned cash.

Now, my experience comes from the music side of things, but I’m guessing a lot of people reading this will have suffered failure in other forms. Maybe your movie was knocked back from a festival, your script wasn’t received favourably or your acting was criticised.

There’s always going to be people out there who really don’t like what you do, but for every one of them there’s going to be a whole lot more who really dig your stuff.

We kind of focus on the negative. It’s difficult to ignore that one comment or review that says you suck, even though there’s another 10 saying you don’t.

After years of being really irritated by the people who don’t like what I do, I now manage to subconsciously blank those naysayers & focus on the people who dig what I do.

It’s all really down to belief & confidence in what you’re doing. If you’ve got the belief that your project is good & the confidence to actually do it, then who gives a damn about some dude who has taken a personal dislike to your thing? Who gives a damn if your movie isn’t played at a certain film festival? Who gives a damn if you’re turned down for a role?

Take the positive, ignore the negative. Pick yourself up, dust yourself down & carry on regardless.

I recently had a bit of a failure with one project I was working on. It was a short vampire movie, the director was looking for a composer & I got in touch letting him hear a selection of my past work. He was impressed & asked me to compose the soundtrack to which I did over the course of about a month.

The finished soundtrack consisted of 6 different pieces of music, I was really happy with what I had created & the director was equally happy.

Unfortunately, unbeknownst to both the director & myself, the people who actually funded the short movie where looking round for a ‘named’ composer at the same time as I was writing the soundtrack.

When I submitted my music to the director, he let his investors listen to it & they turned around & said “yeah, it’s cool, but we want to use this other composer because he’s worked on big movies” – you can imagine how disappointed I was. Not only had I spent all that time composing the soundtrack, I also really want to be part of the project & work with that particular director.

I spent several days feeling really pissed off with the whole thing. I was kicked off the project for a guy who’d worked in the music department on Lord of the Rings. Could he write a better soundtrack than me? Maybe, maybe not. But that wasn’t the point.

Soon after that, I got a chance to work on another movie & it slowly dawned on me that I hadn’t wasted my time because the music I’d written was good & it could easily be tweaked & morphed to be used in a different project. That’s exactly what I did & I got something positive out of a failed project.

So, the moral of this story is; no matter what you do & no matter what happens to your music / script / movie or whatever, remember that you’re not wasting you time. You’re actually honing your craft, gaining experience, collecting knowledge. It’s all good.

It’s a big old world out there & thankfully there’s a lot of different people who like a lot of different things so no matter what type of product you create, there’s bound to be a market for it somewhere.

For more information on Tony Longworth, visit his Myspace page - www.myspace.com/tonylongworth

The committed composer always gets more work

Here's another post from our friend in the UK, Tony Longworth. He's an independent music composer and he's worked on tons of different low-budget horror films and, a lot of the time, for no real monetary gain. If you have any questions on music for your film or anything to do with that whole side of the filmmaking process, send me an email. I'll pass it on to Tony, who will be more than happy to answer. This post is about cutting it as a indie film composer and what he has to say is not only equally relevant to indie-filmmakers, but for almost anyone who is getting into the 'independent arts'...

So, you want to be a composer for independent movies? You think you've got a good ear for music and you’re a big movie geek? That’s all good, but have you got the commitment for working on an independent project?

You think you have? Well, consider these following points:

- You probably won’t get paid for anything you do, now or in the future. Although the filmmaker might offer you a share of the profits, the movie itself might never get any form of distribution & will eventually disappear without making any money whatsoever.

- The movie might never even get screened anywhere, so no one will ever hear your wonderful soundtrack. After getting turned down by several film festivals, the filmmaker could very well give up on this project & move onto something new. Hell, the movie might even fold part way through before it’s even complete.

- You might end up with more work than you can cope with. You’re not getting any money up front & the filmmaker is making all these ridiculous demands from you for the soundtrack – they want an orchestra, they want a choir, they want bloody everything !!

- You might find that the project goes on for months, even years with the possibility of the director popping up from time to time to ask you to either write something new or tweak an existing song that you might have written ages ago & completely forgotten about. In fact, you can’t even remember where that particular track is on your hard disk.

So, do you still want to be a composer for independent movies? Are you still reading this? Haven’t I put you off?

Now, don’t think I’m being negative here, I’m just being totally honest & realistic. All of the above happens to me on a fairly regular basis. Being an independent movie composer has many downsides but going into a project with all the above points in mind will help you a lot. Just remember, you’re not in it for the money; you’re in it for the music & the music alone.

Go into each project with a positive mind. If the filmmaker asks for the impossible, give it your best shot. Make sure you store everything on your hard disk in a logical order so you can find things in the future. Always remember to backup your data.

There are a lot of risks involved with composing for these types of movies, but what's the worst that can happen? You put a lot of your spare time into doing something you really like doing which never sees the light of day? Big deal.

Just think, you’ve spent a lot of time doing something you enjoy & you’ve gained a whole lot of experience doing it & you wrote some amazing music. If the movie hits some film festivals or gets a distribution deal, then treat that as a big bonus. If nothing happens to the movie at all, just be thankful for the enjoyment & the experience, plus you’ll be building up a library of music which can be customised for other projects.

What I’m saying here is: don’t get your hopes up, but at the same time you’ve got to be 100% committed to the project & see it through to its natural (or unnatural) end – if you can’t give that type of commitment, then you’re in the wrong game. That’s the bottom line, if you don’t like it, then don’t do it.

So, by giving this type of commitment you will become known as a reliable composer who can be trusted with anything that’s thrown at you. You’re guaranteed to get more repeat work, as well as new work simply from word of mouth.

It’s worked for me so there’s no reason it won’t work for you as well.

Music in Indie Film and an introduction to Tony Longworth

You wrote the script, you got the money and you went out and shot your film. You put effort into the effects - they look good, you got decent performances out of your actors, you're happy with the look you got and now, it's time for post... you just cut it, throw in some sound effects and you're done, right? Well, unfortunately, for a lot of filmmakers, that's what you get... I'm not sure if they think they can't afford music or if they just don't think it's important, but it is. In fact, it can make or break a film, especially an indie film. So, it's with great pleasure that I introduce Tony Longworth and I'll let Tony explain who Tony is...

It’s no surprise that music is one of the most commonly overlooked elements in many independent movies. The indie-filmmaker has a very limited budget, so when the time comes for music, the pot is usually empty and the filmmaker has to resort to using public domain or band written music. Now this music will probably work fine with the movie in question, as the filmmaker tends to spend a long time sourcing the existing music, but it will be nowhere near as good as a score specifically written for that movie.

I guess a lot of filmmakers either think that they can’t afford a composer or they just don’t have the contacts. Let me tell you that there many are composers out there willing to work on low or non-existent budget movies. How do I know this? Well, I’m one of them.

My name is Tony Longworth and I’ve been involved with music and movies for over 15 years now. I’ve been in several bands and I’ve written music for many movies in that time. All of the movies I’ve written music for are of the lower budget variety, with the percentage of them sitting in the horror genre. I’ve only ever been paid upfront once for writing music and that was a meagre £50. In most cases I’m quite happy with a credit in the titles, a copy of the movie and a promise of a cut of any profit made which in nearly all cases is a big fat zero.

Now this lack of incoming money for my music is never going to put me off. Writing music is my passion and I love movies, so I’m going to keep doing what I do. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t like to be paid for what I do, that goes without saying, it just means that I’m not in it for the money alone. My main goal is to bring something good and something original to a movie, I want my music to make the movie live, for it to come alive and thrill an audience with all its different emotions.

I know for a fact that I’m not the only composer in the world who feels like this. Hell, there are hundreds of us, maybe even thousands out there who are looking for good, exciting indie movies to score, so there’s really no excuses – do a little searching on the internet and you’re sure to find a good, willing composer who can bring a little magic to your movie.

Now, some filmmakers might worry that although they’ve found a willing composer, they are in fact not local to them – they could even live on the other side of the world. Well, let me reassure you by saying that this isn’t a problem at all because I actually live in the north west of England, close to Liverpool, and most of the movies I’ve scored are American and my location hasn’t impeded me at all. The internet really has made this planet a smaller place. I know it sounds corny, but I’ve seen that evidence with my own eyes. When I’m working on a project, the director will e-mail, chat or even speak to me across the internet, uploading scenes for me to view, giving me direction. I then send music ideas direct to them electronically, any time of the day – it’s a 24/7 process that is fast and inexpensive. From my own experience it works a treat and I believe that there really is no other effective way of working.

So my advice to all filmmakers, do that search, spend a little time dropping e-mails and you’re guaranteed to find yourself a composer that will make your movie that much better.

Like I said, Tony will be writing further posts on his trials and tribulations as a composer on indie films... Now, if you have any questions on the topic, feel free to email me at ted@deadharvey.com and I'll pass them on to him. For that matter, feel free to email me if you have any questions at all, or want us to cover any topics in particular.