Unless your are independently wealthy, you probably need to create a budget for creating demos in the pursuit of work.
The starting point of this should be determining how many demos you anticipate creating in a given year. Typically, the more, the better. The more frequently you throw your hat in the ring, the better your odds of landing something.
I would suggest planning on creating new demos at least once a month. That’s twelve rolls of the dice a year. If you can do more, even better.
PORTFOLIO OF DEMOS
What exactly are you trying to demonstrate with each of your demos?
— A style of music you don’t currently posses?
— A specific piece based on a specific project?
— Better recordings of your music?
— Creating something truly impressive?
Different demos serve different purposes.
In creating your Annual Demo Budget, think through the range of types of demos you anticipate needing. Then, come up with an educated guesstimate of how much each of those demos will cost you. Add those totals up and (gulp) that is how much you are willing to commit to recording that year.
DON’T WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THINGS THAT ARE HIGHLY UNLIKELY TO YIELD YOU ACTUAL WORK.
Look at the composer credits of all the Marvel and Pixar films. Face it, they aren’t breaking unproven talent to score their films.
If your career isn’t close to being poised to already landing you the next Marvel or Pixar film, you aren’t going to get one no matter how many musicians you cram on your demo.
And those big, bloated orchestral demos set to Disney Animated films, LORD OF THE RINGS and AVATAR are fairly useless in obtaining the sorts of building block credits one typically works on at the beginning of their careers.
Those first batch of films in a composer’s life tend to be fairly low budget and don’t want and/or can’t afford a pseudo-John Williams score.
The time to take the plunge on a big orchestral demo is when you are already fairly well established (perhaps in TV or on a sting of smaller films or films in a different genre) and this demo might push the scale in your favor.
But, if you aren’t even past the first few rungs up your career ladder, I suggest saving your big guns for later.
IF YOU ARE USING A BIG ORCHESTRA FOR THE FUN OF IT, GREAT.
If you can afford paying for the musical equivalent of Fantasy Composer Camp, go for it. It can be exciting to conduct a giant orchestra for the first time. (hell, it’s probably always exciting).
But don’t confuse your TOY STORY demo with anything that is going to get you the next TOY STORY.
I HATE BIG DEMOS AND I CANNOT LIE
On a personal note, I dread listening to most young composers’ big orchestral demos.
They aren’t really ready to pull it off, they tend to sound derivative, and they don’t illustrate anything very useful in imagining that composer for the 99.9% of films they may actually get early in their careers.
I am almost always more blown away by the quirky, the imaginative, the resourceful, the fresh, and the interesting.
Plus, I already have REALLY great recordings by Williams and Horner. I don’t need to hear your pale imitations.
DON’T GO TO COLLEGE TO GET ORCHESTRAL RECORDINGS
Go to school to learn. Not to finance demos.
Nowadays, anyone can hire an orchestra of any size around the globe at different prices for any unit of time to record demos.
You don’t need to pay a school to put that together for you.
(Plus, learning how to budget and execute recording sessions on your own is a REALLY important skill set to master).
I find it odd that some schools put together giant orchestras for their students with no sense of how the end product would translate into obtaining work in the real world.
SMALLER CAN BE BETTER
In most cases, it is far better to create demos for the type of small, indie films that might actually hire you.
The good news is those demos can cost a whole lot less. And, they can often be far more unique and distinctive.
DEMO THE REAL VERSION OF WHAT YOU ARE DOING
Commit to an idea you can afford and do the AAA+ version of that.
Only the top two or three demos are even going to get a composer a meeting. If it’s not HELL YEAH, it’s a NO.
So, create demos that sound EXACTLY like what they are supposed to be.
Better to commit to doing a string quartet that sounds like a string quartet than 30 players trying to sound like 90.
Better to commit to an all-piano score. Or a slide guitar. Or a quirky combo of 6 players.
Don’t turn in a watered-down version of the intended end product. Don’t rely on the listener to fill in the gaps.
A question I often ask my clients: “Would YOU definitely hire YOU if you heard this demo?” Anything yes than an “ABSOLUTELY” isn’t good enough.
DECIDE WHAT YOUR ARE WILLING TO DO WAY BEFORE YOU DO IT.
It is wise to come up with this Annual Demo Budget prior to actually doing any of them. Knowing what your overall game plan is from the offset will allow you to allocate your resources wisely over the course of the year.
The specifics of each demo will present themselves as they come up. The decision of which demos to do should be informed by your overall budget.
Having committed to spend a specific amount of money on your demos beforehand eliminates a lot of the hand-wringing that can occur when presented with a specific decision to demo or not. This allows you to jump right in and do the creative and hard work, and not waste it on deciding to even spend money or not.
DEMOING IS A REAL PART OF BEING A COMPOSER IN 2017
Accept it. Plan it. Master it.
