Many of the thoughts - on rejection and the cognitive dissonance between how we want things to be and how they are - are spot on, in my view. I suggest that the reasons this one won (haven’t watched it, didn’t enter, I have a job already), though speculated upon by many, are not the point.
The crucial, teaching-moment part of all of this is that in this contest and in professional composer life, you will likely never entirely know why something you are putting forth is not received as you would like. You can guess, you can second-guess yourself and look for flaws you missed, you can contemplate the prejudices or agenda or even lack of musical understanding of a judge or client - but in the end what someone else wants is to a degree inscrutable. And even if one is able to determine why someone chose as they did, that’s kind of like driving by looking in the rear-view mirror, isn’t it?
Clients want what they want. They are driven by the same things we are. Sometimes they are in bad moods. Sometimes they don’t know what they want and are uncomfortable about that. Sometimes they know more about music for picture than we do. Sometimes they don’t like your shirt, or your speaking voice, or they know you don’t get the material. Doesn’t matter. What matters is that they say yes or no. In that little universe, they write the laws of gravity. That’s really the end of the story. They choose you or they don’t. If they do, you go do your thing as best you can. If they don’t, then thank you very next.
In the case of contests like these - I said this elsewhere on the Spitfire users’ Facebook page, but statistics take over in cattle-calls (for those unfamiliar with the term, it refers to group evaluations of a multitude based on a generic “composer wanted” request, like when someone whistles and the entire herd of cattle comes thundering in.) 11,000 entries means that I can tell anyone who entered they lost and only be wrong once. From the point of view of all entrants, virtually nobody won. But oddly, people have a great emotional investment in that kind of outcome, and people are naturally biased about their own chances of being chosen. If one were a gambler and used that approach, one would be broke constantly. How does one improve their chances of being the one guppy in the tank that’s chosen? Is it to be the single red guppy in a tank full of blues? No, because statistically speaking it’s a certainty that other guppies will have thought of this too. And trying to be different is a minefield for every composer. (Nothing worse than becoming known for something that you don’t really want to do.).
There is only one way. Do not be in the tank.
The difference between cattle-calls and a good professional life is that nobody has a connection advantage in a cattle-call. Nobody gets the opportunity to establish any connection with the client. They tiredly flip through submissions, simplifying their criteria as they go, making snap judgements based on utterly irrelevant characteristics, internal biases doing a lot of the driving. People get dismissed based on a title, the spelling of their name, the screen cap for the video reference frame, and worse, gender, ethnicity and so on. Whereas in an ideal professional situation, though there may be others who want a job, maybe the client knows a composer, has heard of them, knows someone who has worked with them, knows their agent, or has happened upon them socially and has a good feeling about them.
This last is the most crucial. I have a long history of gigs that come from people I knew in college, or people who knew people I knew. So I had a way to connect to the person if we spoke. Someone learns a lot about you the moment they see you and hear you speak about people you have in common. Some of the things they learn are wrong, invariably - same for you - if you have ever began a relationship with someone that seems cool at the start but later it goes south, you understand.
Sometimes it’s just simple incompatibility with a client, sometimes it’s oil and water, and sometimes it’s that one or both of the people involved don’t know how to be in a relationship. But if it does work out, and you do connect, then that can be the start of a working relationship that is good for everyone. And I know we are all trying to make a living at this, but if that’s the sole focus, you may find yourself in a few years selling the gullible on chord changes and melodies in MIDI-file form to survive, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. And it’s also evil. But I digress.
It can also work out if you are thrown in cold (as the result of a cattle-call, or a sight-unseen referral) and have to develop a relationship on the spot. I have taken over gigs for friends and had to make connections with a client I had never met, and it’s doable, but it helps to be friendly, authentic, natural and even. I might have been some of those when it worked out. I can say I bonded with a guy in a studio lounge about why some people from northern regions in our country insist on putting beans in their chili recipes, and I have worked with him and his band for more than twenty years now. He made a decision based on how he felt about me in the moment, and here we are. But I should emphasize that those things are not only ungame-able, but you really don’t want to do that. If you are not yourself when you meet someone, then you will unpleasantly surprise them when you are yourself - and if you are both deeply committed to a project and then the client comes to believe you aren’t the person she thinks you are, stuff can fall apart. And by that I mean you can get any variant of the vague L.A. brush-off, or it can mean when it’s time to have cue sheets done that nobody is looking out for you. So when they say “be yourself”…
To return to the focus of this - group versus individual outcomes - it’s vaguely similar to the concept of quantum mechanics, where we have one set of rules for things that are above a certain size, and another for those that are below. An individual is statistically insignificant in a large group, and may even act differently as part of that group, but on their own there are new rules.
It’s the difference between a) sending something in blind and b) having a conversation with some guy in a Starbucks who happens to be a production designer about Afro-futurism and the art and music that comes out of it- and then the guy says, “you know, give me your number. There’s a director I know and he needs you. Like you are the only person I am recommending for this gig.”
The last point is related to that last sentence. The best kind of gig there is is the one where the job description has a picture of you next to it. My longest-running and favorite gigs are like that. They don’t want a younger me, a me who does more dubstep or a cheaper me. They want me. I mean, they’d be happier if I were cheaper, but that won’t keep things from happening. And the only way to make those kinds of gigs more likely is to avoid cattle-calls like the plague. Unless you have a clear advantage, in which case that’s not a cattle-call, is it? That’s a mock-cattle-call where the client has already made up their mind.
People make a lot out of the fact that the winner worked on an Abrams project years ago. Here’s the thing - that isn’t a crime or improper. Because if you have been reading along, that’s how opportunities happen. It may not mean that the winner would win - directors at Abrams’ level Do. Not. Care. if they have been in a room with someone years ago, if the product is not what they want. So first let’s throw that idea away. It’s the kind of thing that people who have never worked before would say. What it might mean - if he had even been aware of this fact - is that Abrams might have paid attention a little more than he did on the last fifty entries. And what it definitely means is that Abrams would have something to say to someone who is otherwise a stranger, out of a million strangers he meets every day of his life - if they are in a room together they can talk about folks they both knew on the project or what the winner learned from it or whatever - something that shows Abrams who this guy is, so that any project or referral from him might even enter the realm of possibility.
And that’s what it all comes down to, is that possibility. Piling event upon event that by themselves mean nothing but cumulatively increase the chances of some positive outcome. Going out for as many you-specific interactions as possible - because you could enter 11,000 11,000-entrant contests and never be any closer to winning, because none of the selection process can be influenced by you. But what you can control, in a largely indifferent world with a million variables, is what you do. You can make the best music possible, by whatever means you have. You can learn social skills. You can SHOW UP.
And a final thought - maybe one reason the guy who worked as an assistant in the film business won this over so many others is because he knows something about making scenes work that ten thousand people with a laptop and a dream don’t.
