There are many paths a young composer can take that may or may not lead to a successful career in film scoring, but there is one thing that is certain across all areas of the music industry and that is that professionals expect you to know what you're doing and deliver the highest quality performance that you're capable of. Everyone makes mistakes, that's how we learn to improve, but there will be times in every musician's career where they are thrown into a situation with insane deadlines and zero prior experience - it's part of the initiation process. 

With film scoring becoming more and more popular as a career path, colleges and higher education programs are jumping at the opportunity to fill the need. I, myself, graduated from Berklee College of Music with a degree in Film Scoring, so I may be a little biased, but I'll try to give my honest opinion of various programs based on what I know and what I have heard. Keep in mind, these are only my opinions - links are there for your own research.

Filmmakers often spend months, if not years, preparing for production of their next film. Storyboards, development, casting, scouting locations - these are just some of the time consuming and stressful parts of preproduction, and yet one thing that can put all of this on hold is the budget. So when it comes to music, what choices do filmmakers have?

The answer is somewhat complicated, so let's break it down a little.