Shattering Ceilings and Blazing Trails for Women in Film Scoring Spirit Untamed composer Amie Doherty M.M. '13 reflects on making history as the first woman to score a DreamWorks Animation feature film.
By
Daniel Pesquera
April 4, 2022
Amie Doherty M.M. '13
Image courtesy of the artist
Berklee Nows Keyed In series features Berklee experts sounding off on the latest news and trends from the music world and beyond.
For decades, Berklee artists have been breaking down barriers and challenging the limits of what can be achieved by following creative passions. Enter Amie Doherty M.M. '13, one the newest members of an elite group of history-making alumni. An Irish composer based in Los Angeles, Doherty has scored multiple high-level film, TV, and music projects since graduating from Berklees campus in Valencia, Spain, with a Master of Music in scoring for film, television, and video games. Her r sum includes Sony/Hulu's Yuletide hit Happiest Season, Focus Features The High Note, Amazon Prime's critically acclaimed series Undone, the Jurassic World short film Battle at Big Rock, and Lady Gagas Grammy-nominated 2020 album, Chromatica.
Doherty become the first woman to score a DreamWorks Animation feature film with the release of Spirit Untamed last summer. The experience allowed her to work with a cast of stars including Jake Gyllenhaal, Julianne Moore, and Isabela Merced, and the music she wrote for the film has earned her nominations from the International Film Critics Association and the Hollywood Music in Media Awards.
In recognition of National Film Score Day, Berklees Media Relations team had the honor of speaking with Doherty about Spirit Untamed and her place as a pioneer for women in the industry.
Spirit Untamed represents a milestone both in your career and in your industry, as you are now the first woman to score a DreamWorks Animation feature film. Can you put in perspective what that achievement means to you personally as you reflect on your professional journey? I feel very honored to mark this milestone for women composers. When I first dreamt of being a film composer, the ultimate dream was to score a studio film with a huge orchestra. For Spirit Untamed, we recorded an 80-piece orchestra at Abbey Road Studios in London for nine days back in February 2021. Hearing my music being played in one of the most iconic recording studios in the world was magical. I was actually a few months into work on the film before I learned that I was the first woman to score a DreamWorks Animation feature film. It was a really incredible surprise. I hope that somewhere a young woman or girl sees my name at the end of the film and realizes that if I can do it, then so can she! It definitely feels like a shift is happening in our industry, and that women are being recognized for their talent. My hope is that we can just lose the term women or female before composer, because at the end of the day, we're all just composers doing what we love.
Young women looking to succeed as composers can now look to you as a source of inspiration. Did you ever envision yourself as a pioneer for aspiring female composers, and how significant were the role models you looked up to in the early stages of your path to success? Honestly, I cant say I ever envisioned myself as a pioneer for aspiring female composers. In my early career, I was just focused on building relationships and doing good work like anyone else. Yes, this is a very heavily male-dominated industry and there are definitely obstacles navigating it as a woman, but I've never let that get in my way. I find it super inspiring that we are seeing womens' names in the music by credit at the end of the film more and more. There are so many pioneering women breaking down boundaries, such as Germaine Franco, who recently became the first woman to score a Disney Animation feature with Encanto, and Hildur Gu nad ttir, who won the Academy Award for Best Score for Joker. I'm just chuffed to be thought of as someone who is also breaking glass ceilings and hopefully creating more spaces for women.
You've amassed an impressive r sum since graduating from Berklee Valencia with a masters degree in scoring for film, television, and video games. How do your experiences with that program influence how you approach high-profile projects? I loved my time at Berklee Valencia. It felt like Disneyland to me. Film music was something I was deeply passionate about, and I had finally found like-minded people to discuss it all with. The education we got there was fantastic and gave us a great foundation for entering the industry. I learned a lot at Berklee, in particular on the technology side, which is very important for the day-to-day life of any composer. From the professors at Berklee, as well as the guest speakers, we got a view into many different aspects of scoring-working on independent films versus studio films, orchestration, conducting and copying, recording sessions, and how a score goes from a DAW to the final product-a lot of very practical and helpful experience for our future careers.
The range of projects you've been involved with stands out, from TV shows like Happiest Season and The Highest Note and dramas and documentary films to working with major artists like 50 Cent and Lady Gaga. Is there a general mindset you bring to your work that is consistent across projects or do you come to every job with a completely open mind? I just try to come to every project with a wide-open mind and a great attitude. I think attitude is extremely important, especially in such a collaborative field. With any of the projects I've worked on, be it working with directors or producers on film or TV, or working with artists, I constantly remind myself that they have hired me to help realize their vision for the project, and
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Shattering Ceilings and Blazing Trails for Women in Film Scoring Spirit Untamed composer Amie Doherty M.M. '13 reflects on making history as the first woman to score a DreamWorks Animation feature film.
