Meet Noga Kedem

We recently connected with Noga Kedem and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Noga, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?

That’s a great question. My work ethic is something I needed to practice through many projects, although I was raised with that habit. There’s a story here – I come from a family with great work ethic and determination to succeed. So I’ve heard multiple times in my life that my work ethic is amazing and that I will be successful because of it, but I guess everything’s relative in life, since I’ve always felt like I actually lack discipline. Over the years, as the challenges grew, I encountered extreme situations and schedules, and so I had to get better at managing my time and prioritizing work even more. Only with lots of practice did I learn the importance of the habits I was raised to follow. My motivation and this uncompromising determination come from my family and from my love for music and film.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I’m a film composer. I started as a classical singer in a choir, but I’ve always composed music and have so much passion for it, especially composing for media. When I compose music for a specific film or scene, I try to get to the root of the story and the essence of the feeling that should be brought out, that’s the ultimate goal for me. This past two years, I worked on four feature film scores, two full-length documentaries, and two live shows. I also had the chance to collaborate with the amazing Klaus Badelt, composer of Pirates of the Caribbean, Gladiator I, and many more. I love seeing how my music can affect a film and suddenly make it whole, giving great importance to the emotional message coming through. I’m about authenticity, bringing out my personal, specific musical voice, and diving into the emotional world of the film so each film receives a very specific, very unique score, from my heart and not from my head.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

That’s a hard question, to choose just three. I think courage would be the first one — just diving into deep water and, every time again, doing something completely new that might fail. Thinking back, I have no clue where I got that from or how I wasn’t scared to pursue this career or to work on projects way bigger than what I did before, but I did, and it did its job and has given me an amazing outcome.
Second, I’d choose deep, full musical education. It doesn’t have to be from a young age necessarily, in my opinion, but at any point. I sang classical music all my life, but I only learned how to use it in my studies. Art is built on layers of history that already sit in our ears, so I believe it’s easier to build the future when you know the past that you’re building off of.
Last one, I’ll choose friendship. I couldn’t have done this alone, and I couldn’t have grown without trusting the people I work with. Friends, both filmmakers and non-filmmakers, are where I go when I need advice, support, ideas, and a new project!

Looking back over the past 12 months or so, what do you think has been your biggest area of improvement or growth?

Wow, the past year was incredible for me. After working and developing a career in Israel and Europe, I came to Los Angeles for a small window and joined projects in the American film industry that opened so many doors for me. During my time with composer Mark Yaeger, I received some amazing feedback from him and from other professionals we collaborated with about how my skills and character match the Hollywood industry more than many other people’s. I learned about the most high-end technology in the field and sharpened my skills more than ever.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://nogakedem.com
• Instagram: noga_kedem

Image Credits

Rotem Ann Pearl, Valerie Mok, Tato Baeza, Mark Yaeger