We were lucky to catch up with Katrina Zemrak recently and have shared our conversation below.
Katrina, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?
I am very happy as a composer and sound designer. Although because of my age (31), I have started to feel more pressure in regards to having a family, and a house etc. These are things I want so badly, but living in Los Angeles it feels impossible. Because of this I have definitely wondered what it would be like to have a regular job. Once in a while I wonder what it would be like to just work with nature and live in the woods somewhere. A very different life than LA, but a very similar one to my childhood.
Katrina, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am Katrina Zemrak- a composer and sound designer focused in television, short and feature films, and podcasts. I grew up in the small town of Winslow, Maine, and I often played bass guitar in musicals or Broadway music revues around the state. Ever since I was little I knew I wanted to do something with music.
I attended Columbia College Chicago for my undergraduate degree in Music Composition and then continued with my studies at Columbia through the MFA in Music Composition for the Screen program. During my time at Columbia I was always trying to meet new people and connect. I ended up scoring over 30 short films during my time at school because I just kept trying to meet people. When graduated with my MFA, our program at Columbia set us up with an internship in Los Angeles along with a full recording session. I actually ended up with an internship with a film composer PR firm called White Bear PR while all of my classmates went on to intern with a composer. I ended up meeting a bunch of different film composers through the PR company and ended up working with some of them after the internship was over doing some basic PR/media stuff.
I never wanted to do PR work though. It wasn’t something I enjoyed or wanted to make a career out of. I ALWAYS, no matter what full time or part time job I had to pay the bills to live in LA, composed or sound designed for many projects. It was in my blood to do it and I couldn’t lose any opportunities to do what I truly wanted. At some point I left working with the composers as a social media person, because I realized I was getting pigeon holed. So I moved from odd job to odd job. I worked as a cheesemonger, a book seller at Barnes and Noble, an administrative assistant at School of Rock, and an internship with ASCAP; but continued to do freelance work as a composer/designer. I got my first shot as a full-time composers assistant in 2019 with composer Jonathan Hylander who worked mostly with Nickelodeon. During my time there I composed for all of Nickelodeons short film projects as well as music edited for ‘The Loud House” and “The Casagrandes” shows. I also sound designed and mixed their podcasts and pilots as well. This last year I’ve begun work as a composer, music editor, and sound designer with Airship podcasts. Outside of Airship, I focus on composing for feature films, shorts, and often demo for television pilots.
Some of the most common problems I see with the people I collaborate with on a film is that they have no clue what they want musically for their film, and they often don’t know where they want music place either. I have been doing this for so many years that I have become very used to discuss music in a more emotional and broad way in order for the collaboration process to be a bit smoother. There are composers out there who may speak with a collaborator in terms of music theory, and although I can do that, I find it much easier to score a film by getting into the emotional grit of the character and their journey.
I am most proud of my work with Nickelodeon, Airship, and my most recent feature film I scored-“Two Lives in Pittsburgh.” These are the projects I’m most proud of because they’ve all had educational content in one way or another. I have found that I am most passionate about projects that generally educate in some way, even if it’s only a tiny bit of the project. Working with Airship, I do a lot of music for historical content. It’s such a blast getting to work on something while also learning and educating myself even more, and helping someone learn something in the end also! I am absolutely in love with nature, and would LOVE to get more into documentary features. That’s definitely a goal at some point.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
The most rewarding aspect of being a creative is that I can make an impact with my music and help educate audiences on various topics. It’s really cool to hear from kids in particular that they watched a Nickelodeon short film or that they listened to a podcast about history and learned something through it.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Being a composer is all about resilience. You will continuously try to compose or pitch for projects and be told no very often. It’s a part of the gig. It’s hard and it’s tough but it’s incredibly rewarding when you finally land a job, especially one that means something to you.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://katzemrak.com/
- Instagram: https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Finstagram.com%2Fkatrinazemrak%3Figshid%3Dvvz2eyn30psb%26fbclid%3DIwAR2o_CnX8LDtaeZ3xOnQTmzkksV1zHeOzZSTem4PDqG5kOPLLAw0DKRwLZo&h=AT3ph1UYL9G8oEbwAlecOrJJvMvZHZ4qmHvzvOQFSzwPTMp-YP8weLoazXeFfR4wnTJOwwdiPdHtjHrai9ci8SGjVSIC7LANHdbjGOzynKNyFm6O_O6WtjDSNiZhaAgZInm9zgN_
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KatrinaZemrak
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katrina-zemrak-b692b14a/