I joined a film festival to run lighting, helped make a short called 20% in three days — and walked away wishing I could have scored it myself. So I spent a month learning to compose for film. Here is why, and where the journey goes from here. Here’s something I didn’t see coming: I signed on to a film festival to point lights at people, and I came home trying to learn how to write music.
That’s the short version. Here’s the long one.
A month, a house, and a film called 20%
This spring I joined Desert Waves to help a team put together a short film — 20%. If you’ve never done one of these, the format is half the fun and all of the pressure: strangers get thrown together, often having never worked with each other before, and try to make something genuinely good before the clock runs out.
The rules are the point. You get a limited window — for this one, a month. You have to work in certain random props, so nobody can sneak in footage they shot for an old project and pass it off as fresh. Everybody starts from the same blank page, on the same morning, under the same gun. That’s what makes it fair. That’s also what makes it hard.
I came on as head gaffer. Lighting was the job.
The job that quietly became every job
Somewhere in pre-production, the director — Jonathan — asked if we needed a DP.
I told him no, not really. I’ve got enough time behind a camera to help him shape the look myself while he directed. But I drew one line: we needed a camera operator, at minimum. I wasn’t going to be responsible for cinema lighting and babysit the camera package at the same time. One brain, two impossible jobs — that’s how you drop both.
So I showed up and did my thing. My gear. My camera. I built a video village, and I blacked out most of a house so we could shoot day-for-night — because we had three days. Three days to make a whole film.
It worked. Honestly, it’s one of my favorite projects I’ve ever been part of, and we got nominated for a stack of awards. Me included. (Yeah, I’m bragging a little. Let me have it.)
The one chair I couldn’t sit in
We cut a good chunk of the film on my Windows machine — I bounce between all three platforms, Mac, Windows, and Linux, depending on the day and the task.
And somewhere in the edit, sitting with the picture, I felt the gap.
I wanted to score it. Not drop in a temp track — actually compose the thing. A full cinema soundtrack, written for our film. I didn’t have the skills to do it, and that bugged me more than I expected.
So I did the thing I always do
I went and learned it.
I’ve spent about a month now digging into composing music for film, and I wrote up what I’ve found so far in a guide: How to Start Composing Music. That guide is the map — one living place I’ll keep adding to as I figure out what actually works for me, so the good stuff lives in one spot instead of scattered across a dozen posts.
The blog is the journey. This is where I’ll show the wrong turns: what worked, what absolutely did not, and the why and how behind every conclusion I land on.
Two ways to follow along, depending on what you’re after — the guide if you just want the best option for a given task, the blog if you want to watch me get there (and occasionally faceplant on the way).
Come make something with me
If you’ve got tips, a favorite plugin, a hard-won lesson — send it my way. And if you want to collaborate, reach out. I’m always looking for an excuse to work on something new, with new friends or old ones.
I came home from that shoot with one nagging thought: next time, I want to write the music too.
So that’s what I’m doing.