“Looking back at it, it was the most risky thing I’ve ever done, to leave everything I know and go to a state where I don’t know anybody.”

So far, Rehmann’s gamble has paid off. Since his arrival in California, the former Spartan’s work has appeared on networks such as ABC Family and Lifetime as well as in motion pictures.

But the climb to his current position wasn’t easy. Rehmann said he initially began working in a restaurant and scoring short films for students at University of California, Los Angeles and University of Southern California, performing work for $100 or less.

“I kind of reached out to them because they’re always looking for people to write scores, and they themselves aren’t established yet,” he said.

“It’s kind of starting on the ground level.”

From there, his work began to receive more attention and larger jobs were presented to him. Rehmann said the process of breaking into the industry still was difficult.

“It’s a lot of cold calling, it’s a lot of rejection,” he said. “It can get extremely depressing, but that’s just the nature of the business, you call 200, 300 people a month and maybe three or four people call you back.”

Eventually, Rehmann was hired to score his first major film: the World War II action movie “Everyman’s War,” which was released at a variety of film festivals nationwide.

“There will always be a special place in my heart for ‘Everyman’s War,’” he said. “It was just a great experience.”

Since then, Rehmann has worked on other projects, including two ABC Family films, “The Dog Who Saved Christmas,” and that film’s sequel, “The Dog Who Saved Christmas Vacation,” both of which led him to work with Andres Boulton, a fellow music composer and writer.

“Chad seems to have an endless imagination — that’s very refreshing,” Boulton said. “His music sounds like it comes from a different place, he just seems to have a lot of fresh ideas every time we work together.”

Although he does not deny Rehmann’s talent, Boulton noted the difficulties that go hand in hand with the industry.

“The biggest challenge is definitely not a musical one,” he said. “It’s mostly getting noticed by the right people. … (The work) has to go to those who have the right connections.”

Rehmann is aware of those challenges as well.

“It’s just a really interesting dynamic,” he said. “There’s a ton of people who do what you do, do it as well as you do … and (you) know that you’re all in competition for the select films that come out through the course of the year.”

Although that competition can lead to obstacles, Rehmann’s mother, Sheila Rehmann, said her son’s attitude has been critical for his career.

“He takes it as a learning process,” she said.

“Sometimes it works, sometimes, it doesn’t — he just takes rejection as a positive thing.”

Her son’s success is a tribute to his drive as well as his talent.

That drive developed at an early age after the family converted part of their basement into a music room for their son.

“We’d all go to bed at 9 or 10 (p.m.) and I’d hear this banging noise and I’d go down there and he’d be working,” she said. “He’d say, ‘I’ve got this music in my mind and I just had to get it down.’ … He’s a go-getter. If he wants something, he really goes after it.”

One of Chad Rehmann’s former professors, Charles Ruggiero, a professor of composition and music theory, said those traits were on display even during his time as a student.

“He impressed me as being extremely bright and ambitious,” he said. “He had both the music talent skill and ambition. … You could tell right away he had real clear goals and he was able to make good on those, which is really rare.”

Visit rehmannproductions.com to hear audio samples of Rehmann’s compositions.