Aidan Steele | 24101673
Before writing my EPK, I conducted extensive research, looking at the EPK’s and websites of many different film and TV composers working in the industry. I made sure to have a wide range of research, looking at composers from a variety of backgrounds. This included composers from the local filmmaking scene in Leeds, to London based composers and massive Hollywood names. This gave me a wide basis to build my own EPK off and I was able to take elements from all of them.
Many of the EPK’s that I looked at, mostly at the more independent levels of filmmaking, were very portfolio heavy, with some not having any ‘about’ section at all. Just a portfolio and a contact section.
Interestingly, the more prolific a composer became, the less likely they displayed any work on their website, with composers such as Nicholas Britell exclusively a biography as part of his website. This makes sense as the more you develop as a composer, the more work and achievements you’ll have to talk about.
However, most websites that I researched, were a hybrid of portfolio and biography which is the approach I chose to take. After conversing with my group about the assignment, I decided based on my friend Ellie’s suggestion, that my approach to writing my 500 word EPK biography would be to split it into three different sections of 50 words, 150 words, and 300 words. This method means that I’d be able to send multiple different lengths of short biography depending on the situation that they are being used for. In previous experiences working in the music/film industry, I’ve only been asked for a short bio. I felt that it would be counter intuitive to the point of making an EPK if I couldn’t use it.
Initially, my EPK was very broad. I have lots of interests, both in music and film and I found it very difficult to be concise about what I wanted to do. I want to write for film, but additionally, I didn’t want doors to other opportunities to be closed because I only specified that I was a film composer. This resulted in a jumbled mess of an EPK with a list of everything I was interested in, from film composition, to playing in a variety of bands and my experience as a live sound engineer. Also, this didn’t include my interests outside of music, with my experience working on independent film sets and my time spent on film programmes through both the British Film Institute and UAL. Discussing this with my group was very helpful, with other people in the group suffering with the same issue. We decided that the best course of action was to focus on a specific aspect of our creative practice as the main facet of the EPK, which for me was composing for the moving image, but still leave space to add extra information about our other interests. This means that even though the EPK would say ‘Aidan Steele: Composer for the Moving Image’, I didn’t lose other parts of my musical identity in the process. Furthermore, if a director or producer is reading my EPK and sees I’m a guitarist, that may result in me being hired because they want something guitar based for their project.
I decided that additionally to researching the websites of composers, I should also research the websites of independent filmmakers. These are the people who I want to be looking at my EPK, and it made sense to make something that they could relate too. These websites were mostly the same, a small ‘about’ section with a short biography and contact information, and a very visual portfolio, showing of their work. However, unlike the film composer websites, these EPK’s had the addition of a showreel. These showreels are around 3 minutes in length and have short sections of a variety of their work, displaying contrast in the stories they are telling and the films they are making. This inspired me as it is an incredibly efficient way to get across who you are as an artist in a short amount of time. Naturally, as a film composer, I have a huge variety of work as my music adapts to fit the type of film I’m working on. I wouldn’t want to miss out on an opportunity because a prospective director only watches one film I’ve worked on, and that specific film doesn’t fit the idea that they had. A showreel, is a great way to display a variety of different types of film music that I am capable of, in a short amount of time.
I spent a while making this showreel, experimenting with the order, length and choice of clips in my portfolio. It was important that I showed a contrast and variety of music but also made sure that everything was still of a good quality. I decided that around 30 seconds would be enough time for each clip to have enough development, but not too long that it ruins the pace of the showreel, as in a way the showreel is a trailer for me, and it needs to be engaging.
Through the extensive research of different composers EPK’s I felt that I had garnered a good taste in terms of what I wanted from a design point of view when it came to making my own EPK. Most of the EPK’s and websites that I looked at were very simple and minimalistic. Emblematic of film music, they don’t need to be flashy, they just need to get the job done. I took a similar approach, using website builder Wix to design my EPK. I chose this for multiple reasons; this was a program I was very familiar with, having used it to design portfolio’s whilst studying my A Levels, and additionally, it being a good platform that I could actually publish a website with when I can dedicate more time to making it as polished as I can.
The EPK consists of two sections, a portfolio section, and an about section, that also features contact information. This was a common combination that I witnessed through my research. The about section is where the bulk of the writing is, featuring the main biography aspect as well as a couple photos of myself. It also features my contact information, which is currently just an email. I created a brand new email for this purpose to try and appear as professional as possible, having my personal or university email, could be seen as unprofessional, and act as a deterrent for any future collaborators. Furthermore, this is the area in many official websites that a composer would often list their IMDb (Internet Movie Database) page, as well as any forms of social media such as Instagram, Twitter (X), and their music on Spotify. These are all options unavailable to me due to a lack or published music or film credits, which is why the ‘social’ aspect of my page is exclusively an email.
Initially not wanting to pigeonhole myself as a specific type of composer, I lacked any real descriptions of the music I made. This is when a friend in my group brought up a lack of identity, or selling point, in my biography, unintentionally my attempt to display my wish to write all types of music came across as somebody with a lack of direction, not knowing what type of music they wanted to make. Subsequently, I spent a while thinking about how to define myself as a musician, which was expectedly an absolute nightmare. I came up with the summary of ‘His work combining traditional orchestral scoring techniques with experimental electronic music has resulted in a number of unique and interesting scores for a variety of films.’ I think this is a good summary of what I am interested in as a composer without becoming to aligned to a specific genre or type of composing. Furthermore, I feel as it gives me an identity that directors and producers could be looking for.
In conclusion the work I have partaken for this ‘Working in the Creative Industries’ project has created a good foundation for me to be able to develop a professional quality EPK/website in the future. It has also given me a good understanding of how composers can present and market themselves online, giving me the knowledge to be able to do so properly when that inevitably becomes a necessary part of the job.
Bibliography
https://aidansteelecompose.wixsite.com/home
https://alfiebarker.com/tv-film
https://www.benjaminsquires.co.uk
https://www.harryescott.co.uk/
https://www.nicholasbritell.com
https://www.ralphhutchins.co.uk
https://www.rossbaillie-eames.com/about
