He began his career playing the piano in McDonald's on Queen St, Auckland.
Now, 26-year-old Mark Petrie is assisting composers in writing music for some of the world's best-known television programmes.
The former Dilworth School student has come a long way since he entertained fast-food buyers to help earn enoughmoney to study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston.
Mr Petrie began his course in film composing at Berklee in 1999 and moved to Los Angeles after graduating last year.
He has since landed a job as an assistant to composers Jeff Lippencott and Mark T. Williams, collectively Ah2, who create music for reality TV shows, including The Apprentice, Rock Star: INXS and The Biggest Loser.
Mr Petrie has himself written music for films, winning best score at the Moondance International Film Festival in Boulder, Colorado, last year for his composition for a Cuban-American movie, Cafe and Tobacco.
Last year, he also won a scholarship to work with screen composer Mike Post for 2 1/2 months. Post has won five Grammy awards for his work, which includes the theme songs for NYPD Blue, LA Law and Hill Street Blues.
Mr Petrie said Berklee gave him the "building blocks" for composing, but Post helped to take his work to a new level and land him his current job.
Mr Petrie, who underwent extensive surgery as a child to cure him of deafness, is also quick to credit his old school with his success.
"If I didn't go to Dilworth, I wouldn't have learned to play the piano."
He hopes to partly repay the debt he feels to the boarding school, which provides free education to disadvantaged boys, by composing music for a DVD celebrating Dilworth's centenary next year.
Eventually, he hopes to return to New Zealand and write film scores full-time, but for now he is enjoying Los Angeles, where he lives within view of the Hollywood sign.
No amount of success, though, will make him forget his roots.
"I'll always be a kid from Dilworth," he said. "I'm really fortunate because I don't take anything for granted."
