We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jörg Hüttner. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jörg below.
Hi Jörg, thanks for joining us today. Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?
I definitely enjoy my work a lot. This often feels like going to “play” instead of going to work, so overall I can confirm my profession makes me happy. In any job you will encounter days where you hate it or you’re annoyed about something, and you’d rather do something else, but I couldn’t see myself working in corporate / regular 9-5 job. I also prefer being my own boss. While this brings its own challenges (no steady income and high fluctuation in frequency / density of projects), you definitely can learn to live with it, especially if you have a constant overview on finances, upcoming expenses, etc.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am a German composer, synthesizer programmer and sound designer based in Santa Monica. The interest in synthesizers and electronic music started at the early age of 9, and led to playing keyboards in bands and first composing efforts from the late teens on. After an internship in a music studio after high school and various studio jobs I ended up as product support and sound designer at a German distributor for synthesizers and music software in the late 90s. There I got in touch with film music composers in LA, which resulted in first work for bigger film projects in the mid 2000s. I moved to the US back in 2007 to pursue a career in film music. Outside of piano lessons as a kid and into my teen years, I never studied music or music production at a school. This was all self-taught over the years. My knowledge of synthesizers and creating sounds for the right moment / project opened a lot of doors, and is still one of my ‘services’ I provide to this day. I was able to ‘trade’ this knowledge with learning from clients on bigger film projects, and how film scores are made.
The most proud moment in my career was working for some of the best in the industry, including Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman, Atli Örvarsson and others. There are still some artists I would love to work for, so there is still stuff to strive for, outside of pushing my own music projects and composer work forward.
One thing my career has taught me is to be patient, and never to loose sight of a goal. From the first interest in film music after seeing a documentary about film scoring on German TV in 1998 to being able to obtain a work visa and move to the US was 9 years. A second thing I learned: it’s never too late to do a switch in your career. The initial dream to become a “pop star” with electronic music, like my musical heroes Depeche Mode, obviously didn’t work out, so the interest in film scoring in my mid 20s switched my focus to a different career path – still in music and entertainment of course.
Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?
A career in music is still anything but common, especially in Germany, even if this already changed significantly over the last 2 decades. In social gatherings the question about my work as composer / music producer was regularly followed by “no, what do you make your money with?”. That was obviously frustrating to say the least. The same happened in a different way even in the wider circle of friends, where quite a lot of people didn’t see my pursuit of a music career as serious. “He and his music…” was often the comment, with a negative tone of course. Or call it an eye-roll. This never discouraged me from continuing on my path. Actually the opposite. It often lit a fire with me thinking “I show you”. This changed completely with my relocation to “Hollywood”. Here this is anything but out of the ordinary and often comments with “oh cool” or encouraging words. As Arnold Schwarzenegger would say: “never listen to your naysayers”. I couldn’t agree more with this.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
Positive feedback to my work is by far the most rewarding, be it a happy client sending a note “great work, love it” or telling me in person or a call, or be it anyone hearing my music and loving it. It does not matter if it is friends, family, other composers or entertainment professionals that positively comment on it. When I was still playing concerts in my bands and the crowed loved it, it always gave you an amazing boost. I will never forget a gig we played as headliner in front of 3500 people. Whatever your body produces in that moment is just an incredible feeling. Additionally being able to move people’s mood with music is amazing to see. Whether you support any visual media and boosts its emotions with it, or simply offer music to escape reality for a bit or for people to enjoy would not matter. It just makes me feel very accomplished and simply happy.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jorghuttner.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jorghuttner/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jorg.huttner/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jörg-hüttner-01195210/
- Other: https://www.threads.net/@jorghuttner https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1976839/
Image Credits
Mel Castro @melhummel