Bryan Nguyen: The Sound of Verdaunt

Justin Levinson (00:10)‍

Hey everybody, welcome to the Agency Side Podcast. My name is Justin Levinson and I'm here today with Brian Nguyen, who is the founder and composer at Verdant, which is an amazing ⁓ music, ⁓ compasses a lot in music. ⁓ Brian, thanks for being here today.

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Bryan Nguyen (00:29)‍

Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

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Justin Levinson (00:32)‍

maybe

because my intro lacked the details here maybe you can tell us a little bit about what you guys are doing over there.

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Bryan Nguyen (00:38)‍

Yeah. So we're a Los Angeles based music house and we do predominantly, we do a lot of custom music for movie trailers, video games, TV, pretty much anywhere that needs any sort of sonic identity or sonic branding. We're sort of there. ⁓ and yeah, that's in a nutshell, what we do every day.

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Justin Levinson (00:55)‍

Yeah, I came across you on LinkedIn because I was noticing all the work you guys were doing at a lot of the creative agencies that we support. And yeah, was just like listening through it, went onto your page and started listening to all the different things like the gaming work. Yeah, it was just really, really interesting. And I wanted to talk to you and understand how you got to where you are here. Yeah, what sort of got you into this particular space?

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Bryan Nguyen (01:20)‍

Yeah, well, you know, a long time ago, I say a long time ago, it was like 2016 or so before that I was predominantly just a musician. Uh, I would do session work playing drums and even that really needed the sort of live performance edge of it. That's pretty much where I kind of came in. And then I remember kind of stumbling in 2015 or so. Um, I saw a bunch of people on social media start posting that, Oh, I did music for this trailer. And it's never really kind of hit me that like.

It wasn't the composer or wasn't like the music team behind the movie or behind the video game or whatever it was. It was always, it was a specific niche in this sort of industry. And then from there, my brain just sort of researched everything possible about this industry. And then from there I, you know, found publishers and I started reaching out to them, started calling them email, whatever, to get their attention, to just contribute music. I did that for about a few years and I got.

to work at a publishing house and then got to kind of learn more about the business that way also. And then from there just sort of kept stepping, stooling up, you know, to the next step and then working hand in hand with clients from that perspective and learning how the custom side of music sort of works where it wasn't just a catalog of music. It was like, how do we cater what we're doing musically to picture? How do we, you know, how do we enhance whatever hundred, $200 million movie that there is?

And learning that workflow for about the last, almost the last decade or so. So then in October, I had the idea, like, you know what? I can probably do this independently and set up my own company. Cause I've already been working with a lot of composers and working with enough agencies also, and kind of garnering the sort of experience needed to do that. And yeah, from there, I was just kind of, kind of put two and two together and then started doing it. So we've been running.

As of recording this, we just hit our sixth month at Verdant. So tomorrow is our sixth month anniversary. And yeah, so we've been doing, it feels like an eternity, but yeah, we've been, we've been rocking and rolling now for a few months.

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Justin Levinson (03:27)‍

Yeah, that's pretty fascinating. Did you have like a body of work that you were sharing to clients being like, hey, this is what I can do? how did you end up getting in your foot in the door?

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Bryan Nguyen (03:40)‍

Yeah, so like, you know, it's, was kind of two pronged because at the time, yeah, I was writing music and everything. Looking back now, was it probably the best showcase of my abilities? Maybe at the time, yes, but in long view, it kind of got them not just used to my music from a quality perspective, but how essentially my personality to work with. They're like, wow, he's not able, he works, he's very in it, you know, with it. Like he's able to kind of creatively make decisions and make direction, directional changes.

per basis of the project. And, ⁓ a lot of it stems from me being like a huge reader at the time when I first started working in this industry. It's not like every, it's not like clients were giving you the titles of the movies that you're working on or really giving you much to work off of. They're like, Hey, we were lucky to get the name of the movie, but other than that, that's all you're getting. So for me, I would just read every single adaptation that was coming out that year, every year. So as soon as it came, you kind of had a little bit more.

introduction to the nuances of certain campaigns and maybe something that someone hasn't thought of, maybe at the agency side. So I've always been a very outspoken person, especially on the creative side of things. So I've always interjected, like, wouldn't it be cool to do this? Wouldn't it be cool to do this idea? taking a little sidebar because there's a train coming through. I literally live right next to the train tracks. So it's just super blaring. So you're probably going have to edit that.

So as I was saying, you know, it, go hand in hand with creatives. So it's very interesting that they wouldn't hand so much of the creative. So I had to interject in, be able to kind of give my creative spin on things. And then from there, I just sort of garnered the trust. So working on certain campaigns earlier on in my career, sort of set the trajectory. And it wasn't like I was working on the biggest projects at the time, but they definitely were projects that it wasn't a huge risk for them to have me on. And from there, I was able to garner trust to.

I'm like, okay, I can do this project. Maybe he can work on a slightly bigger scale project. Okay, maybe he can work on a slightly bigger scale project and then, you know, seven, eight years later. So.

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Justin Levinson (05:46)‍

Cool. How, when you are getting ⁓ one of these jobs in, are you getting a lot of like temp tracks that are already in that you're trying to make something that's going to create something that's similar, but you're with your own twist or are they just giving you a canvas and saying, Brian, just, you know, do your thing with that.

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Bryan Nguyen (06:05)‍

Yeah, it's always interesting because, you know, temp tracks can be great, but can also really hold you back creatively in a lot of ways. Because let's say if we live in an industry where it only relied on temp tracks, that means that we are only relying on what has already been written. So it's this perpetual circle where it just feels like you aren't innovating, you know? And I know that a lot of keywords that people always say is like, what's outside the box?

What's been done before, what it roughly translates to. It's like what peaks outside the box, but isn't too jarring so that, you know, it's lost on a lot of people. So, you know, for me, I've always been really addicted to movie trailers. I remember being in middle school and the only website they didn't have proxy was Apple. And then when you, at the time, if you go on apple.com, they showed movie trailers. So that's what I did every single, every single day. I would just be like,

Even it didn't matter what movie it was. I would literally just scroll through Apple trailers as if they were like Netflix originals or something like now. So I would just watch every trailer. So kind of got an ear for and kind of got a taste for it. So as I'm, you know, as I'm going through it now, I kind of think it's kind of like green night meets a girl, the spider girl, the dragon tattoo kind of thing. So

In my head, can kind of see the ideologies of what they're trying to go for, but then in my head, how do I encompass it into something, something new, something fresh and, know, being able to kind of have it modularly written out for them to be able to adjust with stems.

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Justin Levinson (07:38)‍

Yeah. What is the formula, I guess? mean, every one of these things has a formula. Maybe is there, I've heard that trailers are sort of like in three sections. that sort of how you do, are you thinking about it that way? Are you sort of just doing what you feel sounds best to the picture?

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Bryan Nguyen (07:55)‍

You know, it's okay. like, I remember starting trailer music and being like, okay, what is it? And everyone will tell you it's three act structure, the three act structure. And me being me, I've never written three act structures only because, ⁓ I try to think about it like this. Let's just, let's just do an exercise. So like if I'm working on something and I'm like, okay, I'm working on this big sci-fi track, it's grand, it's sweeping. It probably has some M83 or alt J vibes or something. Sure. It has the open.

Which let's just think about in terms of picture. It's the open premise of a trailer. You're probably getting the landscape. You're probably getting some dialogue explaining some stuff. And then it goes into the build, which is roughly the act two. We, start building urgency, building all that stuff. ⁓ a lot of grandiose sci-fi, grandiose fantasy after the build, it doesn't really just explode into act three. It kind of goes down into what I call the hero's doubt moment where it's like.

a 2.5 section where it's, it dies down. You get the monologue, you get the, Oh, I don't know if we can make this. I don't know if we can do this. Oh, we got to try one more time. And then it explodes into the backend. Um, and it's easy to kind of just call it the act three, but it's really kind of two pronged cause you get the establishing back. And that means you're sitting in it and you're living in it. Oh, all these great shots. then, um, the second half, especially for bigger movies, you might get the cast run. You might get.

a big montage of all the beautiful shots that they spent so much money on shooting on IMAX. So you're almost splitting your back and your act three into two prongs also. And then after that, you have to think about how your main title is going to look. So is it going to ramp and then slow reveal the title of the movie, or is it going to go quick and then, and then it goes into a cast run or maybe it might go into like a button joke or something. So these are things you consider when you're working on a track and how it flows together because

Sure enough, an editor can cut to it, but a lot of times they might get influenced by what the music is doing also. So like, especially if I know the title of the movie, I'll try to do something. I ask questions, whether if it's going to be a slow reveal or if it's going to be like a stylistic reveal of, ⁓ you know, of the trailer, just so that I can kind of pivot and learn, or sometimes I might just do a version of both where I might go slow reveal into stylistic and then they can cut and choose whichever one they might want to do. So these are things that kind of kind of.

preemptively think about and some of my composers that work with us that we work with all the time they've kind of gotten to the process of doing that as well where they're not just writing about the flow of the music but they're writing about the flow of what the music is telling in terms of picture and as much as we can't tell you in music what's happening on screen from an energy and dynamic standpoint you might be able to be like this is where it goes down you know and it might influence the cut that way as well

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Justin Levinson (10:47)‍

Cool. And so you have a couple of composers. Are you guys all working collaboratively on the music together or is it sort of people working on projects all on their own? How does that work with your team?

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Bryan Nguyen (11:00)‍

work

like that. It definitely can work on a project by project basis where I'm like, okay, you're on this project and you're going to see it till the end. And then, you know, I'm always here as an ear, especially if it's for a particular client or a particular editor. They all want different things in terms of nuances they like to hear. And so from experience of working with them for almost a decade, it's like when he says bigger, he just wants more drums or this guy's like, he wants bigger. means he wants big choirs. So it's just.

kind of being that sort of middleman and filter between the composer and whatever client I'm working with. But then there might be some projects where I'm like, I love the way this one composer produces strings. I really want him to get on it, but he might not be the strongest suit for this big EDM piece or anything like that. that being said, it's like, okay, how do I work with him and work with another composer and then build into a singular piece that might work?

And then a lot of the times too, we work with, let's say singers and songwriters and stuff like that. And we want to make sure that we're kind of giving credit to them and making sure that the work that we do with them is also, you know, like it's also working, working well with picture and working well and translating the vocals stems and everything to the composer, getting that done and just organizing it, just kind of being like the middle ground producer.

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Justin Levinson (12:22)‍

Yeah, that's great. And in terms of like when you guys are tracking all this stuff, I'd be curious to hear what your tech stack is, what sort of programs you're using, there's a certain software that you really like, or maybe how many real instruments opposed to MIDI tracks, how does that sort of ratio kind of play out?

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Bryan Nguyen (12:41)‍

Yeah, no, definitely. like for us in general, think so for all organization stuff, everything like that, we rely really hard on Monday, disco and Slack. Those are like the three bigs for us in terms of organizing everything without Monday member loss without Slack or about disco, especially too. remember throughout my entire career, we've always used source audio. And then with this company, I've been, I've just been mainly using disco for everything, just transitioning with everybody.

For live instruments is a very case by case because a lot of the times the most, the most recorded thing we probably do live is guitars and vocals because it's, you know, it's typically just one or two people recording for live stuff. We've done live stuff before. It's a very end of the road type situation for us when everything's like ready to go because you just, you just don't get the time to be able to get stuff recorded live. Also.

The amount of changes we do on every project is just, it's never a feasible option to get everything recorded unless it's like, hey, here's the final version. We know that this is going to go through, but it just needs that extra push. Maybe we do live, you know.

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Justin Levinson (13:50)‍

In you're doing a lot of stuff in your home studio.

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Bryan Nguyen (13:53)‍

Yeah, everything, everything is sort of like plugged in and midi'd in and stuff.

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Justin Levinson (13:57)‍

Yep. And so you're using Logic, where do you like to get your sounds from?

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Bryan Nguyen (14:01)‍

Yeah. So we use Logic. One of our, ⁓ our COO here, he is the owner of Audio Imperia also. So it's the virtual instrument company. So with him and his partnership with Native Instruments, we've been able to kind of make sure we're always on the forefront of virtual instruments and such. like, yeah, 98 % of everything we're recording in, aside from loose end percussion, guitars, or vocals and stuff, they're pretty much in the box.

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Justin Levinson (14:27)‍

you guys have the ability internally to mix and master and all that stuff or does that sort of somebody else had knowing that part in the process?

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Bryan Nguyen (14:34)‍

Yeah.

So for we, we release an EP every single month and that is a mixed, that is mixed and mastered by our engineer. His name is Toby Mason. Awesome guy. He just makes everything sound so good. Even all my stuff, which I always find surprising. like, man, this doesn't even sound like me, but two, it, you know, we have our internal mix and master team also for customs so that everything kind of sounds as beefed up as it can be before it gets sent out to clients.

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Justin Levinson (15:00)‍

What is the EP, what's the purpose of that for your business? that just to kind of release stuff for everybody to kind of hear and keep things fresh?

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Bryan Nguyen (15:08)‍

I

think it's, it's always good because, um, for us working on, we're predominantly a custom shop. So we're doing a ton of customs a year, but like, in general, there's always these, like, there's always time restraints. So I'm like, Hey, we're working on a TV spot or something. It wants music like this, but from a financial perspective, it might not make sense to do a custom or do a remix of a song or anything like that. So they just need something that like.

It's the mold goes right into the picture and just get sent off. Like we just wrapped up the amateur, which is this 20th century Fox, ⁓ 20th century studios movie. And it's like a spy thriller. And sure, it would make sense to do like some cool hip hop remix or something, but for this particular piece, they just wanted like. Ready to go, ready to go catalog music. That's just, that just fits the bill. They can just slot in and it works for it. And then that works for us also because.

You know, it's music that our composers are making when they are in between customs. They're like, you know what, we're going to make an EP of something. We're going to make an EP of like super, super, super drum heavy or super, super heavy, like heroic music, you know?

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Justin Levinson (16:12)‍

what comes of that, do you just put it in your portfolio or what happens with the EPA?

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Bryan Nguyen (16:18)‍

The EPs get distributed to all our clients that we work on customs with because let's say we're working on the big trailers for them, which typically have a little bit more time and a little bit more money on. And those same people working on the trailers will eventually have to work on the TV campaign also, in which case they will then proceed to filter in our music since we've already been working on the trailer for them. So it's like a good workflow where we kind of Trojan horse them in so that we can, you know, continually work on the campaigns, but from like a different perspective.

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Justin Levinson (16:46)‍

Yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah, this is a, you know, I deal with lot of the agencies a lot. I do a lot of like staffing. That's sort of my niche. And I'm a musician as well. So I'm always just very curious as how, you know, and I do, have placed a lot of music supervisors and coordinators and people within creative agencies. But I don't get to talk to people that are actually creating it from the outside as much. I think a lot of people,

who listen are going to be interested in all the things that you're saying. I'm curious is, you know, I know a lot of agencies have been upset because the budgets have been shrinking as of late. guess I'm kind of curious, like if you guys feel that as well, and maybe you can give me, ⁓ maybe curious how you guys are compensated and do you get sort of like retainer to start the project and do you get backend royalties? How is that all?

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Bryan Nguyen (17:38)‍

Yeah. So for the custom side, at least for everything, it's mostly a buyout, which means, you know, they, they're going to retain the ownership of the track for royalties and everything. So we get paid mostly for the upfront sinks of them. In which case, you know, that's great. It's very rare. Most of the time we're not getting like a demo fee, ⁓ like a retainer fee or really anything. And it's not really paid by the agencies. It's, it's going to be predominantly based on whether the studio or not wants to pay it. ⁓ so for us, we always rely on the win because that's mainly majority of the way.

how we're going to get paid. I can do, I can do 10, I can do 10 ideas for a movie. And let's say, let's just say hypothetically for this case, I use 10 different composers and I use, then they pick idea one out of all the ideas that we did that, that one composer will get paid, you know? So because of that, we're very selective on how we kind of go about doing it. We try not to farm out these customs and requests and everything to everyone, because as much of a favor it would be for us to be like, well,

we're going to turn in a hundred option each time. ⁓ it doesn't really help the industry. It doesn't really help the composers. So we try to keep it to like one or two people when we're working on a project and not kind of exceed that because at that point that everyone loses. So in terms of the actual rate, I haven't really seen much, at least on my end, ⁓ especially since the custom stuff kind of yield a little bit more of a premium. haven't really seen so much of a dip, but it definitely is a case by case purpose.

So we know that a streaming movie isn't gonna nearly yield as much as a big theatrical movie. And if we work on a video game, it's gonna be comparable to the streaming service rates. So as long as we kind of realize it from that perspective, it helps, you know? you know, I try to keep that in mind also when I'm working customs with composers. I know that, I'm like, hey, I have a really big project that's high risk, high reward kind of thing. Maybe the next project I give them is gonna be a little bit.

more down the middle so that they get paid so that every single one of my custom writers kind of averages out.

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Justin Levinson (19:34)‍

Yeah, interesting. so the studios are the ones that are, and they're paying you event. They're the ones that are actually paying you. So it's not the agencies that it's going through them. And are you competing with other, you know, people in this space who are also sending in their 10, ⁓ ideas and they're sort of picking between different.

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Bryan Nguyen (19:53)‍

Yeah, most of the time. Yeah, like most of the time the client tells us to and they're like, hey, I'm just like, you know, I have two other shops on this as well. And it's just up to us. And just like every it's kind of like a pitch for an advertising firm to get in a project. It's a pitch no matter it's an audition, no matter what each and every single time, especially when you get to like the bigger temple films and stuff. It's it's highly it's not going to it's it's never going to be one of those things where you're like, you're the only person on it. And I get it also from a creative standpoint.

And it's the same way that maybe not one agency is going to be on a particular movie. You know, they're competing with each other as well.

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Justin Levinson (20:29)‍

Yeah, that's very interesting. That's got to be hard sometimes though, if you have put in a lot of work and it's a project you're potentially very excited about and if it doesn't work out in your favor, mean, what sort of, you know, how do you sort of handle those feelings? Is it sort of like, well, now we have 10 more songs that are in the bucket that we can maybe use for other things, or it's part of our, how do you sort of deal with that part of the business?

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Bryan Nguyen (20:53)‍

think we're all trying to figure out how to deal with it every day on every project, even on the agency side when they lose a project. The best thing we can do is understand that the thing I always understood is that you can write the best music, you can write the best idea, and it might not be the idea that wins. ⁓ And I learned that really early on because I used to get really mad about them. used to sulk. ⁓ I give myself...

I can't, honestly give myself five minutes each time I lose a project to be like, I'm going to get all my negative thoughts out about it. And then we move on. never, we never bring it up to the client. We never bring it up to anybody. We don't bring it up to anyone. talked to the composer and if it's a composer that lost it, then we sit, then we talk about it for a few minutes. Reassess and then go because the hardest thing is if we hold onto the losses too hard, then it negatively affects, even if it's, even if it's very subconscious, it affects how we perceive the next project.

And who knows, sometimes you can win a hundred of them and the one that you lose is the one you think about the most. I certainly do. have a, I've lost thousands at this point, probably of projects that I felt was the most sure fire way to win. And even after watching, and I'm one to admit when something comes out, better. I'm like, yeah, it was better and that helps. But then when something comes out, you're like, man, that was nowhere near as like inspiring as something that we did. You know?

And it can go for a long time. I remember working on project for like six months. It was like V20. So it was like the 20th version. Each version had different live recorded things. So was like, it was an investment, but it was something that had to get done for it to kind of keep going. And at the last minute, everyone signed off on it. Every filmmaker signed out, every creative, except one creative at the, at the day before it was supposed to like lock to get ready to mix. And they swapped it out and they, fortunately the music studio called me and talked to me about it.

We soaked the bat for a little bit and then we moved on, you know, they can, they can sting, but we just don't want it. We just don't let it drag down the creative for something else because let's just, let's be real. If you be soaked too hard, you tell the client, might be opposed to give you the next one. He's like, ⁓ I ran him really hard on this one. I'm not going to put him on the next one, but that's the only way we make money. So the best thing we can do is just let it, let it roll off and then just, and then onto the next one.

So we always have a quote, always say, you lose some, win some, we're on to the next one. And that's what we, we always send it to a client whenever we lose a project.

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Justin Levinson (23:19)‍

Yeah, because you you can't control whether you win it or lose it. You're not in control that. you are in control with how you react to if you win or lose it. you really understand because yeah, you don't want to blow up a client and be like, how did you not choose what I made? Like you're just like lighting that relationship on fire and you might feel like that, but it can be really hard. But good thing is that you guys are getting up, having a lot of success and you're getting a lot of

things happening. I'm sure you're the winds are outweighing some of the hardships at this point. It's yeah.

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Bryan Nguyen (23:56)‍

Definitely. Like it's definitely one of those things where it feels like, you know, but I think it's also really hard to kind of justify because I feel like if you talk to any creative in this space, they've definitely lost more than they've won. So if you see someone winning a lot, that just probably means that they've lost that much more than the next person.

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Justin Levinson (24:13)‍

Yeah. Yeah. Are you able to repurpose some of those assets that if they don't make it and have you ever had success in putting them putting something somewhere else and getting a win from?

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Bryan Nguyen (24:24)‍

Definitely. We worked a lot on this one campaign. It was called Electric State and we ended up winning the final trailer, but there were a lot of customs from that piece that didn't necessarily win and we were able to turn those into original cues and release them through our EP, which ended up getting TV spots down the line. Whether if it was for that same campaign or if it was for like say the amateur or something, it was something that all of those kinds of...

Was spawned from a campaign and then when they died we were able to repurpose them It's harder for stuff. It's harder for stuff that has like a really hard ip, you know, like oh how are you gonna repurpose star wars or whatever it is, you know from like decades ago, but like um, but fortunately huge ip stuff, especially in the hollywood climate that we're in right now There's always going to be a sequel or it's always going to be something they reuse them for so it's they you know, nothing's ever truly dead

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Justin Levinson (25:16)‍

Yeah, that's cool. I guess I'm kind of curious, like, I guess like the process that you are, that you're going through. it's like the job, are you going to get the, are you basically reaching out to lots of different clients and saying like, Hey, are you guys looking for music? Are you looking for music? Are they coming to you naturally? how is that?

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Bryan Nguyen (25:38)‍

It's a blend of both. remember when I first started in the industry and no one really knew me. I would just type in Google best trailer house, Hollywood location, and just went down the list of them. And I kept doing that until someone took a meeting with me and then I took a meeting and they're like, you're really new in this industry. Huh? I'm like, yeah. Like you call every single day until we, until we took a meeting and then, you know, I think it was like 2018. Um, I did something, it landed in the soundtrack of the movie. And then from there it helped kind of people be like, I can trust him with work. And then.

From there was like a kind of a two step thing. was either I reach out to them or they reach out to me. What I typically do because I have ADHD, I hit everyone up on Mondays. I'm just like, hi, happy Monday. Do you have anything? And it's really just, I try to be as nonchalant because if they don't respond, they don't respond. But if they do respond, great, you know? And I...

I do my due diligence on that part and then just focus on the work that I do get. So like, think on an average week, we probably have anywhere between like 18 to 25 customers to do. So we're busy nonetheless. And we're just, you know, if people trickle in, that's great. And then we work with them, but we do have like a core of like four or five agencies that use us on a pretty consistent basis. So from there, you know, everyone else is just, it's just a bonus at this point. We're always, we're, and we're, people tend to reach out for really cool ideas and we always take them in.

You know, so we have, it's rare when we say no to projects. So.

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Justin Levinson (27:03)‍

Is there a lot of security issues too? You have to be very careful of that because know agencies are so, if they're getting a big movie or something that's coming out, they want to make sure nothing gets leaked or anything. Is that important for you?

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Bryan Nguyen (27:18)‍

Yes, yes. Everything is code named, encrypted. Everything is, is extremely buttoned up and stuff. Even when we do receive anything, like it goes through security clearance and we made sure that was like the first thing we did when we started because in our industry, words are bond. And if they don't trust you, you won't get work from them. So that was the biggest hurdle for us was to make sure that everything was topped up just so that there weren't any leaks. Cause I feel like our industry is a

For a while there, before 2020, it was a very like in office, in building thing. And everyone's really cautious of it. Cause all it takes is one really big leak and everyone's back in the office. So I don't want that for them. so I try, we try artists.

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Justin Levinson (28:00)‍

Yeah, no, that's really interesting. And I guess when you get the job in, I'm just trying to get a picture of it. Are they sending you the cut TV spot or the cut trailer and then you're starting to just compose to it as you're looking at it on the logic? I want to see how it's...

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Bryan Nguyen (28:22)‍

So

they tend to tell us the campaign or a campaign it loosely references to. They're hey, this is just like the Laren, City of Thousand Moons, whatever it is. And I'm like, okay, so it has this sort of vibe. I tend to have a second monitor that's just used for like reference videos and stuff where I just pull up and splice together on Final Cut a bunch of things that kind of fit that tone. And then I'll run my logic.

session and kind of write anything, whether it's a remix and try to match not the cut, but just the vibe. Because cut can always change from the editor and it can change from what we do also. And I want to be beholden to another trailer bed or whatever it is. And I always feel like scoring to a trailer is always like, at least from my perspective, it's like the surest way for something to die because nothing feels organic at that point, because they're dictating the pace.

based on something they haven't heard and you're trying to match that, whereas you're setting the pace for the editor to be inspired by. So that's typically the way I like to work also. So even if a client wants to offer like, hey, you want to score to this, I'd rather just know the cliff notes of tone and color palettes and then just go from there and then do something that complements it.

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Justin Levinson (29:38)‍

So they give you like a reference of something that they're looking for. Your job is sort of just, you're just creating the track as best you can. And then they're going to then edit it towards to the trailer. You're not going to do that. It's interesting. ⁓ It's probably a different workflow for somebody who is like scoring the film itself, right? Would that person, that would be the movie itself.

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Bryan Nguyen (30:03)‍

Yeah, well, you know, like even for films and stuff, there's the, ⁓ there's actual music composer that's painting all these palettes and stuff. But there are also like sound editors also that kind of work in like, this might, need to be tightened up and buttoned up right here. Such stuff like that. Anyways. So it's kind of like the editor almost acts like a sound editor as well, where they're curating all of our specific things. Like, we love this stem. We're going to use this stem here. we love this stem. This stem can be moved here. So like we give them enough.

to work from like a toolkit of our custom and then they're able to modularly kind of throw it where it fits. And that's a lot of our back and forth is that they're like, oh, we love this part. It just needs to be like 20 seconds longer. It needs to be like eight bars longer for our cut. Cool. It's broad strokes. And I'm like, okay, I can make it. I can do that, you know?

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Justin Levinson (30:51)‍

That's cool. What do you think people who want to get into this business should do? How should they learn it? There's some young person out there that's listening. like, want to create music for trailers. Where should I begin? think they take it? Hearing your route was really just doing your research and looking and studying and being curious. Obviously, you were a fan of trailers beforehand too. Any words of wisdom for up and comers?

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Bryan Nguyen (31:18)‍

No, definitely. I would say that reach out. ⁓ There's a bunch of support. There's a support group on Facebook called the trailer support, trailer music composer support group. And not only are there industry professionals on that list, on that forum that actively respond to everybody, but also there are publishers there too. And there's lists of publishers that, ⁓ that you can do research on. You're like, just go on there, type in lists of publishers and you see all the publishers and then. ⁓

And then of go through there, talk to them and then see what composers are doing, reference collaborate. That was the biggest in for me. I had a publisher that just wouldn't reach out to me or wouldn't ever respond to my email. So I just went on his website and saw an album from a composer. I reached out to that composer and asked him just to collaborate with one track for me. And then I sent that out, had his name on it too. He responded back within minutes. He was like, this is cool. You know, all I had him do was just add some drum hits just so that I had his name on it.

But you know, it was just one of those things. And so just trying to think outside the box to kind of get heard. know we get like a ton of submissions and we try to go through everything, you know, and for the longest time, uh, I was trying to like work with a lot of composers to kind of get them ready for it because it's sure. have to be a fan of music and have to have a good ear for it, but you have to be a fan of movies too. You have to be a fan of media, you know, just because they kind of go hand in hand.

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Justin Levinson (32:42)‍

Yeah, that's really smart that you got. So basically, anyone listening here should try to reach out to Brian and see if he can do a cymbal hit on one of their ⁓ songs and maybe that they could turn their career into gold here.

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Bryan Nguyen (32:52)‍

Yeah.

Yeah, you know, I just take 50 % of the sink. I'll give you all the simple hits. ⁓

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Justin Levinson (33:02)‍

That's funny, but you know, it's an old trick, but it's a winning one. mean, I a lot of artists do that. mean, we see, you know, famous people, you know, ⁓ doing collaborations and stuff and older artists that might not have a younger fan base is collaborating with a, younger, you know, trying to, you know, usually help each other out in this sort of a symbiotic relationship like Lady Gaga and ⁓ what's his name?

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Bryan Nguyen (33:28)‍

worse.

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Justin Levinson (33:29)‍

Yeah, or even the older guy there who's like the crooner, he passed away recently, but anyway, yeah, I think

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Bryan Nguyen (33:36)‍

Yeah, we saw that a lot with like, let's say Skrillex collaborating with the doors for his first album, just so that he can have his, you know, have their names attached to it too. And then we've been seeing a lot, even relevant artists in different countries and stuff like that collaborating with a Westernized audience here to kind of get more of a name. the same exact, same exact vibe and same workflow.

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Justin Levinson (33:56)‍

Yeah, that's super cool. I mean, outside of work, do you do to keep yourself sane in the life outside of the studio?

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Bryan Nguyen (34:04)‍

Yeah,

read a lot. it's a, it's a boring hobby. Everyone will tell you they do something like super fun outdoor. All I do is read. read occasionally try to get, you know, I try, I try to play video games with some of my friends that are editors and I try playing with them. We've been on a run of Elden Ring and then, ⁓ I read a lot. It's, it's, it's always been a pastime of mine. read a ton. right now I'm going through the Stormlight archives. So Brandon Sanderson, I've been going through that route and then just.

I feel like I kind of keep all my hobbies relatively symbiotic with everything I do for music too. So it's like, this is inspiring this. this is inspiring this, you know.

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Justin Levinson (34:44)‍

That's really cool. Any ⁓ music that you've been really into lately?

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Bryan Nguyen (34:48)‍

Yeah, like last year I was really, I was really into this game Death Stranding and the entire soundtrack was made by this band called Low Roar. Unfortunately, the singer died since, but I really, I'm just so into their music. And then from there, went down this rabbit hole music that sounded like Low Roar. So it's like Low Roar, then into Alt J, then it went through a Radiohead phase, Tom York. So I mean, kind of going through this like existential, almost like sad boy music right now. So that's just the vibe I'm in.

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Justin Levinson (35:18)‍

Yeah, that's great. I saw a Radiohead live on their Hail to the Thief tour in Montreal. I don't know, was a long time ago. Whatever that record came out.

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Bryan Nguyen (35:29)‍

I'm a, I'm a, one benefit of this industry is that everyone's been really supportive of me and they, everyone sort of knew. No, I didn't have as much of a crazy creative upbringing as everyone. So I catch up now. Like I didn't listen to Radiohead until I had to do a cover of Radiohead for a trailer. ⁓ it came out like years ago. It was called the Midnight Sky and it was a cover of No Surprise. And I didn't, and I didn't know that song before I worked on it.

And I had to listen to that song for like eight months because of it. but that was my upbringing. And that's how I started to found out about Radiohead was literally from working on it on a trailer.

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Justin Levinson (36:08)‍

Yeah, I mean, I had only heard of them because when I was young, they had that ⁓ music video for Paranoid Android, which was like super cool. And that was sort of that's when they sort of had crossed over into pop culture. And I didn't I still I thought the video was cool. I loved the songs that so many different changes. was almost like a like an ELO, Mr. Blue Sky or Bohemian Rhapsody. Yeah. So many different changes, which is what I really love in music. ⁓ I'm definitely a

definitely into that part of music. But then it took me a minute to be like, I'm going to listen to some more of the obscure radio head stuff. yeah, went back into like kid a and all that old stuff. And I was like, this is really, really incredible.

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Bryan Nguyen (36:50)‍

Yeah, no, I get it. I don't know, because I was working in this industry for so long, kind of got like, it was hard for me to listen to music recreationally because I was doing it so much for my job. Then a year, no, it was like two years ago, my wife got me a record player. Um, we didn't have any records, but she got me a record player to set up in the living room. my, my son loves this record player. Um, so we started collecting finals. And so I went down this route.

of collecting vinyls, I was like, okay, I'll just get one. I have like a hundred now, but at the time I was like, I'll just get one. And every time I had a bad week or a hard week or a long way up by one. ⁓ so it's a physical manifestation of it's a physical manifestation of my stress, I guess. But, yeah, I kind of got back into from physical media because Spotify is great, but it's like.

I was just collecting this physical form of what I loved to listen to as a kid. And I was a huge emo kid growing up. So I love like taking back Sunday, Silverstein, stuff like that. So I've been like, kind of going back, going through all my sort of media upbringing of like old alternative and emo bands and stuff. that's like, that's what I've been doing. And that's how I've sort of learned to fall in love back with music.

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Justin Levinson (38:02)‍

Yeah, that's, that's amazing. I mean, I I used to teach music, so I ended up having to stop teaching because it was like, it was sort of like hindering my creative juices a little bit. Cause I was like associating like teaching with like kind of being like, work, over time. So, but I actually, with me, ⁓ I found with working doing the creative recruitment stuff, I ended up getting, I can't listen to things that are too hunky because I'll get

did, I usually don't be like, oh, like I'm like in this hook. So anything that has like a, you know, has to be a little bit more obscure for me, uh, to, work. so over like the last, I don't know, I would say like the last year or so I started listening to like a lot of like Rachmaninoff and like scrubbing and like really like, I don't know, like going into like that whole world. I mean, I had listened to Chopin years ago and I know, um, you know, I know a lot of the classic composers, but I didn't really dive super.

deep into them. Yeah, now it's like all I can listen to and like have this whole like new energy from music which is like almost as exciting as it was when I first heard the Beatles. Now I'm like, wow, this is crazy. Like who is this?

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Bryan Nguyen (39:18)‍

I'll be honest with you. didn't, I didn't get a Beatles until 2019. I'll be like, I will. Of course I knew of them. knew most of their songs and everything like that. just, never understood the emotional connection that people got from listening to the Beatles. And then my son was born and we did nothing but listen to the Beatles because for some reason he would not cry when we were listening to the Beatles and everything. So we had the Beatles on.

all the time. I swear to you, his first, like, you know, he can hum the entire Eleanor Rigby song. but like, ⁓ yeah, I never understood them. And even to this day, it's hard for me to really kind of resonate with a lot of classical music because my upbringing has been entirely in like, iPod days of like, you know, of like, of bands. Like it's been something that I've been really appreciating more in my thirties, I guess, than I've ever appreciated ever in my life.

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Justin Levinson (40:17)‍

Yeah, no, I totally get that. For me, the Beatles thing happened because my parents are, you know, they're like, they're baby boomer hippies and they grew up with that. My dad idolized John Lennon when he was a child.

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Bryan Nguyen (40:30)‍

There you go, that'll do it.

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Justin Levinson (40:32)‍

Yeah. for me, like I was not a very well behaved kid, especially in elementary school. My dad owned a record store, ⁓ which sells CDs and tapes. ⁓ when I was in first grade, in order to get better, have better behavior, my, I had five good days of behavior, I would get a tape from my dad's music store. And so I started out just getting like Chuck Berry and the Beatles. Yeah.

Elvis and like all this old, Beach Boys, all Everly Brothers, all this like really old stuff. And, ⁓ it kept me out of trouble. That was like the first thing, ⁓ that, that I could actually do to, ⁓ to stop being, ⁓ stop misbehaving. So Brian, was wondering, I guess one other question that I was thinking about was you had mentioned that you had not only been doing this trailer stuff, but you had also, you said you had a movie music that was in a soundtrack as well.

Is that what you had mentioned earlier?

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Bryan Nguyen (41:28)
Yeah, so I worked on a campaign when I first started, really started in this industry. It was my first big theatrical. I worked on this movie called Ready Player One and I did, it was just a trailer at the time and they asked for ⁓ a cover of Pure Imagination. So I did it. And initially that was only supposed to be for like a 15 second spot. It wasn't anything really long. And then yeah, it came out. It was, it was everything I wanted to be.

It was the main reason why I'm in this industry because I really wanted to work on that movie. It was my favorite book in my early twenties. So I really wanted to work on this adaptation. So I worked on it and it was all done. It was all good. And then like a month later, the movie comes out and they're like, Hey, water tower reached out and they're like, Hey, speed work, put it on the soundtrack. And then I was like, cool. What does that mean? You know, he's like, ⁓ yeah, they're releasing like.

They're releasing this thing. Let me see. I have it hung up because, so they released this thing and it has like Prince, Tears for Fears, A Temptation, Bruce Springsteen. And then they put, they put my name at the bottom for some reason, and I still don't know why to this day. And I'm pretty sure everyone on iTunes is super confused why this random Vietnamese name is on here. But, ⁓ that's, that was, that was my first real big kind of.

project and then yeah, well, and came out and then I think that that helped a lot with the not, not, not recognizable. But it's more like, okay, if he can do that, then we can trust him with stuff. You know, we can trust him with projects. It was less about having to market myself and it like, it was out there. Sure. It feels in like long sight and like the big picture. felt like I made all these like appropriate decisions. One to the next.

But at the time I was just like, okay, yes, this works. And I was just trying to do a good job. was literally just trying to do a good job, no matter what I was doing and hoping something panned out, you know? So.

I really appreciate it.

Awesome. I really appreciate it. yeah, for anyone listening, if you ever want to reach out, I'm sure Justin's going to link our website and stuff. Definitely has a submission board also. We do try to listen to everything. So, you know, it's there for you guys.

Perfect.

Awesome. Have a good one.

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