Producer-composer Ian Pillai shares his experience of composing cues for an American feature film, reveals challenges

Producer-Composer Ian Pillai, who is trying to make it big in the music industry has been working towards carving his own path. He has not only composed cues but also assisted on a feature. However, it wasn’t an easy ride for Ian, he went through several challenges through his journey.

Talking about his challenges while assisting on a feature, he shares, “I remember getting the offer to assist my Professor on the project the first time. I was nervous but really happy and excited to take it on as well! In my mind I was focused on making sure that the work was good and that the cues sounded as realistic as possible using plugins only, given that I didn’t have a budget for a real orchestra.”

“But that wasn’t the real challenge for me, it was actually deadlines. I guess this goes for any work environment, meeting deadlines is very important regardless of how one perceive their work to be. Another challenge for me was also persistently working on the same cue for days on end! Revising, making edits, resaving new versions, creating completely different music for a cue and then giving a rough mix for a preview. This was all tiring but rewarding as well,” he adds.

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When asked about his experience of composing cues, he tells, “It was much better than I thought it would be. This was my first time professionally working on film scoring and programming orchestral parts! Having rough temps did help the process but the tension still remained at times. It definitely gave me good experience working with video apart from the small assignments I did in college. I learnt a bit more about how an orchestra works and how arrangements in such music works out.”

When asked about what kind of music does he likes to compose at the personal front, he reveals, “For most of my early time with music production I enjoyed making electronic music. In time that morphed into classic rock like Queen once I picked up the electric bass. I did have a prog rock phase (and I still do to a degree haha!) but I didn’t really focus on one specific genre. In fact I’m trying to keep myself open to all genres. However, being a fan of film music and just loving films in general (and having finished assisting on a feature film recently), the idea of composing film scores sounds quite appealing to me.”