The Hypnotist [Extract]

Here is an extract from The Hypnotist, a short film I scored for director Jonathon Crewe.

The Joker [Extract]

Here is a portion of The Joker, a short film I scored for director Jonathon Crewe.

Completing The Hypnotist for Cannes

It is a great privilege to be able to work on a project for a prolonged period of time. I have had this privilege while scoring director Jon Crewe's experimental short film, 'The Hypnotist'. Quite often clients get me involved at a later stage of the production phase, but with 'The Hypnotist' I even got to read the manuscript before any footage was ready. At the moment of writing I feel this is by far my most mature soundtrack to date, and I am very excited to see the response the film will get.

The Hypnotist is being entered into 'Cannes Cinefondacion'.

Cinema Bloody Cinema

I scored director Jon Crewe's contribution for Reed.co.uk's short film contest, 'Cinema Bloody Cinema'. It was a very short term project, and I think the entire film was completed in about one and a half weeks. Jon Crewe is a very productive director, and since I started working with him late 2009, this is the 3rd project I score for him.



I think the project came well together, generally speaking. I'm not personally that satisfied with my music. As I was working on it, the film was cut shorter and shorter, and I had to do a lot of last minute transitions between various pieces of music that I'm not that happy about. I learn from all the projects I work on, though, and I think there are some quite nice moments in there.

If you see an offer, don't hesitate

At the beginning of the year, dB Audioware were offering their guitar amp simulator vst 'Flying Haggis' for $10 instead of the usual $99. It said "$10 for 2010".

I thought "Nice, I've got all year to evaluate this amp sim!" I was pretty tight on money and figured I'd give it a few months before I decided. It appears, if you see a good offer, you should make up your mind pretty fast if you want to go for it or not.

'Flying Haggis' is now $29 I just noticed. No way I'll get it for that amount of money, knowing I could have had it for $10.

I did enjoy playing around with the demo, but there were some limitations to the sound. I could get some pretty cool dirty clean sounds out of it, but didn't have time to evaluate if it would work out in a mix for me or not.

It's a shame the creator of 'Flying Haggis' didn't state when the offer would run out.

I guess I'll delete that demo and move on to the next amp sim... (speaking of which, there are some amazing free ones that I might get back to in this blog)

2009: An important year

2009 was a big year for me personally. I scored my first feature film, director Simon Aitken's feature debut 'Blood+Roses'. This opened a lot of doors for me as I now had my name on imdb.com, which really helps garner respect in the field, and more importantly, I developed a network. I've written music for several projects put together by the script writer of 'Blood+Roses', Ben Woodiwiss, and he also put me in touch with Jonathon Crewe, who I have scored several short films for.

It was also a huge year for me in terms of equipment and ideology. I've invested in several highly acclaimed virtual instruments for composing, and have saved no money whatsoever all year. I decided to invest all the time and money I could into my music.

As a result I now own East West Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra, Symphonic Choirs, StormDrum2 and Ministry of Rock as well as Cakewalk Rapture, Dimension Pro and Steven Slate Drums 3.5 Platinum: a fine selection of sound sources for creating antyhing from cinematic symphonic pieces to electronic and rock based music. I invested a lot of money, but I now have some very powerful sounds at my fingertips.

2010 should be a very interesting year. At the start of 2009 I had none of these fantastic tools, but as I face the new year I am prepared...


The trailer for 'Blood+Roses', scored by me.