Today we’d like to introduce you to Anthony Circo.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Anthony. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I’ve always had a love of film music/film production. I graduated from Dominican University of California in 2014 with a degree in music composition. After graduating, I had the opportunity to intern both at Saatchi & Saatchi as a production intern as well as Hans Zimmer’s Remote Control Productions (RCP). I parallel pathed both internships and would work at Saatchi during the day and then grab the night shift/weekends at Remote Control. I was at RCP for about a year and bounced around from a few different teams sponging up as much as I could, it was an amazing experience and some of my closest friends were made from that opportunity.
I came to a crossroads when I was offered a full-time position at Saatchi & Saatchi, this was an extremely difficult decision to make but what it came down to was the ability to sustain myself and the chance to grow my experience in another area of passion, film production. At the risk of being too blunt, RCP is an amazing place with a wealth of opportunity and amazing people but for me it was difficult to pay the bills while working as an unpaid/semi-hourly intern, this is just a fact of the industry and I hold no animosity towards anyone.
I was at Saatchi for about three years and loved it! When I began, I cut my teeth on producing radio commercials and internal branding videos. By the time I left, I was starting to produce medium-sized projects in the $300k range. I was beginning to see my trajectory as an advertising producer, which was another interest of mine, but there was still a greater pull driving me towards film music. I came to another crossroads, commit myself to advertising or truly try to follow my ultimate dream of being involved in film music. I decided to leave the agency, with no job lined up and with very few legs in the film music industry…probably the stupidest “smart thing” thing I’ve done in my life.
The next two years were extremely difficult, I had no steady job and was getting by on whatever freelance composing gigs that I could round up, needless to say that the “Bank of Anthony Circo” was getting very small. My greatest learnings during this time were the ability to be scrappy, how maintain creativity/positivity when faced with brick wall after brick wall and how to be relentless in pursuit of my passions. My breakthrough during this time was two-fold, I secured an internship with an advertising music house, Ring the Alarm Music (RTA), as well as an internship/apprenticeship with a young up and coming film composer (Mark Yaeger)…when it rains it pours. I found myself parallel pathing again but this time, I was in the sweet spot of my music target!
My time at Ring the Alarm was awesome. Fantastic team, cool work and the ability to explore different areas of the music process such as engineering/mixing/ composing/coordinating, I was able to have a hand in all of these things and am nothing but grateful for my time there. I was at RTA for about two years and by the time I left, I was beginning to own projects as an associate producer. I made the leap from RTA to assist Mark as much as I could. Film music was my ultimate goal and now that I had a taste, I was addicted…it also helped that Mark is one of the most creative composers I’ve met and I connected with his sound on a whole new level.
While working for Mark, another opportunity presented itself and again, I was at a crossroads. A film composer was looking for a production minded team member who could help run his studio as well as assist on the score coordinating side of his projects. This chance to dive more into the area of film music production was too hard to pass up and with Mark’s encouragement, I made the jump to Joseph Trapanese’s team.
Cut to present day, I’ve been on Joe’s team for almost two years and have had the opportunity to assist on countless facets of film music production such as studio coordinating, creative coordinating, script coverage and score coordinating. No task is too small and the team runs like a tight-knit family after the common goal of making the best music that we can. Mark and I are still very close and I’m able to work creatively with him in my spare time, best of both worlds right now.
I see my current trajectory firmly going down the path of score coordinating/music supervising and am grateful for the hurdles that I’ve had along the way to drive me to this point. I have so much more to learn and will always be a student in the pursuit of my passions. I’m now in a place in my career where I don’t want to jump but instead dive deeper into the world of film music.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The road thus far has been up and down, left and right, backward and forwards. Job stability, creative roadblocks and keeping the fire alive for my passions are a few walls I’ve come up against.
Please tell us about Blue Bonsai Music.
Blue Bonsai Music is composer Joseph Trapanese’s production company. We specialize in composition, arranging, and music production for film, television, theater, and video game music.
My title is studio coordinator but the team, as a whole, wear many hats. I manage the studio, hire interns/assistants, coordinate scoring sessions with studios such as FOX/WB/SONY/ETC… and provide executive assistant support for the company owner Joseph Trapanese.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Even though my path has been extremely difficult especially navigating through unemployment, I wouldn’t course correct anything if I had the chance to do it over. I feel the stumbling blocks and hurdles have made me a stronger person with a razor sharp drive for what I believe in.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://vimeopro.com/anthonycirco/acmusicreel
- Phone: 3103462107
- Email: [email protected]
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anthony.circo
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonycirco/
Image Credit:
Anthony Circo
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