How To Win Pitches and Get Noticed
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- Опубліковано 28 січ 2021
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Spitfire Audio co-founder Christian Henson forgoes the kitchen sink in order to focus on vision and originality when pitching for composing work- and demonstrates his process by re-scoring a video game trailer using CDT.
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![Spitfire's Contemporary Drama Toolkit [REVIEW and SCORING DEMO]](/img/n.gif)
"The act of composition is not waiting for inspiration to strike, it's waiting for the mistakes to stop" - a gem of a quote there that definitely struck a chord with me.
This alone is worth the viewing.
This man knows how to sell a product.
This also ties back in to John Powell’s quote: “don’t listen to f***ing film music.”
Any music you listen to goes into your catalog of instinct. If you listen to zeitgeisty film music all the time, your instincts will be to use elements of zeitgeisty film music which just adds to the swamp of ostinati. However, if you seek out and listen to music that isn’t even close to film music, your catalogue of instinct will be completely different from the aforementioned zeitgeisty film composers, yielding something at the very least different. Once you have that different sound, you have a different basis to work on.
At least to me, that’s helped the somewhat ambiguous task of “find your own voice” a little more concrete.
Totally agree.
Agree that having as wide a repertoire of musical reference is wise. Better yet, if you can authentically do it.
The amount of times I’ve had arty farty conversations with Directors / Ad Ceatives / Game Audio Director’s etc where ultimately it’s boiled down to, “look - can you just make it sound like Dark Knight / Tron Legacy / Joker etc / insert trailer track?”
Of course I can.
As I’ve said elsewhere, I think Christian is correct about the importance of developing one’s own voice - but this is only part of it. This happens over time by learning to mimic the voices of those who are producing the zeitgeisty stuff, classics, obscure drum & bass, big band jazz etc - and the masters of film music. Speak with your “given” voice but be multilingual. Have a good John Wayne / Richard Nixon impression in the bag if you need it. And you absolutely must know the evolving zeitgeist-y language of film music.
Ex. What John Powell said to me (!) was “don’t JUST listen to film music”. He also said, “if you find something that works - even if it doesn’t but you think it could - just keep doing it. People will say it’s your voice”. He then erupted into a cheeky laugh at the pretentiousness of the idea.
To me, it feels like the ostinati thing has moved on - particularly in trailer land - and actually, the approach (above) is far, far more representative of what I would expect to hear on a trailer pitch in 2021. It even has a Daniel Pemberton, ‘Into The Spider-Verse’ Collider quality. So we are definitely on brief!!
In terms of original voices, John Williams is - arguably - the greatest living composer. Go listen to Star Wars and then go listen to the opening of Korngold’s King’s Row film (!) score written 35 years previously, Holst’s Mars, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring... Think about that 35 year time frame between Williams deriving from Korngold. It’s the equivalent time frame of someone being derivative of Williams’ Space Camp score (written in 1986). Was Williams’ exercising his unique artistic voice? No. Not at all. He was masterfully doing the brief AND he was doing the brief (read: we like the temp) “efficiently”. Efficiency is often of greater importance than originality.
Was Hans exercising his unique voice on Gladiator? No - he was referring to Holst. He was being efficient. He was working inside of tropes to efficiently communicate.
Holst “may” have had an original voice but even he was being influenced by his friend Vaughan Williams, his love of Stravinsky etc.
In short - original thought is rare. Even in science much of the progress is derived from the synthesis of disparate fragments of ideas.
Instead of being a fussy eater, my ethos is to be a master chef capable of writing at Michelin Star level where a unique voice is appreciated or slumming it in a diner as a short-order burger flipper where the expectations are more to do with speed of delivery and efficiency of / palate / communication - where your client knows that they just want egg and chips.
“The swamp of ostinati.” Great turn of phrase!
@@joshconnolly21 - yup. Excellent composer Michael Levine (Cold Case etc) said to me - and I think he’s probably right - these days, people commissioning film/TV/game music just assume you can do orchestral if needed. So definitely something at least a cursory understanding of.
absolutely brilliant advice
Petition to have " It could use a little bit of _splosh_ " on a t-shirt with a drawing of Christian pouring an obscene amount of gravy?
You can buy it for the fantastic price of one kidney, in true Spitfire fashion
I'd buy that
I'd buy that
Loved this tutorial. My phrase is NOT "waiting for the mistakes to stop", but "waiting for the mistakes to make sense". You never know, that next mistake could reveal the hidden chord....
Many thanks to Christian for sharing this “kill switch” trick, it has become invaluable for me on a current scoring job!
Just love the line near the end, “the swamp of Ostinati!” 😂
"waiting for the mistakes to stop." YES!
this library is awesome
Loved that cheers Christian more of these please.
Won over on Christian's seemingly genuine desire to point us all in the right direction.
Well done, Christian! Thank you for sharing.
Brilliant! Thanks Christian - this was really enlighening. Made the game and the trailer seem even better (not to mention the attractiveness of CDT...!)
This was really inspiring! I'm at my start of my composing journey. I'm writing a lot and also researching a lot! This video packed so much great information in to twenty two minutes. Thanks Christian. Awesome stuff.
Absolutley fantastico Christian! It‘s a pleasure to see you work and more pleasure that you share it!!!
Thanks for the walk-through - great to see someone treating a trailer with a deliberate juxtaposition. CDT has some amazing sound pallets.
Love you guys, fantastic company and some great talents.
Everything sound for Alien Isolation was absolutely spot on, this ones nail on the head too!
Just as I was about to re-score the new Kong trailer 00 ... your timing is simply pristine!
So great to see you work a piece. Again so full of good advise. Best chanel.
“Not waiting for inspiration to strike, but the mistakes to stop”
Brilliant!
Great stuff Christian! And, you’ve given me a big help in creating the makings of a very nice action template!
Clap clap clap, Cristian. Hats off! Another inspiring day. Thank you, sir. :)
Love this! Perfect timing. I also loved the kills switch trick.
Great content as always, but liked this hands on vid in particular. Keep it up! 🔥
It's nice to see you doing your thing in this video. Very inspiring indeed!
This is amazing. Thanks Christian.
Best library I ever bought.
WOW, This is a masterpiece ! Amazing job , great Spitfire sound's
Thanks. This was an amazing video!
This was so much fun to watch! I could watch your workflow for hours. I'm a pro video editor / photographer. I've played guitar for years and dabbled in composing...I'm a tech geek...you inspired me to get this. Thanks for the cool video!
Great advice and video.. I have purchased CDT.. what an amazing piece of kit.. had it 4 days and wonder how I managed before it...thank you!
Great video and good exploration of this library. Funny coincidence the first two CDT patches you used are the exact same two I recently used to help me out on a track I am currently working on for a publisher. I find CDT so useful for filling up that free space where you know a sound can go.
Christian, it is truly a joy to watch you work. Thank you for letting us sit in.
I feel lucky to have found Christian's insight on UA-cam and his gift of MASSIVELY resourcing composers.
Amazing.! Thanks for sharing.!
Superb, thank you.
This is soooo AWESOME!!!
Great stuff Christian!!
So refreshing in the approach, and a great reminder you need decent source sounds and talent, not fancy plugins to create emotion and authenticity. Enjoyed this so much, thanks!
But you need knowledge and talent as a sound designer to turn the source sounds into something using fancy plug-ins. So could CDT be putting sound designers out of a job? Also it depends what you mean by talent? Do you mean musical skill?
So inspiring to watch! Really made me want to dive down again into eDNA Earth!
Love those sounds but they’re so heavy on my computer!!
Brilliant, thanks.
This is amazing video using CDT. As someone else said in the comments "you know how to sell a product!". I think one might need a couple of watches.
Just amazing!
Great insight as always!
cdt has become my favourite library so far
Thank you❤❤
😊 😊 🙏
thanks for sharing this
And that, ladies & gents, is how you roll. As with any art, it looks so easy. Unless you do it yourself.
Great library and video of course :)
Great one Christian. Got a lot out of this session.
I love your videos!
The sploshbox love it 🤩
Excellent
Fantastic bit of composing! Also the CDT toolkit sounds amazing with the footage and that has made up my mind to get CDT next month lol
That's unbelievable!!!!
ty
Fantastic.
That was fun!
Great! I've got a different view on CDT
Brilliant.
I wish you'd elaborate on WHEN and WHERE to pitch. I mean, how do you know when a project is at the right point where they're looking for a composer, as they never seem to advertise composing gigs in the games industry. And then who exactly would you be sending the pitch to?
Typically, for games, one is invited to pitch. It’s rarely a cold open.
@@edwardpatrickwhite6679 So how do newer composers 'get in'? I mean, to be invited, they have to know you exist.
@@AynenMakino - you need to create relationships earlier and further down the chain. Nobody comes up on their own. Get on an Unreal / Unity forum and hunt out the people making good stuff. If they really are good, at some point they’ll end up working at a developer on a AAA title and, assuming that in the mean time you’ve been able to curate some kind of career AND you’re maintained and nurtured that precious relationship - you might (!) get a shot at pitching. There are no shortcuts I’m afraid. A career isn’t made in five minutes. And overnight success is usually ten years in the making. Good luck with it!
@@edwardpatrickwhite6679 I'm already on this train myself, but I'm continuously surprised by how this still hasn't gone to a different model, like most industry jobs. Why do composers have to solely rely on the networking game, when by far most other game dev jobs can simply apply to a position that's listed on all the proper channels? Even when you play that game (and while I complain, I do still play it) it honestly seems very resource-intensive, both for the composer and for the people looking for composers. I mean, they have to play this game too. And that takes a ton of time and effort.
There has to be a better way to do this.
I would suggest that if this is what you love then just do it, take a lot of video game trailers from different genres and rescore them and that will be your portfolio, post it on UA-cam, Twitch etc.. and maybe the right person will watch it some day. It's not guaranteed to work but It'll be infinitely less sad then stalking developers in forums trying to find something to say to people who are there to figure out why they're getting a null pointer exception on their integer arrays or where to find the right texture file for their rocks.
This was absolutely fantastic!
This is so inspiring! Thanks again Christian! I’d like to practice but unsure how to get the videos off UA-cam to practice on! Any tips?
I remember the string swamp of ostinati starting after the Bourne films, it worked really well for them but then everyone started doing it.
Much like everyone overdoing shaky camera and fast cuts, inspired by those films too. They've got a lot to answer for!
A prime example is Liam Neeson climbing a fence, 14 cuts in 6 seconds!
Love this Christian. I just bought the library and love it. Is there any chance that you could ever make your logic files available? I know we don't all have same reverb but I would love to look through and pick apart the logic file..
More of this kind of thing! :-)
@4:27 I'm writing this to a big piece of paper and sticking it on the wall in my studio.
This may just be a personal preference, but I think you should have had some horns come in at the end, just before the title shot. Other than that, this sounds amazing and is definitely a great showcase of what the Contemporary Drama Toolkit can do. 👏👏👍
Would love to hear a pacifica library ❤️
brilliant, Christian. You make it look so easy. I don't understand what the "kill switch" is..... could use more explanation. Thank you
Loving CDT, is it possible to be able to update so we can save a custom velocity curve?
Great 👍
Inspirational, both you and CDT. Thank you.
Greetings Christian, My apologies for replying here regarding a post on another video topic however, I commented in regards to the 4th part of OPW Picture To Score tutorials. I was very curious if Oliver would ever complete it or will Spitfire ever release it...?? [Whatever happened to PART FOUR....??? I was really looking forward to it. AWESOME SERIES]. BTW, thank you for this video, very useful and needed.
Curious about your mac specs Christian. I have an older iMac that is just struggling! Looking for some insight!
Fascinating how quickly you pick and lock tempi and although I'm proficient in Logic, I didn't quite catch how you did that. Anyone could point me to a good tutorial for that?
You used the exact chord sequence (with choir) I used for the end of the Westworld challenge, but then around a fifth higher.
Is it inspiration? 🤔🙂
... "the swamp of ostinati"😂
Quali'y 😆❤️
Like, he’s bang on though!
At the end, it felt like Marvel had made their trailer specifically for CDT - sounds amazing! :-)
What internet ripper did you use? Been having trouble with that lately.
Love watching and learning from Christian. I always leave wanting to buy more spitfire products, for some unknown reason. Please consider some kind of de-ess on your mic, I live to crank up the audio for these and your mic's high end kills my old ears. :)
I'm on it.
Amazing, so cool! As a newbie, can you explain how you create the kill switch?
I thought I explained it! I sent everything I wanted to kill to their own bus and then automated the volume on that bus?
@@TheCrowHillCo Oh cool, right, you did say it amazingly quickly!
christian used his ghost hands to reset his mixer at 9:40
Hi Christian, great pitch as usual. Judging from this and other videos, you seem to be an absolute Logic automation wizard: do you think you could do a video on this? There's lots of stuff around, but honestly nothing as relevant and to the point as what you do "in passing" most of the time. Thanks a million in advance if you can.
Learning everyday is my cup of ☕ thank you for sharing your creativity with us to learn. MUCH LOVE FROM SA
Great video. Can't wait to get my Abbey Road One to add this to. By the way, could you point some of less experienced watchers to a "how" to you extracted that video into Logic Pro X? BTW, I REALLY like your presentations. I'm an old pop piano player as you describe yourself, so I get you. Great stuff.
Stunning indeed.
Great Contextual @Christian. So, did I get it right at the beginning of the video that it is fine and acceptable to use video trailers as a base for own ideas and show it in own reel/portfolio? Of course not to dis someone else’s work but to show my own? If so, how to make sure that it is ok with the copyrights?
I think its fine to do practice like this. I don't think it is fair to distribute these as work that you have been commissioned to use. The key with gaining work is building a body of experience. In starting out and getting interest from people who can help you get that experience, ie composers you're going to assist, or indeed agents who may be able to hook you up with such composers, you simply need to impress with amazing music and being a lovely person.
@@TheCrowHillCo Thank you for your reply. Totally agree I meant to showcase the work = music. Nonetheless, music to video without video might be more challenging to grab full attention. In my comment, I thought of using a video similarly to SA’s Westworld competition rules, with a clear statement that this is just a concept and not a part of real production. Thank you for the excellent advice tho! Much appreciate!
I was actually just yesterday working on a trailer for an indie video game and I'll definitely aim to take initiative when making pitches to bigger studios from here on out.
Great vid - how are you getting on with the Icon controller...?
Not great! Doesn’t make for a workable MIDI controller I’m afraid!
@@TheCrowHillCo Ahhh, might not be getting one then....:)
@@TheCrowHillCo How's the icon as CC controller?
@@matteogalesi7761 He said not well
@@skipstream2 oh lol, got it mixed up with the palette... Ooops 😬
What Marvel Spider-man version is this, to score to?
need more s.sim plugins
dopeness
"The swamp of ostinati" :)
Can you explain how you downloaded the video? I assume it was from UA-cam and you extracted the audio somehow using Logic?
You can rip videos from UA-cam (free software is out there), import into Logic with the audio (import movie), mute the audio and put your own music to it.
But you can’t publish the video in that case. I assume this is just to practice to and then release your audio and title it “Spider-Man trailer rescore” or sth like that? Is the point of this to just get you working with film so you have audio to show at the end? Rather than just creating something that sounds like this from scratch with no video?
@@lochlanboebel394 yes, this is strictly for practice and NOT for posting or sharing
@@lochlanboebel394 File>movie>export to movie (in Logic) will export your composed audio to the video
Or for publishing
Does the "find your own sound" mantra not seem a little bit at odds with the whole "buy another ubiquitous collection of pre-made, drag & drop sounds" thing?
I think 'develop your own voice' is my mantra and this is by sourcing good ingredients and using them in ways that is not ubiquitous.
@@TheCrowHillCo Fair enough. I wasn't meaning to knock the product itself, as the sounds are great. I'm just torn when it comes to providing these sounds with the interesting textural quirks already baked-in, where holding down middle C instantly sounds fantastic.
I've fallen in to the trap before of thinking I've created something interesting and unique, only to look back at those cues later on and hear nothing but Labs Frozen Strings. Probably my own short-comings as a composer, and likely something the client couldn't care less about either way, but I'm still a bit unsure where the line is between these tools being an inspiration or a crutch. Maybe it's only composer types who would even notice.
This may have already been asked, but are we allowed to do this? Download and recompose? Can we use as examples of our work for pitches? I’m guessing no?
I also apologise if this is the stupidest thing you’ve read all year
I think just very slightly the Spiderman does what ever a spider can melody. Mabey only the first 3 notes. No? Probably at the logo. You hear it dont you?
Okay. But how do you find people that will take time out of their day to consider your pitch?
Well you need to be invited to pitch and this is a very lengthy road. You need to gradually build a body of work and experience that gives you a CV that producers will consider when building a short list of people from which a director will make his or her choice. This can take many years and requires dedication and hard work. Whether that be through assisting composers, growing with student directors and tiny budget indie games makers to developing yourself as an artist in your own right with a big following and busy touring schedule. These will give you the CV required to pitch on certain things and by this point you’ll usually acquire an agent. Most requests for talent and short lists of people to pitch will come through agents.
@@TheCrowHillCo Thank you for the answer! I really appreciate you taking the time to respond. While this answer may seem obvious to some, I find it very helpful and reassuring!