It’s an astonishing story so brilliantly and chillingly written by Craig Mazin. The pace, the casting, the direction, the design, the cinematography ALL work in concert to create this unforgettable experience. But the soundtrack, the music score and the fusion it creates with the soundscape, stand out for me. Immediately evocative, the score by Hildur […]
I love this video essay by Alex Ball with long term, John Carpenter collaborator Alan Howarth. It harks back to a time when innovation was profoundly inventive and deeply analogue, even though of course the score is ‘digital’. John Carpenter was a massive influence for me as a kid and while I was making Zombie […]
There are many ways in which a film can make huge dramatic gains without maxing out the budget. If you are making a low budget horror (and I have made two), and if everyone involved is on the same budgetary wavelength, then why not work with your composer to utilise ‘The Shepherds Tone’ so successfully […]
Last week we did the final sound mix for ‘Be Heard’ at a top facility in central London, inside a state of the art dubbing theatre. I have been present at the mix of many films now, features and shorts, and there are certain patterns and things you can do to get the most from […]
Library music is a great resource for filmmakers. I am a huge fan of Audio Network with their simple and hugely cost effective pricing. I used them first (and extensively) on my Oscar shortlisted film ‘Gone Fishing’ (though not all music was Audio Network, but ALL was library music). However, one down side of library […]
Yesterday, Polish composer Wojciech Kilar died. Very sad news. I first heard his work in Coppola’s Dracula in the early nineties, then again in the Ninth Gate, and being a film score nut, I tracked down his immense body of work and became a smitten by the dark and beautiful eastern European tones. Above is […]
Or…How I came to The Guerilla Masterclass, met a composer and ended up in Macedonia recording my soundtrack with an orchestra! By Josephine Halbert I thought I would share the extraordinary story of Guerilla Film Masterclass delegate Josephine Halbert, and how she recorded the score for her short with an orchestra in Macedonia. Below are […]
I have just listened to around 1,000 tracks for a film music project around new composers. I have included one of my favourite submissions here, to help illustrate some of my points, but mainly because I think it’s just a stunning piece of work – it’s called Corpus 6 (Part 5) by Kiriakos Spirou and […]
Over the past days, a few people have asked for various things from my first movie and ‘baptism of fire’, ‘The Runner’ – photos, DVDs and the soundtrack. I shared the soundtrack on SoundCloud (above) and it got me thinking about what I learned about music on that first feature film. Here are my thoughts…. […]
Last weekend I managed to get VIP tickets to the Fein Festival in Finsbury Park. And I ended up onstage with Thin Lizzy for the final set of the event. It’s a long story as to how this happened and it was a lovely unfolding evening of surprises for both Lucia and myself. It was […]
Over the last few days, there has been a flurry of Gone Fishing activity. I can confirm that we have indeed sold the film to a major TV broadcaster! Can’t say who yet, but it’s very exciting. Also some more awards will be announced soon, again, can’t say what just now but will do in […]
As the dust settles after the screening of ‘Urban Ghost Story’ on the BBC, I thought I would do a final post to share some stuff that I have had requests for. Above is the ‘making of’ documentary from the DVD. The full 30 pages or so from the latest ‘Guerilla Film Makers Handbook’, about […]
All this week I am on location shooting an ambitious corporate film for a major technology company. The film is going to be showing lots of cool new technology in action, and as such, it’s been my job to get all that kit working for the camera. I have always been a techno-geek, so this […]
The video is complete, and the band LOVE IT! If you haven’t already, watch the video blog above and marvel at how a few extras can be encouraged to go crazy and end looking like a huge crowd – I am amazed myself that we pulled this one off! This was so much fun to […]
Over the last week or so I have been producing a music promo for an emerging band called The Silence Within. They are from the Kerrang school of music, so think NuMetal, Linkin Park etc. They are also a good looking bunch of lads, so we have high hopes for them on Kerrang and Scuzz […]
I have received a huge amount of emails from people saying how much they enjoyed the film. I have also had requests about the music, some of you want to know how to hear it again. So I have made up a short edit of the music tracks, which runs for about 15 minutes, and […]
I have been working on music (STILL I KNOW!)for the last few days and have come to believe that in order to get the immense and epic battle music I need, I am going to have to use some library or production music. This seems to me to be the only way to get that […]
Still working on music for Gone Fishing. We have entered that dreaded stage where we have fallen in love with the temporary music we used, and anything else, just does not do the same job. This is a typical problem and I am trying hard to stay focussed on a solution and not on what […]
Last night I worked with Eddie Hamilton and we did the second cut of the film. This was to generally tidy, trim and make neat and perfect all the cuts in the movie. Also to add storyboarded shots that we will be filming next week in a pickup shoot day, and finally to tackle the […]
We are now adding music to Gone Fishing, and for part of the score, I am using music pulled from one of the unique music libraries here in the UK – Audio Network has thousands of tracks that you can use in your production, for a one off fee of £250 – all rights, worldwide. […]
Music is always a vital element of any movie, and I have often felt that it’s all too often used to prop up dodgy drama. There is that great Alan Parker cartoon that says something like, ‘the script is terrible, actors incompetent, director an idiot, editing is terrible – right we’d better fire the composer!’ […]
