I have to say I was a bit surprised by Johan Johannsson taking the Golden Globe home this week for The Theory of Everything over Hans Zimmer's Interstellar and Trent Reznor's Gone Girl scores. Well yesterday The Academy Award nominations were announced (the ceremony will take place on February 22nd), and I had to rethink how these awards might go. Below are the nominations, along with my predictions, and although Reznor's Gone Girl score did not make the cut, Hans' Interstellar score is still up for an award, as is Johannsson's score for The Theory of Everything.

How do you get started when scoring a film that requires ethnic influence in the music? Over the next couple of months I will be scoring a number of ethnic influenced films and I'll be sharing my process with you every step of the way. Our first step is the research, but it includes much more than music.

Films I will be scoring include an Irish influenced animated short by Grounded filmmaker Justine Howard, a Greek influenced documentary feature by director George Tsioutsioulas, and an Asian influenced Legend of Zelda fan film by A Boy Named Bellamy filmmaker Israel Combs. 

To college, or not to college? That is the highly debated question (one of many) in the music industry. With success stories ranging widely from both college educated and non-college educated musicians, it can be difficult to weigh the pros and cons of spending time and money for a piece of paper with some black ink on it. Let's take a look at our options for the Film Scoring career path.

When you're done, check out my list of Film Scoring programs.