Starting Small - Finding that first Gig

I want to start by saying what I post here and in future posts may seem obvious to some, and might be wholly new to others... either way I hope you're at least mildly entertained. Regardless, what I discuss IS NOT a sure thing and a guarantee that you'll find work.. merely suggestions from a somewhat seasoned vet. That is all.

I know a lot of you really want to go right for the throat and start composing music for huge AAA titles. While it's possible via good timing, luck, stars aligning, and damn good schmoozing at conferences (more on that later), your best bet is to start small. The competition is still going to be stiff, but your chances are higher the smaller you go. Like I said, larger game companies won't even look at you if you don't have a few titles under your belt. It helps if they're decently large titles, but they certainly don't have to be! Start small.

The absolute best place to start is... no.. not mods.. those rarely get you real work but can be a real hoot to work on! The best place to start is iTunes...wait.. iTunes? Now you're asking yourself "How the hell can I find work from iTunes?" Well there's a great strategy I've been using with some success, take a gander at the top 10 and "what we're playing" iPhone games about once a month and shoot those game developers an email. Much of the time it's a smaller team of 5 to 10 guys and they will at least shoot an email back your way regardless of needing a composer or not. If it's a larger developer such as EA or Gameloft.. you'll run into the same issues I discussed earlier. Even worse, those larger companies don't have a direct way to contact them on their website making you have to route your email through their publicity department... which means it's most likely a dead end unfortunately. The only way to get your music to the big dogs is by contacting the audio directors of their smaller (which still aren't THAT small) developers. A good example is THQ via Volition Software, Disney via Blackrock Studios, or Activision via Infinity Wa... wait.. don't do that, the zimdog has that one all wrapped up.

Whoever you shoot an email off to (I usually go for the CEO or creative director of the smaller companies)... be sure and personalize it, at least a little. Mention titles they've worked on, download and play their past titles, research what it is that company develops. Make it a friendly email first, and a sales pitch second. If you go right for the sale they'll definitely see right through the email, you, laugh, and go on to read the other composer emails they have received that day.

The good thing about iPhone titles, unlike a majority of other indie games, is that they have a bigger chance at exposure. Don't get me wrong, indie games in general can just explode and end up on XBLA, WiiWare, and PSN in a heartbeat... but for some reason their exposure is limited to indie game competitions, articles on kotaku, and conferences like GDC. iPhone games are exposed to a much wider market for the most part. More exposure means free PR for you, more work, and yay, you get to eat (or drink) that week! Even if the game doesn't sell a bazillion copies, it's perfect fodder for your resume and your website. A shipped game is a shipped game... cell phone, digital distribution or not.

iPhone games will also (if you haven't had to already) make you to learn how to compress the begesus of your files down to nothing. I prefer to use the Ogg Vorbis format as I can compress those down to like 2 to 5 kb a sound in Adobe Audition with a fraction of loss in fidelity. You don't want your music and audio to leave a footprint larger than 1 or 2MB as a whole for the typical 10MB iPhone games.... it's just bad form. But the format is up to the developer and that is something you'll have to discuss with them when you get to that point.

What to charge. This is a whole nother can of worms which I'll get to in the future. It's not a ton of info, but definitely should have it's own topic so stay tuned!