The Evolution of Film Scoring - An Evening with Sean McMahon and Friends

Join fellow alumni for an evening with Sean McMahon ‘00, the new Chair of Berklee’s Film Scoring Department as he explores the future of Film Scoring with special guest alumni professionals. Hear their perspectives on where the industry is headed and how you can best prepare for new composing opportunities.

Participants will:

1. Hear from alumni professionals how their journeys have led them to where they are now

2. Participate in a discussion around how the film scoring landscape has, and continues to evolve.

3. Learn how Berklee plans to support future film scorers in navigating the changing landscape of music and media.

Light refreshments and beverages will be provided.

Panelists:

Pieter Schlosser ‘02 is an award winning film and television composer with credits to his name such as Destiny 2, NBC's You, Me And The Apocalypse and Freeform's The Lying Game, Lifetime's The Client List as well as additional music on the Transformers franchise, Resurrection and Desperate Housewives to name a few.

After attending the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Pieter moved to Los Angeles to pursue his career as a film composer. He worked in Hans Zimmer’s studio for 5 years alongside Steve Jablonsky on many projects such as Desperate Housewives, Friday The 13th, Transformers series.

Emily Weber '97 is the Vice President / Head of Synch for the Los Angeles-based indie-publisher, Position Music. Weber is responsible for building and overseeing the nine person synch team which is responsible for exploiting Position Music’s repertoire in Advertising, Film, Television, Trailers and Video Games worldwide.

Weber joined Position Music in 2010 and has been instrumental in expanding Position Music’s Movie Trailer, TV Promo and International Advertising business. She has A&R/Produced over 30 albums made for movie trailers. Over her 15+ years of pitching music she has become a trusted source for music supervisors, editors/producers, and creative directors throughout the industry.

After finishing Berklee College of Music as a Performance/CW&P Major (Saxophone) in 1997 and after a few years as a working musician, Weber began her synch-licensing career in 2003 at RipTide Music building their artist roster and TV/Film department. In 2008, she joined Immediate Music as Director of Operations. In 2010, Weber joined Position Music and during her tenure, the company has grown it’s revenue by over 800% and expanded its sales staff from one (just her) to a team of nine.

Matteo Stronati ‘11 is an established audio lead, sound designer and composer credited in numerous high profile games, films, online and other forms of media. He is currently Audio Director at Riot Games. Matteo has produced sound effects and music for major publishers including CCP, 2K Games, Microsoft, and Tencent, for console games, browser games, MMOs, iOS, and PC games.

Matteo’s work is routinely called out by press, customers, and members of the team he works with as being top-notch. Known for his sense of ownership over tasks, and his enthusiasm to consistently hit the highest quality bar on every project, Matteo has an all encompassing approach to audio design. He is also known for his relentless effort at reducing the sound asset bundle download size without sacrificing quality.

Moderator:

After graduating from Berklee with a degree in film scoring, Sean McMahon '00 completed the graduate certificate in scoring for motion pictures and television at the University of Southern California. While in California, he worked for five years as composer’s assistant and project manager for A-list composer Christopher Young, and orchestrated more than 30 films, including The Monkey King, Tyler Perry’s A Madea Christmas, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Ghost Rider, and Spider-Man 3. In addition to composing scores for several films, he has also created music for a number of video games.

McMahon is a native of Toronto, Canada, who lives in Brookline, Massachusetts. He joined the faculty of McNally Smith College of Music in 2009 and was appointed head of the Composition and Songwriting Department in 2011, a position he held until he joined Berklee in 2017. For more information, please see the press release on Berklee's website here.