Sonoma State alumna Madison Kaminsky scores first documentary as The Last Eight reaches festival audiences
Sonoma State University alumna Madison Kaminsky reached a new stage in her career as a screen composer with The Last Eight, her first documentary score and a project that has since moved through a series of film festival screenings and recognitions.
The documentary, directed by Bryanna Reynolds, follows the people behind a Rose Parade float during the final eight hours of preparation before the parade. After a sold-out world premiere in Hollywood, the film received an award at the Angeles Documentary Film Festival and additional festival selections and nominations, including selection for the Highland Park Independent Film Festival and a Canadian premiere at Lunenburg Doc Fest in Nova Scotia.
For Kaminsky, who earned a B.M. in Piano Performance and a B.A. in Composition from Sonoma State before completing further training in film scoring at UCLA Extension, the project brought together skills she had developed across years of piano study, composition training and professional work.
“It was thrilling to hear that we were having a sold-out world premiere for The Last Eight in Hollywood,” Kaminsky said. “As someone who was born and raised in Los Angeles and is pursuing a career in film music, it was also a moment that felt like a long time coming.”
Kaminsky began studying piano at age 4, first with her father and later with teacher Efrem Bergman, who worked with her until she began auditioning for music colleges. At Sonoma State, she continued her piano studies with Marilyn Thompson while also developing as a composer under Thom Limbert.
The two areas of study shaped different parts of her musical foundation. Thompson encouraged Kaminsky to study music from different periods and composers, while Limbert gave her room to experiment with genres, instrumental combinations and orchestral writing.
“Through my compositional studies with Dr. Limbert, I was given the freedom to express myself through my writing without limits,” Kaminsky said. “If there was something new I wanted to attempt, he always welcomed the opportunity and encouraged me to explore it.”
Kaminsky said the combination of piano performance and composition became central to the way she works today.
“These experiences within two different areas of the Sonoma State music department really shaped an incredible foundation for me as a composer,” she said. “Everything I learned from both my piano studies and my compositional studies has played an important role in shaping who I am as a musician and composer today.”
After graduating from Sonoma State in 2020, Kaminsky began looking for ways to continue developing as a composer during a period of uncertainty for musicians and recent graduates. Her interest increasingly centered on music for film.
That interest had begun much earlier. Growing up, she often found herself listening closely to the music underneath movie dialogue and paying attention to the way a score affected a scene. Among the scores that influenced her were James Newton Howard’s music for Peter Pan, Howard Shore’s work on The Lord of the Rings, John Williams’ Star Wars scores and Hildur Guðnadóttir’s score for Joker.
“Their ability to enhance a story through music, especially with the opportunity to work with live musicians, is what captivated me and inspired me to pursue this career and stick with it,” Kaminsky said.
She enrolled in UCLA Extension’s film scoring program, drawn in part by the opportunity to study with professionals working in film and television in Los Angeles. The program also gave her experience preparing music for live recording sessions.
By the end of the program, Kaminsky had recorded several demos with live musicians and attended recording sessions connected to assignments at EastWest Studios and Village Studios. The sessions exposed her to the practical work surrounding professional scoring, including booking musicians, preparing sheet music and recording music to picture.
The program also required her to compose on tight deadlines, a skill that built on orchestration training she had received at Sonoma State.
“I learned how to compose quickly for assignments with tight deadlines while applying the orchestration knowledge I had gained from my studies with Dr. Limbert, including an understanding of the ranges and capabilities of different instruments,” she said. “This knowledge became especially valuable in my professional life.”
Kaminsky’s transition into professional composing began through personal connections. Her first paid scoring project, for a web series, came through a recommendation from a neighbor who knew her work.
The experience reinforced what would become one of the central lessons of her early career: professional opportunities often grow from relationships.
“I quickly learned that the industry is all about relationships and building your creative team through your network,” she said.
Since then, Kaminsky has scored short films, commercials and dance projects while working with directors whose creative methods vary considerably. Some collaborations have developed into ongoing professional relationships, including work with directors on both the East Coast and in Los Angeles.
She has also encountered collaborations in which composer and director did not immediately align.
“You won’t always see eye-to-eye creatively with every director interested in working with you, but you can have incredible success with the directors with whom you do connect creatively,” she said.
Kaminsky said those experiences have required her to learn not only how to collaborate artistically, but also how to manage the business side of composing. She has adjusted her contracts based on lessons from projects in which expectations or working relationships did not develop as intended.
Her connection with The Last Eight began through another form of professional networking: social media.
Reynolds posted in a Facebook group for film creatives that she was looking for a composer for a documentary. Kaminsky responded, found Reynolds on Instagram and sent her a direct message about the project.
“If you want something, you have to go for it,” Kaminsky said. “Social media is also becoming an important place for networking.”
After exchanging emails, Kaminsky and Reynolds met at a coffee shop for a spotting session, the process in which a director and composer review a film and determine where music should appear and what role it should play.
For Kaminsky, the meeting also established an approach she uses when beginning a collaboration with a new director.
“The score ultimately needs to serve the director’s vision, and the composer is there to help bring that vision to life,” she said. “I listen to their ideas, offer my thoughts on what is possible, and then we begin the creative process together.”
Reynolds entered the project with specific musical references. She wanted parts of the score to evoke the scale and feeling associated with John Williams’ Jurassic Park themes, while more intense sequences needed a different kind of suspenseful underscore. Because the float featured in the documentary was a pirate ship, Reynolds also wanted original pirate music.
At the same time, Kaminsky needed to avoid simply reproducing familiar musical associations and instead develop material that could belong specifically to the film.
The two also agreed that the documentary needed a recurring musical idea capable of supporting its larger focus on the people working together to prepare the float.
Kaminsky developed a central theme titled “The Rose Anthem,” along with “The Pirates of Burbank” and “Hydrangeas Chaos,” which provided material for variations used throughout the documentary.
“The project really came together because Bryanna was so prepared with a clear musical vision for her documentary, while I was able to draw on all of my training and creativity,” Kaminsky said.
That combination of collaboration and technical preparation became especially tangible for Kaminsky at the film’s Hollywood premiere.
“Nothing can prepare you for the first moment of seeing your director’s film on the big screen, hearing your score played so clearly throughout the theater, and looking around at a sold-out audience hearing what you composed for the film for the very first time,” she said.
Kaminsky said she cried as “The Rose Anthem” played in the theater.
“To experience the journey from the ideas in my head, to the piano keys, to the final score underneath the footage, and finally hearing it with an audience, was a truly magical moment,” she said.
The film continued beyond its premiere. Reynolds received the Best Female Made Short Documentary award at the Angeles Documentary Film Festival, and The Last Eight later received additional festival selections and nominations. Its subsequent screenings extended the life of a project that had also marked a first for Kaminsky.
The filmmakers publicly highlighted her role in shaping the documentary, describing the music as an important part of conveying both the pressure of the final hours and the themes of community, creativity and friendship at the center of the film.
For Kaminsky, the response to the documentary provided evidence that the professional direction she had been pursuing since college was becoming more established.
“This whole experience confirmed that I am meant to pursue this career,” she said.
She is now working toward additional scoring projects in television and film, including what she described as her first feature.
As her professional work develops, Kaminsky continues to connect it to the training and faculty relationships that preceded it. In addition to Thompson and Limbert, she cited Sonoma State Music faculty members Brian Wilson, John Palmer, Alexander Kahn and Yvonne Wormer among the professors who encouraged her during her time in the department.
“I’m very appreciative of the foundation the Sonoma State music department provided,” Kaminsky said.
Her path since graduation has included specialized film-scoring study, studio recording experience, independent projects and the gradual development of working relationships with directors. The Last Eight added another step: the first time Kaminsky had built a score across a full documentary and then heard that work reach audiences through a theatrical premiere and festival screenings.
She is continuing to look for the next collaboration.
“I’m always listening for the next opportunity,” Kaminsky said, “whether it comes through a new connection or conversation that leads to a project waiting for the right musical voice to tell its story.”