First professional experiences composing music?

[Pl511]

I recently landed my first actual 'job' composing some background music for an upcoming short live-action film by some guys that found me through my YouTube channel, and I thought it would be interesting to see what kind of other first experiences people have had working in this sort of industry, whether it be film, music, or otherwise. I know it might be a little personal, but it might also be nice to hear the kind of level of pay received as well (on a per minute sort of rate).

Edited February 9, 2014 by Pl511

[ectogemia]

My first gig was writing music for Maddox's YouTube show. He paid me $100 for maybe 6-8 minutes of music which, in my opinion, was totally fine for my first gig. It's not exactly market rate, but I was just getting my feet wet, and at the time, I wasn't as polished as most other pro/semi-pro composers, so he got what he paid for, haha.

I know musicians hate the "exposure card," but to be able to say I wrote music for Maddox was enough for me, and I ended up being right. I've gotten more commissions because of the work I did for Maddox, so sometimes, working for exposure CAN pay off. But I certainly wouldn't do it again unless I knew whoever had hired me really did have some serious clout.

The $100 was just icing on the cake. The dude was a hero of mine back when I was a teenager, and I still think he has a ton of relevant commentary coming out. Plus, I knew hundreds of thousands of people were going to hear my music, and that was and still is so cool to me.

Here are the tunes in case you're curious.

Conspiracy

Infomercial

Unused funk tune

There are so many production and composition changes I'd make to both if I were to write them again with the skills I have now, but I think they're still fun to listen to

Edited February 10, 2014 by ectogemia

[Pl511]

That's awesome! The short film I've got right now has potential to be a pretty big thing if the internet decides it likes it, but I haven't actually considered things like the added exposure and potential gigs after that before you said that. I'm pretty surprised about the pay, though - with the amount I've been offered, I'll probably be working for about 3 or 4 times that rate per minute of music for a 4 or 5 minute long track. That said, I'm going to have to sort out timings with the actual film and presumably I'll be working with a substantially huge number of instruments to get the sound I want. What kind of things did getting that work lead you to?