As a Hollywood film composer, Mark Cofer is always searching for the best way to tell a story. “Being able to get up every day, to create music and tell stories makes me happy,” the Academy of Art University graduate says. “For me, music is storytelling. And storytelling is what connects us all together. It’s an essential quality of being human.”
Cofer’s own story is full of human connections—connections he made personally and through his music with family, friends and instructors who mentored and supported him. At nearly every step along the way, his musical talent and hard work, combined with the tools and support he gained from his mentors, put him in a position to make name for himself as a composer in the movie industry.
Kết quả xổ số miền bắc 60 ngàySo, how did Mark Cofer get to where he is today, and what can we learn from his career trajectory?
An Early Passion for Perfection
As a young music lover, Cofer spent hours composing songs on simple equipment his parents purchased. While he claims his first songs were “terrible,” he was always trying to figure out a way to make them better. Even at college, while earning a degree in philosophy from University of California Santa Barbara, he dedicated every spare moment he had to composing music.
Kết quả xổ số miền bắc 60 ngàyBut he struggled with how to turn his passion into a living. “I didn’t think music could really be a job,” he recalls. “I tried to have normal jobs. But I always came back to music.”
A Change of Direction
After graduation, a visit to San Francisco took Cofer’s journey in a new direction. Cofer’s sister, a student in the School of Motion Pictures & TelevisionKết quả xổ số miền bắc 60 ngày, suggested he take some courses at the Academy. She pointed out they had a strong music school and were now offering a number of online courses in music.
Her suggestion struck a chord. “At the time, there were not many innovative programs or curriculums of this caliber offered online,” says Cofer. “As a dad to a young daughter and someone who travels a lot, being able to do my learning anywhere in the country, and at any time, made sense to me.”
On his sister’s recommendation, he became a student in the School of Music Production & Sound Design for Visual Media online degree program.
Cofer’s ‘Academy Moment’
Even though he was enrolled at the Academy, Cofer remained unsure on the direction this path would lead him. “When I first started school, I knew I wanted to do something with music, but I was still narrowing down what that was,” he remembers.
Then he had that Academy moment.Kết quả xổ số miền bắc 60 ngày “A class with Dirk Epperson was really the first time I had worked with orchestral instruments,” he notes. “When I started to work with film music, I fell in love with it. I loved the orchestrating outlet, media instruments and creating an entire orchestra in my bedroom. It was the single most influential class I’ve had.”
That moment gave Cofer a clear focus and led to a flurry of hard work and music production. Once he found film scoring, he studied all visual media music, from horror to daytime TV shows. When it came time to graduate, Cofer’s Academy portfolio showcased his ability to master a variety of styles of music.
