14. Working Remotely with Productions

Since moving to London, I have worked with productions in the US, Europe, Australia, Mexico and Türkiye, often on multiple projects running at the same time. There have been periods where I was managing three active projects simultaneously across three different continents and three different time zones. None of this felt like a limitation. If anything, it changed how I think about what proximity actually means in this industry. Same Country, Different Room

Here is the thing about being in the same city as a production: it does not mean very much unless you are actually in the room together. If you are not sitting with the director in your studio, coffee in hand, going through the footage for a spotting session, then being in the same country is largely symbolic. The practical work, the file transfers, the revisions, the feedback calls, all of it happens remotely anyway.

This means that a composer in London working with a director in Sydney is not in a fundamentally different situation from a composer in Istanbul working with a director across town. The tools are the same. The process is the same. The only real variable is the time zone, and that is manageable. Managing Time Zones

When you are working across multiple continents, you will sometimes need to be awake at hours that do not suit you. That is simply part of the job. During the period when I was running projects in London, Australia and the US at the same time, I built a schedule around when each team needed me, which meant my working day did not always look like a conventional one.

The key is to set expectations early. Make clear to each production when you are available, what your response window looks like, and how you prefer to communicate. Most productions, once they understand your schedule, will work around it. The ones that cannot or will not are worth knowing about before you are three weeks into a project.

The Systems That Keep It Together

Remote work does not fail because of distance. It fails because of disorganisation. The practical infrastructure matters enormously.

For cue tracking, if the production is using a shared system like CueDB, use it properly and keep it current. If there is no shared system, a well-maintained Google document with a clear spot list and cue sheet, accessible to the director and the post-production team at all times, will do the job. A separate music tracker shared specifically with the post-production team is also worth setting up, because their needs and timeline are often different from the director's.

For file delivery, standard cloud storage works for most productions. Larger companies, Netflix being the obvious example, have their own secure content hubs with encrypted upload and delivery systems. Learn whatever system the production uses before you start, not after your first delivery is due.

Keep a copy of everything. Every version of every cue, every piece of correspondence about a creative decision, every note from every call. Remote work creates a paper trail by default, and that trail is your protection if anything is disputed later.

The Real Advantage of Remote Work

Something worth naming here: remote recording is no longer the exception at the highest levels of the industry. The idea that a score must be recorded in a single city, with a single orchestra, in one continuous session is increasingly outdated. Major international productions now regularly record across multiple countries, combining sessions from orchestras in London, Prague, Budapest, Los Angeles, and elsewhere into a single unified score. The infrastructure exists. The quality is there. And the flexibility it creates, for both composers and productions, is significant.

Every person has their own rhythm. A way of working, a time of day when they are sharpest, a physical environment that brings out their best output. Remote work gives everyone the chance to operate within that rhythm rather than against it. I genuinely believe this produces better work than the alternative, not in spite of the distance but partly because of it. That said, the best composers are honest about what distance costs. Alan Silvestri put it plainly when describing remote recording during the pandemic: "When you have 95 people in a room, there's a level of physics that comes to play by the very fact that you have all of these people and all of this happening at the same time." That energy is real. Remote sessions require considerably more preparation, more technical coordination, and more deliberate effort to replicate what a room full of musicians creates naturally. The tools have caught up. The craft required to use them well has not become any easier.

What makes remote work function well is not proximity. It is communication. The director and production team need to be reachable, responsive, and genuinely open to frequent updates and idea sharing. A production that is slow to respond, vague in its feedback, or difficult to reach creates problems whether the composer is across the street or across the world. A production that communicates well makes remote collaboration feel almost frictionless.

What to Get Right from the Start

If you are taking on your first remote project, the single most important thing is to get the legal and administrative side right before you start writing a single note. The contract needs to be signed. The rights need to be clear. The delivery expectations need to be agreed.

Once that is done, your job is to stay organized and stay communicative. Keep your spotting session notes current. Keep your cue list updated. Keep your recording notes accurate and shared with the right people. The team responsible for your work should never have to chase you for information about where things stand. They should be able to open a shared document at any moment and see exactly what has been delivered, what is in progress, and what is coming next.

Distance is not the challenge. Organization is. Get that right, and the rest follows.

Next Topic: "Find Your People"