Two composers who have created music for a major Netflix series and a movie starring Anne Hathaway have revealed how their music got picked up by top US film execs.
Dream A Lot are an award-winning composer/producer artist duo made up of composer and producer Gus Crawford Collins and singer/songwriter Kim Hayden. They operate their business from a small studio in Co Wicklow.
Gus and Kim have created tunes for trailers, film, TV and gaming, and their music has been featured on hit shows like Love Island UK/US, Netflix series Fool Me Once with Michelle Keegan and feature films including Mother’s Instinct.
It’s not easy to break into the relatively niche world of developing custom scores for a range of media. For musicians trying to do just that, Dream A Lot have some key advice for those hoping to follow in their footsteps.
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“It’s important to have your sound bang on,” Gus and Kim told IrishStar.com. “There are so many musicians and so much talent out there so it’s important to have a body of work under your belt and have your own sound.
“That will prick up the ears of those in the industry. Having solidity in your own sound is invaluable.
“Unless you want to go down that route of being a jack of all trades, having our own unique sound is what’s given us strength in this industry. We want people to listen to our songs and think, ‘that’s a Dream A Lot track’.
“Building a catalogue of work is also important. Don’t send one or two tracks – have around 10-15 tracks ready.
“We don’t have anyone representing us – it’s just us – so we put all our songs in a reel with visuals so whoever is approaching us has an idea of what the music is like to the ear and to the eye.
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“Thirdly, how you approach people is important and half the battle with getting your foot in the door. Be personable, and know how to craft a nicely worded email! You don’t want to give a bad impression at any turn.
“Most creatives are relatively sensitive people so you have to be careful about coming on too strong. Be relaxed and assure them they can trust you with anything. That is a key factor for developing long-lasting relationships in music.”
Gus and Kim met through the music scene in 2016 and started Dream A Lot in 2020 after being inspired by Michelle Branch’s cover of Nirvana’s ‘Creep’ for the season 2 trailer of Netflix’s ‘You‘. They earned their “first big break” with Apple TV+ series Hello Tomorrow starring The Morning Show’s Billy Crudup. This year, for feature film Unsung Hero, Dream A Lot were asked to cover ‘Dreams’ by The Cranberries which they considered a “massive compliment”.
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Dream A Lot ended up winning the Golden Trailer Award for their work on Unsung Hero. They are the very first Irish artist duo to win the US award. Spilling more on the process of composing for cinema, Gus and Kim went on: “The film will either come to you asking you to do a bespoke work of a specific track and the essence they want you to create around it, or they’ll use something existing in their own catalogue. Most of the time, custom tracks win the gigs. We tend to work as directly as possible with the studios so we don’t go down email chain wormholes.
“We’ve never been asked on a movie set but if we were scoring a series or a movie, there might be a possibility of that. It is amazing and surreal when we watch a trailer we’re involved in, though. It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for after working on the track from the ground up and recording that section in a tiny studio in Ireland.”
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