Be a Villager: A Composer's Guide to Networking & Community

A quote taking over my algorithm lately is “if you want a village, you need to be a villager”. And perhaps now more than ever, it is easier to turn down invitations, events, and plans and stay in the comfort of your own bed and doom scroll endlessly on social media while you bed rot in goblin mode and we keep inventing new words such as these to further describe this lifestyle. It’s really quite depressing actually.

Anyway, if you want to be successful in any field, you need a community. And if you want to have a community, you need to be a member of that said community. Time and time again, the number one advice successful composers share is 90% of the job is showing up. And this can be at mixer events, film festivals, or just putting yourself out there online. However, I think it goes much deeper than that.

Nobody becomes successful in the arts alone. In any creative field, especially something collaborative like composition, you need a community. And if you want a community, you have to be part of one. Not adjacent. Not lurking. In it.

What is a village?

This village we are trying to be a part of has many people in different roles and professions. Some are directors, some are editors, some are solely just viewers and fans of your niche. In a community, all are important. Focusing entirely on one role means you are leaving so many amazing relationships on the table. Don’t limit yourself to just “Directors”. Editors, Actors, music supervisors and even viewers are important to your success as a composer - especially if you want to be in the conversation when people are making decisions. There is one director on a film who will vouch for you, but if the entire rest of the team knows you and recommends you because you are part of that village already it can be a no-brainer to hire you!

Once you get beyond student films, you will notice filmmakers time and time again work with a lot of the same collaborators. A majority of the same cast, crew, and even post production team may work on multiple projects together. A whole ecosystem forms around these relationships and this can be true for the composer too, so take advantage when you are on a project and try to get connected with the rest of the community.

In the context of this article and outside of a single project, we can think of our village as our particular niche. If I am a composer targeting indie arthouse cinema, I need to be involved in the conversations happening in and around indie arthouse films. It’s not enough to just make content around it though, I need to be a part of and actively support other members of this community. This can take the form of engaging in conversations on X or Letterboxd, but it can also mean attending premieres or watching their films online. One of the most baffling things to me is the amount of composers (and even film makers) who want to do short films, but don’t watch any themselves! Shorts have a different language than features and need to be understood on their own, but also people who make shorts are generally much more accessible than people making AAA budget features. Why isn’t it more common for composers to take advantage of that yet and get themselves deeper into that community by consuming the art in which they want to work on anyway?

What’s good for the Goose is good for the Gander: Your Responsibility as a Villager

So if you are trying to have a village by being a villager, you need to partake in community events - but you also need to bring people into yours as well. Passing along an opportunity with a photographer who you know will never hire you for a project but is active in your niche can be great for the village, even if it’s not actively benefiting you directly.

For example, let’s stop thinking in terms of us and our individual careers for a moment. I’ve often said that movies in general have a marketing problem. We focus entirely way too much of our efforts advertising the latest and greatest, but not enough marketing the industry as a whole. Especially now, where there are so many ways we can spend our time at lower cost and algorithms pushing their own latest releases in our faces constantly, why would someone even consider watching an “old” movie unless they are “cinephiles” and how does this affect the future of the industry as a whole? If we don’t promote the art form or our artistic community in general, the efforts we make the promote the individual works matter less and less.

“Ask not what your village can do for you, but what you can do for your village”

All that to say, I think an important part of being a villager is advocating for and working towards the overall quality and health of your village. A rising tide raises all ships. Actively engaging in, supporting, and attempting to grow your community as a whole is good for everybody involved. A tide can rise when people care enough to

• Show up

• Encourage other

• Support one another

• Celebrate each other’s wins

• Recommend each other’s works

• Mentor new villagers

• Share insights, thoughts, critiques, and feedback

• and more

Gatekeeping, trash-talking, cynicism, isolation, and jealousy do nothing for the health of the village. Nor does sitting quietly on the sidelines, interacting only when you need something. Be active in your community. Support your friends. Be a Villager.

ScoringTech.Net is operated by Joe Chris as a means of trying to give back to the composer community. Consider joining the monthly mailing list to have these articles sent to your inbox on the first of every month! Follow me on instagram @Joe_Chris_ , youtube, or Join our free discord community where we host bi-weekly composition challenges!