Ashley Irwin has some Hollywood tips Film composer Ashley Irwin. The biggest problem for a film composer may not be that everyone thinks they know what makes a good soundtrack, though that can be annoying enough. Australian composer Ashley Irwin, after 24 years in the American film industry, says he's realised that "the bane of many composers' lives" is that everyone thinks the same soundtracks are the best. "What [some filmmakers] will do is they'll take an existing soundtrack and cut their film to it just because it makes them feel like they are adding music to their picture," sighs Irwin, who 25 years ago was scoring the TV soap E Street and today is a regular orchestrator for Clint Eastwood (Hereafter and J. Edgar) and Oscars, Grammys and Emmys telecasts, as well as being the new president of the Society of Composers and Lyricists in the US. A scene from J Edgar. "It's deadly to show a picture to studio executives without some sort of music because they are even worse, they don't get it at all," Irwin goes on. So in that process they will actually put on music that they think might be in the style but then if they fall in love with it or they get a really good reaction, when they come to you, you are locked into copying that rather than bringing something original to the project. Not that there are too many real complaints from Irwin, back in Australia briefly as both the musical director and special guest of the Screen Music Awards, the premier awards for music written for feature film, television and documentary in Australia. As he might tell the local composers nominated - from rock-based writers such as Jed Kurzel (who won feature film score of the year in 2011) and orchestral luminaries such as Richard Tognetti to multi-award-winning veterans and previous winners like Guy Gross and Cezary Skubiszewski - if you can develop a good relationship with a filmmaker, the benefits can roll on for years. The further you go on, the more shorthand is involved in the process. I think that's why you see these composer/director relationships that go on for entire careers," says Irwin, who recently composed scores for Tom Anton's The Pardon and the reissue of Alfred Hitchcock's The Lodger. You can almost finish each other's sentences, like a married couple, the more you work with somebody. Which raises one of the inevitable questions he will face at the awards, from both rising and experienced composers: does that just make it harder for someone who turns up fresh from Australia and hoping to cut through in LA? Not necessarily, Irwin says. Twenty-four years ago, as someone from a small market who had by necessity worked in advertising, recording, TV, film and live performances, not specialising "threw them like you wouldn't believe." Now, however, the ability to move from film to TV to games, as Irwin has done with the Godfather games series, is a genuine calling card. Irwin would "under certain conditions" suggest the leap across the Pacific. "But they have to be honest with themselves about those conditions," he stresses. Having now worked all sides of the industry, Irwin says the difference between film and games for a composer often can be brought down to the recognition that in film "the music is always linear, whereas in a game it's not." The style and tone of the game and therefore the music will change depending on the many variables the game's player can choose. A composer - who often has composed from storyboards rather than game visuals - may need three or more variations of the same piece of music sitting there awaiting a shift in play. "I often say that the best video game composer would have been, if he wanted to be, Bernard Herrmann," says Irwin of one of the giants of the golden years of Hollywood. If you listen to any of Bernard Herrmann's scores, he writes in two-bar phrases and any one of those two-bar phrases can join up with any one of those other two-bar phrases and the piece of music works perfectly. Which conjures up the notion of Bernard Herrmann and his long-time filmmaking partner Alfred Hitchcock creating a video game. Now, that would be worth watching. And hearing. The 2013 Screen Music Awards are on Monday, December 9.