219
POINTERS FOR THE JOB SEARCH
"The way I got established was to work on low
budget and no budget films to gain
some skills and meet people. When those people
ended up working on bigger pro-
jects, they took me along with them in a lot of
cases. This job takes an investment in
material costs, too. You have to essentially
own a mini recording studio in order to be
viable in the present film economy. No one
wants to rent equipment for you. They
want you to come fully equipped with
state-of-the-art equipment and know how to
operate it effectively. When they consider
hiring you to do a project, the first ques-
tions asked are, `Do you have a ProTools
system? Is it transportable? Can you bring it
to a stage? How much are you going to charge us
to rent it?'"
JEFF CHABONNEAU, MUSIC EDITOR
After playing in rock and roll bands as a
teenager, Jeff Chabonneau studied classi-
cal guitar at the University of Wisconsin
before switching to biology in his junior
year. He began his graduate work in
anthropology at the University of California at
Los Angeles. "About the four-year point of
graduate school, I ran out of scholarship
and grant money, and decided I really needed a
job." Through a friend, he was intro-
duced to another academic who had returned to
music as a composer for New York-
based Score Productions, writing music for
television soap operas, game shows, and
sporting events. Impressed with Chabonneau's
musical talent, the composer helped
him land a job as music supervisor of the soap
opera
Capitol, filmed in Los Angeles.
A year later, he was ready for a bigger
challenge.
When he heard that the major film studios had
jobs for music editors, but not
knowing exactly what that entailed, Chabonneau
boldly called 20th Century Fox to
apply. Told that he needed both experience and
union membership to qualify, he left
his phone number anyway. Two days later, he got
a call to interview for an apprentice
music editor position. Hired for his ability to
both play and read music, he worked
there for two years before the studio closed
down the department. For the next three
years, Chabonneau worked in television at a
small firm in Burbank, frequently with
well-known composer, Mike Post.
When Post opened his own music editing company,
Chabonneau was one of four
editors hired. After two years at Interlock, he
returned to film work at MGM, then
went out on his own as a freelancer,
specializing in temporary music scores for film
previews. Chabonneau served as music editor on
the highly acclaimed series The X
Files from 1993 to 2002, when the series ended.
He went on to work on another
acclaimed series, 24.
....
CASE STUDY:
User Comments Add a comment…