Film Music Guild

The FMG Conference 2010 page is still under construction as we are finalizing speaker arrangements. The conference will be held on October 2nd at Biola University in La Mirada. Registration will be opening on August 9th here on the FMG website.

On Saturday, October 3^rd, 2009, students from 17 different Southern California universities flocked to La Mirada to attend an all-day conference put on by the Film Music Guild, a Biola club that brings film and music students together to learn and collaborate.  Over 100 attendees crowded Moats Auditorium to hear talks presented by industry professionals, including composer John Ottoman, the man behind the music of Valkyrie and Superman Returns; Allison Wright Clark, score coordinator for Pirates of the Caribbean; J.A.C. Redford, orchestrator for WALL-E; Dan Savant, music contractor for The Passion of the Christ; Anne Cecere, Associate Director of Film and Television Relations at BMI; and four lead members of the development team of Pixar’s recent blockbuster Up.

Pixar director and four-time Academy Award nominee Pete Docter and respected collaborators Jonas Rivera, Bob Peterson, and Ronnie del Carmen, all Pixar personnel, led the audience through an exploration of the visual themes and musical motifs of Up.  Development stills, never-before-seen character designs, and various other creative artifacts appeared throughout the presentation, which filled the audience to standing-room-only.  Pete Docter’s passion and expertise offered students a unique view into the mind of one of the industry's most loved and respected storytellers, and the team shared insights on the work life and creative culture of the Pixar studio, where collaboration and fresh ideas abound.

The Film Music Guild Conference 2009 was the first of its kind anywhere and the first to bring a creative team from Pixar onto a university campus to educate students about music and storytelling.  The Film Music Guild worked hard for over a year to secure the impressive lineup and coordinate the substantial logistics of the conference, and that work paid off.  The Film Music Guild has hit the ground running and plans to develop events in addition to the annual conference to further relationships between filmmakers and composers for the sake of education, collaboration, and creativity.