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 […]
