Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Tomas Videla. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Tomas, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

I started studying music form a young age. I began playing guitar at 3 years old and then switched to piano, now my main instrument. I studied classical piano with renowned pianist Nessy Muhr and then switched to jazz and tango after my uncle, Nico Posse, also a composer and pianist, recommended I do so. I was doing all this while doing my bachelors in Music Composition in Buenos Aires. After graduating I got accepted to Columbia College Chicago to pursue my masters in Music Composition for the Screen under Kubilay Üner’s guidance. But with all honesty a lot of the learning also takes place working. No matter who prepared you feel you are, every film, TV show or documentary is different. Maybe one thing that worked on this one show you wrote the music for won’t necessarily work on the next one. So you’re always constantly learning which I love.

With that being said, the fact that I had proper musical training I think really helped me and is one of the most essential skills I acquired. Having a solid knowledge of composition, orchestration, harmony, counterpoint has really helped in every single job I worked on. For instance, writing music for Mattel’s “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe” (seasons 1-3 streaming on Netflix) required a solid understanding of all these elements while also being able to do it all in the box and make it sound like a real orchestra. That job really taught me a lot – how to write music fast and with a high level of complexity. We were turning episodes with 20 minutes of highly elaborate orchestral music every two weeks!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Growing up I always wanted to be a musician. As a kid I thought I wanted to be in a band because at 8 years old I discovered The Beatles and became obsessed with them. It was at 12 where I heard the soundtrack of Pirates of the Caribbean by Kalus Badelt and the legendary Hans Zimmer and I knew that was what I wanted to do. So from then on every step I took was towards that goal. I started studying piano (classical, jazz and tango), did my bachelors in Music Composition at Universidad Catolica Argentina and then my masters in Music Composition for the Screen at Columbia College Chicago where I was awarded a full scholarship.

After graduating from Columbia College Chicago I moved to Los Angeles to start working. I was fortunate enough to meet amazing people that bought me on to different projects. Director Michelle McGhan brought me on to write the music for her film “Jeong” which won “Best Original Score” at the Vermiose Film Festival. Composer Jesi Nelson (composer of “Star Wars Biomes”, “Star Wars Vehicle Flythroughs” and “Novelmore”, to name a few) introduced me to composer Michael Kramer (composer for “Ninjago”, “LEGO Star Wars: the Freemaker Adventures” and “A Tale Dark and Grimm”) and I soon started working with him on Dreamwork’s “Rhyme Time Town” and Mattel’s “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe”. At the same time I met award winning composer H. Scott Salinas with whom we collaborated writing music for projects like “Retrograde” (nominated for 6 Emmys), Kangaroo Valley (nominated for an Emmy in the Outstanding Nature Documentary category), “Shadowland”, “The Invisible Pilot” and “Full Swing”. I also worked as an orchestrator and conductor in several projects like “Mucho Mucho Amor” (premiered at Sundance Film Festival), “Sand and Snow” and “Kangaroo Valley” to name a few.

These are just some of the projects I worked on. Each one of them required a different set of skills and it was a great experience and amazing learning opportunities. All these projects ranged from full orchestras to more minimalist, small ensembles and synth based. No matter what the sound of the score is, one has to be ready to jump and do their best while also learning.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The one aspect I love about what I do is the collaboration. Writing music for film and TV can be a very lonely job. You’re locked in your studio every day, siting down in front of a computer and writing away. The job can definitely be that. But honestly I try to have the process be more collaborative with directors, producers and editors (“non music” people) and with other musicians and songwriters. When you collaborate with people who have different skills that the ones you have great and unexpected things happen. And I absolutely love that because you really learn new things that you would’ve never even thought of if you’re just locked in your room by yourself all day. I love bringing musicians to record and to improvise on pieces I write.

One of my most recent collaborations is with composer and singer-songwriter Jessica Childress. We come from different musical worlds and I love getting together in a room and making music with her. There is always some unexpected music happening!

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

This might be a small thing but for me was an interesting shift. There was a time where I was working on animation a lot. Scoring animation is really really fun, but also challenging and sometimes tiring. The style of scoring is very tight to picture, hitting different things that happen on screen, shifting moods pretty quickly, combining themes and melodies, all while maintaining and cohesive musical piece. After spending some time in this world I started also working on documentaries. Now, documentaries are a very different thing compared to animation. There is a lot of talking and music usually tries to stay away from dialogue because dialogue is what carries the story forward. There is not much action. So of course the scoring style for documentaries is very almost complete opposite to animation, Adjusting to that new style was challenging. I kept “doing too much” so I always had to scale it down. It took me a couple of attempts on every scene I scored to get it right. At the time it was really frustrating but I learned a lot!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.tomasvidela.com
• Instagram: @tomasvidelamusic
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@tomasvidela8310

Image Credits
Luis Zavaleta Eron Rauch Joel Henderson (DONTEVA)