Music That Moves

“A lot of my favorite composers are film composers,” says Chance, who lives in Texas, USA. “I get so inspired by their music. I’m able to connect on an emotional level with the video and the music that attaches to it.”

He loves movie music so much that he wanted to give film scoring a try. So, of course, he searched “film-scoring contest” on the internet. In order to gain experience, he had entered a couple of small music-composition contests before, without any success. But then he saw the top hit on his web search: the fifth annual Marvin Hamlisch Film Scoring Contest. This international competition, named for a famous film composer, includes a youth category. It’s a pretty big deal. Chance decided to enter it. It would be good experience, he thought.

He was sent a four-minute animated film to score. He was excited. He was ready. He had time—the submission deadline was three months away. The music that had been bottled up inside him could now come pouring out.

But then weeks went by. He watched the video over and over, he thought, he prayed—and no inspiration came. Feeling completely blocked, he shared his frustration with his mom (who, incidentally, is a vocal performer and majored in music). It was a good move.

“There’s a pivotal point in the film,” says Chance, “a climax in the story that the music should lead up to. My mom had the brilliant idea to just start there. So I got that section written out and scored and then worked my way backward to the beginning and then on to the end.” He felt the inspiration flowing.

The rest, as they say, is history.

He submitted his entry. A while later he learned he had made the top 10. He was overjoyed. Then, a couple of months after that, he received an email thanking everyone for entering. The next line said he was the winner. “When I read that, I jumped up. I was amazed!” he says.

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