When Jeff Atmajian began attending Fresno State in the late 1970s he had to make a choice. He had to decide if he was going to play it safe and study mechanical engineering or follow his passion and study music. He went with music.

"For a long time I worried about how I was going to make a living," Atmajian said.

When Atmajian, 47, graduated with his bachelor's degree in 1983 he headed to Los Angeles to continue his studies at the University of Southern California.

While studying film scoring at USC, Atmajian worked side jobs. He often took gigs playing piano for dance classes. After graduation he worked for a church in Southern California. Atmajian never gave up on his dream to work in film scoring, but said the competition in Hollywood was tough. Around his 30th birthday everything began to fall into place.

"I was thrilled because I was happy," Atmajian said. "I was working on films."

Over the last decade and a half, Atmajian has helped score the music of some of Hollywood's biggest pictures.

Atmajian's name can be found on the credits of films such as "The American President," "Passion of the Christ," "Blood Diamond," "The Sixth Sense," and "Terminator 3." He worked with Barbara Streisand on the "Mirror Has Two Faces" and has rubbed elbows with some of Hollywood's best composers.

Twelve film scores, which Atmajian has worked on, have been nominated for the Academy Award. He often works as an orchestrator for composers such as James Newton Howard, Rachel Portman, Marc Shaiman, and Gabriel Yared.

In the coming months Atmajian's work will be heard in "I am Legend" starring Will Smith and "The Bucket List" with Jack Nicholson.

Atmajian would like to make the transition to composer. He worked as the composer on "Screamers," a documentary about the Armenian Genocide and composed a 2005 summer program, titled "Creation," at Orange County's famous Crystal Cathedral.

"I'm trying to get my music heard," Atmajian said. "In hopes someone is going to say, 'I want him to do my film," I like his music."

As a child growing up in Fresno, Calif., Atmajian said he never would have guessed he would be making a living doing what he is doing.

At age 8, Atmajian began taking piano lessons, with his sister Carrie, from Esther Frankian, the former organist at Pilgram Armenian Church. But after some time, he quit. "This is hard. I want to get it perfect," Atmajian remembers saying as a teenager.

Atmajian did go back to piano because it was something that he said he truly enjoyed doing.

Carol Karabian, of Fresno, is Atmajian's cousin. She says she remembers piano being so important to Atmajian, that when the family would travel to Santa Cruz for vacation, his mother, Donna, would drive him to the nearby university so he could practice. "His music was always really important to him," Karabian said. "He just loved the piano."

Atmajian said his parents always supported him. He knows his father, Ron Atmajian, who passed away in 1984, would be proud of all he has accomplished.

His mother, Donna Robinson, of Fresno, says that when she and Atmajian's stepfather Warren see a movie Atmajian has worked on, they wait with excitement to see his name in the credits. "We're very proud of him," Robinson said. "He has always been a wonderful son."

While Atmajian, who splits his time between homes in Los Angeles and London, often gets back to Fresno to visit his family, he hadn't spent much time at his Alma Mater, Fresno State, since graduating.

On Oct. 22 he came back to where it all started, to speak as part of the College of Arts and Humanities lecture series, featuring distinguished alumni.

Atmajian, who spoke about the history of music in movies, used clips from films to illustrate the importance of the score. Without music, movies would lose the viewer"s interest and would make establishing emotion more difficult.

"Music is the only thing that actually connects you to film," Atmajian said. "It draws you in."

Atmajian began the lecture by playing Janet Leigh's death scene in the Alfred Hitchcock classic "Psycho."

"Pay attention to how the music makes you feel," Atmajian said, as the audience watched Norman Bates stab Janet Leigh in the shower. "The music is saying something really terrible just happened."

When Atmajian played the same clip without music, it had less of an affect on the audience.

Atmajian went on to play the opening scene from movies made in the 1940s and 1950s, which Atmajian referred to as the "Golden Years of Hollywood." The opening scene of "A Place in the Sun," which featured music by Franz Waxman, took the viewer to another place in time. "That music is saying this is big," Atmajian said. "Hollywood was a place of dreams."

In the early1960s Atmajian said the music in movies became more intimate. While an orchestra was still being used, it was on a smaller scale. But by the late 1960s and the 1970s, many composers found themselves out of work, Atmajian said. This is because songs became the new music of choice.

Atmajian cited "The Graduate" and its song by Simon and Garfunkel, as an example of the use of song in movies. "The words are saying something to you," he said.

Atmajian credits "Star Wars" as the film that brought back the orchestra. "Doesn't it sound like it could have come from the 40s?," Atmajian said of the opening film music.

Today music scoring is more advanced because of new technology. Atmajian says the technology doesn't always make things easier. "There is a lot more choice," he said. "Nothing is finished until the last possible minute."

Atmajian says he's glad he had the guts to stick with his passion of music, instead of going the more traditional route.

"It's a fascinating and interesting thing to work in," Atmajian said. "I've been fortunate."

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