It’s Not Been Done by You: Sunna Wehrmeijer on How to Become a Film Composer (Episode 63)

Everything you do is an audition.

Sunna Wehrmeijer moved from the Netherlands to Los Angeles at 23, not sure she could ever actually be a composer. In her words, there isn't even a proper Dutch word for scoring a film. In Episode 63 of The Career Musician, she tells Nomad how she went from internships and fetching sandwiches to scoring DreamWorks series like She-Ra and Spirit Riding Free, and how a placeholder she recorded at 7:00 in the morning ended up as the featured vocal in The Hunger Games.

If you have ever wondered how to become a film composer, this conversation is about as honest as it gets. Here is what stood out.

Learn by being in the room

Sunna studied composition in the Netherlands, but she never fit in. Nobody there liked John Williams, and nobody liked melody, and melody is what she lives for. In LA she found people who felt the same.

She did the UCLA Extension film scoring program, partly for the visa, and says the classes helped. What really made it click was watching her friends: how they got ideas into the DAW and onto paper. Then she started doing it herself, scoring short films and working for free. Internships meant standing in hallways with no place to sit, being invisible, staying out of the way, and soaking it all up.

Going back home was never an option. The visa process was expensive and stressful, and there were moments it didn't look good. She believes refusing to focus on the worry helped, because worry is just a distraction from the goal. Nomad's line: whether you believe you can or you can't, you're right.

The assistant years

A few internships led to a scoring workshop, and then she answered a Craigslist ad from a composer looking for an assistant. That job put her on Robin Hood and Prometheus, seven days a week, for a few years. After that she landed with James Newton Howard, which she calls the best possible place to end up. He was fair, gave her cue sheets and credit, and let her write on a bunch of films. Like her, he writes fast and commits.

Here is the story every assistant should hear. James had written a lovely cue for Catching Fire with a solo vocal sample on it that, in her words, sounded awful. So one morning she came in early and recorded herself to give him a better placeholder.

"I never in a million years expected him to say, oh, that's great, I'll keep that. Like for now? No, no, we can put that in the movie. That actual recording of me that morning, that's what's in the movie."

Sunna Wehrmeijer, 21:53

He had been looking at all kinds of fancy singers. She sang on the Mockingjay films after that, and he told the story in a speech at her wedding. She wasn't auditioning. She was being an eager beaver. Everything you do is an audition. And Luck = preparation + opportunity: the opportunity was a bad sample, and the preparation was years of being ready to deliver before anyone asked.

Know when to stay quiet

Nomad's rule for the big rooms is eyes and ears wide open, mouth shut. Sunna lived it. At James Newton Howard's, if Angelina Jolie came in on Maleficent and gave a note, Sunna was hitting stop and record and taking notes. Nothing else. Same with Will Smith and M. Night Shyamalan.

"In a room like that, there's no place for my ego in that moment."

Sunna Wehrmeijer, 28:34

Now that she has assistants, she sees it from the other side. She once brought a new assistant to a spotting session who kept stopping to ask questions and ask for timecode. That's not the time or place. You write down what they say and you don't waste their time. That's Low maintenance / no drama, and it's how you get invited back into the room.

She has been shouted at plenty in the early years, and admits sometimes they were right. You will mess up. That's how you learn.

Demos, rejection, and one day to mourn

After her first baby, she left to work for herself, found a manager, and did a million demos until she got a show. She still does them, and she still gets rejected all the time. It's like actors auditioning: you do a lot before you get the gig.

Not long before this conversation, she came very close to scoring something very cool, and lost it when the pandemic freed up other composers. So she told her husband, also a composer, that she would give herself one day to mourn it, and then chin up and move on. She doesn't pretend it doesn't hurt. She just doesn't dwell. That's Objectivity.

Nomad calls it submit and forget. Sunna's version is a little back shelf in her brain where the pitch lives, until about a week goes by and she texts her manager.

How a TV score actually runs

On her DreamWorks shows, the schedule went like this: spot the episode on a Friday, version one due two weeks later, about a week for version two, a few more days for version three, then final tweaks delivered with the mix. The catch is that while you're on version two or three of one episode, you're already writing version one of the next. Something is always starting, finishing and getting fixed.

Her rig: Cubase as the main platform, Ableton running alongside it (a trick she picked up from James Newton Howard), video in Pro Tools, and samples hosted in Vienna Ensemble Pro. When a new show starts, she has someone build custom loops, arpeggios, ticks and swells, so she isn't reaching for the same sounds as everybody else. Once she had a second show and small kids, she stopped doing her own stems and delegated. And she still updates her own website, because nobody else will pick the thumbnail the way she wants it.

The takeaway

When Nomad asked about the crowded field, Sunna's answer was the best line of the episode. Even with the same sample packs, two composers will sound different. There's so much work out there, and there is enough for everybody.

"Everybody has scored something like this before. It's like, it's not been done by you."

Sunna Wehrmeijer, 39:46

Show up early, stay quiet in the big rooms, make the demo, take one day for the loss, and keep going. If you want to see more of Sunna's work, visit sunnawehrmeijer.com. And if your next opportunity is a pitch or an audition, start with the free Audition Secrets guide.

Get the gig. Keep the gig. Build the career.

Watch on YouTube or find every episode on the TCM Podcast page.