Las Positas is home to many amazing classes, including professor Mario Godoy’s Scoring for Film and Multimedia course. In this class, students learn how to compose scores and soundtracks for movies, video games and other types of media.
Godoy’s accomplishments span far and wide beyond Las Positas. He developed soundtracks for the games “Blitzkeep Unleashed” by Flint Games and “Taelmoore” by Delve Bros. He also worked with filmmaker Dominic Mercurio on the sound design for Mercurio’s short film “He Won’t Belong,” which premiered in 2023.
“Professor Mario himself is also a wonderful teacher,” said music major Sam Hunsigi, “who I’ve always thought was very easy to connect with, and he also gives extremely helpful and supportive feedback.”
Godoy isn’t just an accomplished composer across multiple industries. He’s also been a guest speaker at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, the University of the Pacific and Cal Poly Humboldt. Godoy is most proud of the track “Attention Economy,” which is available on YouTube as a music video.
“(It’s) a piece I wrote for the string quartet,” Godoy said. “It released in January 2020. They played it at the Berkeley Art Museum – BAMFA – and the SF Conservatory.”
While the classroom is an entirely different stage, Godoy still performs. It’s about setting limits and recreating the industry experience for his students
“I also like the prompts and media professor Mario gives us to compose to,” Hunsigi said. “They’re carefully chosen so that we have a lot of freedom and room for creativity and interpretation in our scores, while also having to work within certain barriers, just as composers for media have.”
But preparing students for the field of professional media scoring isn’t just teaching them how to work with limitations. Students need to know how to set aside perfectionism.
“It teaches you to be okay with not having your best work every single time, and what little things you could have done even if you struggled with doing it on time or with limited resources,” Hunsigi said.
Given Godoy’s experience as a composer, sound designer and teacher, it is no surprise that the quality of his class is so high. Nor how much students enjoy it.
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TOP PHOTO: Mario Godoy is a well-known composer and sound designer based in Oakland who teaches music courses at Las Positas College. He has written works for video games, films and live ensembles. (Photo by Sam Godoy // Photo illustration by Jo Rojas // The Express)
Zach Lewis is a staff writer for The Express. Follow him on Instagram @local_ic0n.
