Creating Opportunities for Composers of Color in Hollywood

While the 93rd Academy Awards will feature several female nominees in its most high-profile categories — including nominations for both Emerald Fennell and Chloé Zhao for Best Director — the nominations for Best Score once again all went to male artists. The lack of female composers among this year’s nominees is sadly in tune with the rest of Oscars history. Since the awards began honoring film scores in 1935, only nine women composers or lyricists have ever been nominated for Best Score, and only four have taken home the Oscar.

As an analysis just released by the Women’s Media Center notes, “This marks the 18th time in the past 20 years that no women were nominated for Original Score. [Hildur] Gudnadottir and Mica Levi remain the only two female composers to receive nominations in that span.” A 2018 study led by the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative found that less than 3 percent of composers working on the top 100 fictional films each year at the box office between 2007 and 2017 were women. The number of American-born composers of color was even lower.

Hollywood has always been a networking town, which is why diversity advocates say that in addition to databases and recommendation lists of talent, composers of color also need opportunities to meet with music and studio executives directly. In recent years several studios, music industry professionals and record companies have created programs that are intended to provide musicians and composers of color with the mentoring, networking opportunities and face time with film executives necessary to get composing jobs in Hollywood.

“It's really important to build a community and feel strength in that community,” said composer Amanda Jones. Jones is a co-founder of the Composers Diversity Collective, which was started in order to create those opportunities and to showcase composers from diverse backgrounds. Over the course of her decade-long career, Jones has worked on the Ava DuVernay-produced Cherish the Day, Lena Waithe’s Twenties, and HBO’s A Black Lady Sketch Show, among other programs.

It was because of a chance meeting with Waithe in 2018 at the NAACP Image Awards luncheon that Jones said she was able to work on Twenties, which airs on BET. “I was [at the luncheon] for another project and I met Lena Waithe,” Jones recalled. “I was like, ‘Hey, I'm a composer. I'd love to work on the next thing you're doing,’ which was Twenties. And she was like, ‘Cool. Keep in touch.’”

Jones quickly followed up with an email to Waithe that included her demo reel. Months later, Waithe’s manager reached out and hired Jones to score the pilot of Twenties. “That was my ‘Hollywood moment’ in 2018, but it took some time,” said Jones, who graduated from Vassar College in 2010 with a degree in music composition. She credits the strong network of women in the industry as a critical factor to her success.

In addition to joining affinity groups and attending trainings, both virtual and online, put together by industry leaders and stakeholders, Jones says that it is important for composers and musicians to have a plan regarding how they want to approach the industry. “Don't psych yourself out or convince yourself that you can't do something,” she said. “Those early years are challenging because it is like an economic rat race.”

That advice was echoed by composer Germaine Franco, who in 2016 became the first Latina to be invited to join the music division of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Franco credits her love of percussion as a child as the perfect preparation to propel her into working in the overwhelmingly male world of film and television composing.

“I was always the only girl or woman in the drum section,” Franco recalled. “I don't know why, but I insisted on playing the drums, and that was not something girls did back then.”

Franco began playing in local bands and orchestras as a teen in El Paso, Texas, in the 1970s. She would move to Los Angeles after graduating from Rice University with both a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in music. Since then, Franco has had a standout career in the world of film and television composing over the past few years — with credits that include Coco, Dope, Vida, and Dora and the Lost City of Gold.

Like Jones, Franco also found strong mentors who helped advise her early in her career. A major one was the British composer John Powell, whom she worked with as an assistant before moving up to become an orchestrator and music producer on many of his projects. “He was very, very open and amazing and he always put me right in the middle of things,” said Franco. “So by being in that situation for many years, I developed expertise in how to produce, and how to record, and all of the technical aspects of this job. Without working alongside him, I don't know if I would have been in this position.”

It is particularly meaningful to Franco that she has had the chance to work on films and shows like Coco and Vida, which both explored Mexican and Mexican American experiences. “My ancestors are from northern Mexico. So when I heard about [Coco], I just immediately wanted to do the best job I could,” she recalled. “It's not every day that you get to work on something that's specific to your own personal culture.”

For those projects, Franco says she would draw on her childhood experiences in El Paso and the frequent trips she would take across the border into Mexico. “We spent time every weekend in Mexico, and there was music all over at the time. You’d go to the restaurants and there would be live musicians and concerts and all kinds of activities,” she recalled. “I think that’s how I got my love of Latin music.”

While many up-and-coming musicians and composers struggle to navigate the industry early in their careers and to get the kinds of mentorship both she and Franco had access to, Jones is encouraged by renewed attention to addressing the disparities in the industry when it comes to composing and film scoring. Jones says she is particularly heartened by the fact that studios are beginning to look outside their established networks when it comes to sourcing talent, and that as the world of directors expands, many films end up hiring diverse teams as a result.

It’s an opportunity that’s energized her to continue to pay it forward by mentoring and promoting the next generation of composers and musicians. “I think when you just have, like, really great people's projects, that energy just trickles down,” Jones said. “And I do feel hopeful that it seems as if the gatekeeper mentality is disappearing bit by bit.”