Today we’d like to introduce you to Sam Diaz.
Sam, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
I started my musical journey at the age of 12 when I picked up my first pair of drumsticks. From that moment on, my life has been all about music and performing it. After attending FIU and studying Jazz Performance, I played drums/percussion professionally with many local artists including Arturo Sandoval, Ed Calle, Tony Succar, Sapo Tercero etc. for many years. In 2010 though, my career path took a turn when I first heard music from film composers Alexandre Desplat, James Newton Howard and Hans Zimmer. After experiencing the emotional impact their compositions had on me, I knew this is what I wanted to do with my life. Taking my years of training and experience, I set out to make a career out of producing music for media and landed my first short film titled “Monster in my Swimming Pool” with Nickelodeon star Lia-Marie Johnson. The success of that award winning short film plus the unique music I created for it led to many other projects over the years including feature films, short films, commercials and trailers. Today I still work on many film and tv projects writing and producing music in all genres as well as collaborate with singers and other producers to create original songs.
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
I basically compose, produce and perform the background music one experiences when watching a film, TV show, commercial or a movie trailer. I first start by determining, together with the producer/director of a project, what the music should help the audience feel. Do we want the audience to feel sad, happy, adventurous, scared, hopeful, inspired etc. My job then is to bring those emotions to life musically by coming up with appropriate melodic, harmonic, lyrical or even rhythmic ideas. I then execute those ideas using my computer music program where I record all types of virtual/live musical instruments, arrange them and then mix them to deliver to my client. My hope is that my music can first of all emotionally support and accurately reflect the images it’s accompanying and then allow the viewer to feel what I’m trying to convey musically, if my music can inspire someone the way that my musical heroes have inspired me, then I feel I’ve truly met my purpose.
In your view, what is the biggest issue artists have to deal with?
There are many challenges artists face today, most which have been around for decades but I think the biggest challenge musicians face today is just how undervalued we are. As a film editor and producer, myself, I know how film makers budget for their projects and composers/producers are typically among the least paid, if not the least. This isn’t always the case and sometimes certain projects have limited budgets so we have to know what we are getting involved with but I try to surround myself with clients who truly value what I do and what I have to offer. I think as artists we should constantly be perfecting not only our crafts but our business and marketing skills to survive in today’s age.
Contact Info:
- Website: samdiazfilmandmusic.com
- Phone: 954-716-5162
- Email: spaunsam7@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sam_diaz77/
- Facebook: facebook.com/spaunsam7
- Other: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samdiazfilmandmusic/
Image Credit:
Sam Diaz
Nouba Photography
Natalie Diaz
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