How to Negotiate a Film Composer Agreement

When you decide to write music for Film and Television as a full-time job, you’ll soon realize that from that moment on it is not just about your music but about the music business.

There is so much to know and learn about the process of negotiating a deal. I will share some of the experiences I have made so far, hoping that it will help you with your negotiations a little bit.

When you are offered a composer job, your first instinct is probably to sit and start writing music right away, but once you navigate the industry a bit more, you’ll find out how important it is to negotiate and sign an agreement before the actual composing work starts. With that in mind, the moment you decide to become a full-time composer, you could also consider taking a music business class at Music College, which I did and found very helpful.

Negotiating and signing an agreement at the beginning of every collaboration is good for your mental health (once the “red tape” is out of the way, you can concentrate on the active, creative part of the job with much less pressure) and also, since you are now a professional composer, you need to know exactly what the terms of the gig…