Part 1 in a series on the types of convos that I have with important people in my life.
Steve: Hey man, I think you mentioned you was working on some indy work or something like that? A movie or something? What do you feel about composing full films/ tv shows? Its still at the beginning stages but I'm thinking about managing or being a agent to 1 composer and get him/her some work, and just take 20% as a standard fee. But I wanna find the right person. But I didn’t know if that was something you was interested in. Let me know your thoughts.
DJ: Sure thing. If you can find me the work, I'm willing to take the opportunity whole-heartedly. Give me some details how you want to structure this whole thing when you have time. Here are a few short films I worked on. I also just finished an independent film, The Swing Set, Tuesday doing music and sound design. And of course I'm still doing music for the NBA.
Steve: OK, Ima check it. So you understand the business behind composing, like some of the lingo and what not too? Like how Cue Sheet works, what folks will be asking from you, etc.? I know some, and I don't think you'll need to know it all...but I want to know if you'll feel comfortable in handling a big project. Of course, I'll help oversee it as well.
Once I check this, I may send you a copy of a movie without sound and have you do your thing. This would be a demo that would be shown right to the production company most of the work will come from.
I just gotta have someone I trust and is talented because, as always, my name will be on the line. And also, there might be a situation where if you do work on a project you may need to come out here to Cali. Sometimes they want to have a meeting to talk about the movie.
Now if I get you on the job, sure you'll know money is coming in so maybe you can bust that move out here. You should be comfortable to live out here working on 2 movies really...especially for the going rate of composers.
Just like the many important people that come into my life, Steve found me before I even knew who he was. We were first introduced back in early 2007. He had just finished up some acting on MTV, music for a few theatrical releases, and a few movies for a variety of networks including Disney, Spike TV, and the Hallmark Channel. He found out about my old production team and I through media after we successfully landed a hit on the Billboard charts. Steve was originally from St. Louis but had been living in California for the past few years. He sent an email to our manager explaining that he was interested in us and that he wanted to stay affiliated with his original city. Steve was a recording artist and radio DJ out in L.A. From the start, my manager was interested in Steve’s proposition but he never trusted him. This is understandable because there are many deceitful people in the entertainment industry and to make matters worse, I believe our manager was still slightly discouraged from working with others due to a recently ended court battle dealing with industry execs.
I got to know Steve quite well through the back-and-forth emails we would send. (My manager appointed me as the person who would do much of the email writing and other networking tasks for all of our inquiries). I disliked it so much because it was cumbersome and annoying how he would call me so frequently to do this type of work. He only did this because I was the only reliable producer that picked up my phone on a regular basis and got the job done on time with enthusiasm. What can I say? I hated work but I didn’t want to embarrass the team with lack of professionalism. We had an email account established under our company name but my manager allowed me to send emails under my own email in order to not flood the inbox with music that I would send. As time passed, Steve gave us the opportunity to work as partners on a number of his own projects but the opportunities never fell through. Our manager began to think that Steve was stealing music and lying about the projects that we could be part of.
Long story short, our manager broke ties with Steve. I eventually left my production team a couple years later. It was one day in late 2008 that Steve sent me an email. I hadn’t heard from him in over a year. He asked me if I was still with my old production team and I told him that I wasn’t. He went on to tell me how some music that I did back in 2007 was needed in a new Spike TV movie that was coming out. This was the greatest news I had gotten in a long time. Since then, Steve and I have had opportunities to work with Disney on a couple of occasions. We’ve developed a partnership and he keeps me in the light about many upcoming movies and TV shows that we can work on.
God can bring people together in what we may sometimes call unusual ways. Really, that’s not even they case. Its all part of His divine plan. Think of it as a puzzle. My music skills linked me to meeting my production partners, which linked us to making a successful team, which linked us to media/print work, which linked us to Steve, which my avid attitude with the industry led me network with Steve regularly, which links me to do cool work with Steve today. Who woulda thought things would work out like this? Who woulda thought that my prayers would be answered in this way?
Jeremiah 33:3 - “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.” And let’s not forget Proverbs 3:5 - “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”
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