With increasingly tighter deadlines and shrinking budgets, Canadian film and television composers have taken the hard road to become some of the most efficient scoremakers in the world.

‘As far as having quality musicians in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, we take a back seat to no one,’ says 27-year, veteran composer Glenn Morley, who is also vp of the Guild of Canadian Film Composers.

‘Because we don’t have budgets as large [as the u.s.] on the a level, in particular, Canadian composers have had to learn to be smarter – how to get the job done with fewer resources, fewer musicians, less time,’ he adds.

Today, Canadian composers for film and tv can actually make a living without having to supplement their incomes with side jobs or moving to the u.s.

In fact, in many cases the Americans are coming to them.

‘There’s tons of American mows and features done here and a lot of them do the post and score here, too. They used to just pick up and leave after production, but now they stay because they’re confident in the Canadian talent,’ says Maribeth Solomon, a four-time Gemini Award-winning composer and cofounder of Mickymar Productions in Toronto.

And while virtually all members of the Canadian film industry continue to benefit from northward-bound u.s. production, our composing industry is also flourishing because of a tremendous growth spurt in Canadian tv production and ever-advancing technologies that allow composers to produce high-quality sound on low budgets. While at one time composers strove to work on feature films, these days more and more music makers are leaning toward tv.

‘The great thing about tv is that the creative and production people did it yesterday, they’re doing it today and they’re going to do it tomorrow. They don’t reinvent the wheel every day, which is a great advantage because the technical hurdles have been solved by the people you’re working with, leaving you to get to the heart of the creative,’ says Morley.

And with the continuum of new channels, there is a constant demand for new tv content. ‘There’s more opportunity for young composers to get into the field by starting in tv first because there’s so much programming. Also, there’s a lot of different sounds and approaches you can use because basically anything can work in tv,’ says freelance film and tv composer Amin Bhatia.

But no composer can deny that however accessible and convenient tv may be, the film medium continues to provide more latitude.

‘With film, you’re not dealing with something that breaks for a commercial every 10 minutes. You have more resources at your disposal because features have such a broad dynamic range. tv is restricted that way – you still have to write for music that comes down to the four-inch speaker,’ says Bhatia, who scores Power Play for Alliance Atlantis, Code Name: Eternity for Protocol/Warner Bros. and recently came off an imax film, Goldfever.

Also, in film the composer might have to start from ground zero every time, but usually has a higher budget and a better schedule than in tv, where there tends to be an irrevocable air date.

‘The biggest challenge is that we have less and less time to do what we do,’ says Bhatia. ‘Even though technology enables us to do things faster, there’s only so much the human mind can do in a limited amount of time. Getting inspired by something and making it a reality does not usually happen in an instant, you still need time to give birth to a product.’

To make matters more challenging, ‘budgets are geared toward electronic scores, yet people are sick of the sound of electronic scores, and to do one that’s outstanding, you can’t just turn on your presets and go. It takes a lot more time and money than a lot of projects are coming up with,’ says freelance composer and three-time Gemini-winner Chris Dedrick.

Also, ‘creatively there’s often too many people to please. The days of one very strong mind or team that’s in agreement and giving direction to a composer and trusting that composer are long gone,’ adds Dedrick. ‘Now there are so many people to get approval from, it inhibits the creative process. Everybody’s got their finger in the financial pie.’

On a similar note, he says, ‘the big-business, public-company approach to film and tv making is hurting everybody’s creativity. How many times have I had to rush through a series because a company has a year end and they have to show certain figures by a certain date? Trust me, you end up making poor creative decisions.’

Nonetheless, the Canadian film and tv composing industry is tighter than ever. Membership to the Guild has expanded exponentially over the last four years. ‘We’re closing in on 200 members across the country, which is very significant when you consider that our sister organization in the u.s., the Society of Lyricists and Composers, has about 600 members,’ says Morley.

‘It wasn’t the same when we were starting out,’ says Solomon, who’s been in the business for more than 20 years. ‘We felt very alone, but now there’s a community. . . With socan, the guild, the Geminis, the Academy [of Canadian Cinema and Television], it’s a lot easier for young composers to network today. In the u.s. it’s so cutthroat and agent-ridden, but here people don’t really have representation, they tend to have relationships with producers and directors.’

As for expanding opportunities in the field, many agree that in Canada, Toronto is the number one locale, followed by Montreal and Vancouver. But Bhatia believes that once much of the new technology works itself out – including the Internet, MP3, (high-fidelity surround for everybody at home) and new methods of tv broadcast – ‘there’ll be all kinds of opportunity for new composers and location isn’t going to matter anymore because it’s going to be a world market we’ll have to sell our resources to.’

Meanwhile, ‘the days of using live players have come to a close,’ says composer Mark Korven of Bang Music in Toronto. Orchestral scores are simply too expensive and time-consuming for composers who, unless they have an ongoing working relationship with the producer (tv) or director (film), tend to be brought in at the end of the creative process when there is often very little time or money left on the project.

Starting anywhere between 1% and 4% of the overall budget, the music budget tends to be the first to diminish. ‘When they overspend somewhere else, they’ll take away from the music,’ says Dedrick, who scores The City for ctv and Emily of New Moon for Cinar/Salter Street.

And speaking of diminishing returns, Korven says, ‘more and more composers are being asked to give up music publishing rights, which eats into your return – often a composer will do a film with a small budget knowing he’ll make it up on the back end through royalties. In the old years, I could almost always hold onto my publishing rights, now I have to fight tooth and nail.’

But asked if there’s anything else he’d rather be doing, he says, ‘No.’