FROM THE CLASSROOM TO THE SCORING STAGE: The College Student\'s Guide to Landing a Job in the Film Scoring Business is an incredibly insightful and valuable resource for any student or composer trying to break into the business. For the first time, the topic of employment for college students and novice composers has been exclusively explored in a concise and to-the-point handbook that zeroes in on working for a composer, being of the most viable and effective ways to get a foot in the door scoring movies.

Author Sean McMahon is well qualified to discuss such issues. Having recently assisted four composers, but namely Christopher Young, McMahon has worked on such movies as "The Grudge," "Ghost Rider," and "Spider-Man 3." Realizing there was much literature about how to score films but now not how to break in McMahon has generously chosen to discuss the subject head-on and encourage a new conversation about the film music business that is on everyone\'s mind but in not enough books. For example, McMahon addresses concerns the recent graduate will undoubtedly have when entering the "real world," such as the simple matter of just being able to pay bills and survive.

Not only has he shared his firsthand experience directly from the film scoring trenches, but he has shared the experiences of four other composers, some whom work for lower profile composers and some who work for superstar, A-list composers. Collectively it offers such a unique, behind-the-scenes, insider\'s perspective of film scoring from the composer\'s assistant point of view and what composers are looking for in their assistant.

The handbook discusses in great detail, learnable techniques and strategies to attain work with a composer while demystifying any notion that it is 100–percent luck that will give you the breaks. It educates the reader about such topics as location, education, skill sets, getting the job, keeping the job, upward mobility and much, much more. Not only is this book a useful tool for anyone living in Los Angeles and the United States, but it is equally as valuable for composers in any country where film scoring exists.

The book has been endorsed and highly recommended by enormously respected players in the industry and has already become a required textbook at Humber College\'s film scoring program in Toronto, Canada. It is a must for an aspiring composer. To read more about the book and purchase it please go to www.filmmusicjobguidebook.com.