Over spring break, Berklee students attended industry trips to L.A., Nashville, New York City, and Atlanta. Here, a participant in the film scoring track of the L.A. trip, Alexander Stewart, recounts the week’s experience.
By Alexander Stewart
Hans Zimmer is one of the most influential and successful film composers in the history of cinema, and this spring semester, 20 film scoring students from Berklee found themselves standing in his composing room.
Many of the graduates of Berklee’s film scoring program end up moving to Los Angeles with the goal of working in music for motion picture. Together with the Career Center and the Film Scoring Department, the group got a taste of Los Angeles. We were able to visit Music and Motion Productions, which is the production company founded by Berklee alumni Lucas Vidal and Steve Dzialowski. The group learned about the world of trailer music and music supervision as well as life after Berklee in Los Angeles. We furthered our learning in music supervision by also visiting the music supervising house Neophonic, where the staff were very accommodating in answering our question on this field and how they got to where they are now.
We were also very lucky to be able to visit Bear McCreary’s Sparks and Shadows, Hans Zimmer’s Remote Control Productions, and composer Christopher Young at his studio. Sparks and Shadows was a very valuable experience for the group because many of the staff are recent Berklee graduates whom offered great advice for the students. Christopher Young and his team were also very generous with offering advice and support for the group and giving us an inside look into their compositional process.
Although Hans wasn’t there at the time, visiting Remote Control Productions was a valued experience. We got to sit down with Berklee alumnus and composer of TV shows such as Game of Thrones and Westworld, Ramin Djawadi, who shared his insight into the industry and his daily routine as a working composer. We then got to meet the Grammy Award-winning engineer Alan Meyerson, known for mixing literally hundreds of Hollywood film scores. He also was very generous with providing insight into the industry and gave some great mixing tips for film composers.
The group was then very lucky to get the chance to take a look into Hans’ famous composing room. It was very impressive to say the least and very moving for us as young composers to stand in the room where many of the scores that inspired us where created.
Alexander Stewart is a composer, music editor, and multimedia supervisor. Originally from New South Wales, Australia, he moved to Boston in 2014 to pursue a degree in film scoring and music business from Berklee. He serves as the editor-in-chief for Berklee’s Music Business Journal and as part of Berklee’s Student Allies for Anti-Violence Education (SAAVE). Alexander is working to establish himself as a working composer in the United States and is very excited to meet and work with other artists and creators.