The first time Makenna realized she wanted to be a musician was when she watched the original Star Wars and instantly fell in love with the score. Instead of listening to pop songs, she would beg her parents to play the music of John Williams in the car, and she learned her first instrument, the violin, because of the beautiful solo part in Schindler's List.

 

During the pandemic, she used her free time to teach herself how to be a film composer, entering different online competitions and watching tutorials to work on her skills. After being named a finalist in the Indie Film Music Contest at 16 years old, she realized the film scoring might be more than just a hobby, and she made the choice to pursue it as a career.

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Presently, Makenna has scored over a dozen independent films, ranging from 3 to 30 minutes in length. She recorded a handful of these scores at the John Williams Scoring Stage at the University of California, bringing her original inspiration to be a composer full circle.

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In the summer of 2025, Makenna will be a Film Scoring Intern at Sparks & Shadows, a full-service production company producing albums, film & TV scores, soundtracks, plays, graphic novels, concerts, live events, and more.