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How You Get to Pitch
In my last blog I set up the subject of pitching. You can see that by clicking here. So now I'll go into a bit more depth on the ways in which to actually get the pitch opportunity in the first place, covering three different options in this post. As I mentioned last time, these are unsolicited pitches, semi-solicited pitches and "ambulance chasers" (agencies).
Unsolicited pitches are of course the easiest to get, since it’s just a matter of finding someone who may need you and either finding out what they’re doing or just sending them something based on their past work. I don’t like this method at all as a pitching approach unless I’m able to be very targeted in creating something which I think they’ll love, and want to work with them badly enough to invest a lot of effort putting a killer pitch together. It’s less ridiculous if you don’t spend time crafting a sound and writing new music for them, but then I think that really brings the odds of success down. Putting significant time into this aside from the rare exception as I mentioned, is foolish because the odds are so small of each attempt leading anywhere. They’ll probably be getting a lot of emails, and so are unlikely to read this one, and they’ll know that most people cold-calling aren’t as good as the people they already know, so they’re even less likely to listen to the music. The risk/reward of listening to every piece that gets sent in makes your 2-minute piece not worth it. From there, they’re unlikely to need a composer right now, and when they do they probably won’t remember you unless your music and approach was the best thing since John Williams/Powell/The Baptist.
However, that’s not to say the cold-calling approach can’t have its benefits, as it definitely can and has for me. More on that another time. But as a pitching tool for individual projects I really don’t think it’s much good.
Semi-solicited pitches are the type of general calls for entry which you’ll find on certain websites, or someone independently looking for some fresh talent, brave enough to pick through the hundreds of hopefuls. And there is the first problem. Like any open auditions, these will have huge numbers of applicants. Every Tom, Dick and Harry who thinks they’re a composer can and will send something. That gets worse in the one in a million times that the work is paid. I can’t really comment on the probability compared to chancing it with unsolicited approaches, other than the probability is still low. Now it’s just more affected by the sheer numbers. The poor soul listening may have already heard 3 good ones to choose from before they’re anywhere near mine, or may be too exhausted to know good from evil anymore and just pick the first one which will do the job. To have a good probability of getting consistent work through this kind of pitch, a person would have to be both lucky and punching below their weight to be consistently heard through the racket. I’m not a big fan of this approach either. Good for experience and portfolio at early stages though, and it is possible to get jobs this way.
Ambulance chasers. This is what I would call agencies charging you to submit your hand-crafted masterpiece, probably never to see a penny from it, alongside lots of other gullible souls. Oh yes, there are plenty doing this. Don’t think that because it costs money that it’ll give you a place in a smaller field. That’s what they want you to think. It’s still open auditions, but with a “hope” tax. I have yet to speak to one professional who thinks well of this model, and I personally think it’s vulturing.
This is because to charge people to submit their work for a pitch shows no faith in your own business. When you have clients offering opportunities and composers who want work, the idea should be to allow people to pitch and then curate those pitches so that only the good ones or the ones which at least match the brief get through to the client. The client should then have no trouble choosing one, and the agency can then take a percentage from that placement as profit. This is how many music libraries work around the world and it does have its problems, particularly when they start to take a ridiculous cut and squeeze out the rights and rewards of the person who wrote the music. However, it at least shows that the agency has faith in the pitches which they have deemed to be suitable to the brief, and that they think they can provide something of enough worth to the client that they will make a profit from the success of both the users, and the clients. Charging upfront is hedging their bets and trying to take money before they've actually done anything of any worth. It's also the least beneficial filtering process I can imagine. The people who pay to submit pitches will probably be less good than the people who won't, because those more experienced know that they can get jobs elsewhere without handing over cash up front just for the pitch, which has poor odds of any success as I've already covered in point number two.
The next post is going to cover solicited pitches through an agent. This is not the same as an agency as covered above!
Thank you again for reading, and please check out my social media and stuff if you want to keep an eye on what I'm up to, or to get involved further. There's also plenty of my music so you can hear what I do.
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