News

April 21st 2007

Well it's been a long time since the last post! But I guess 2006 was a HUGE year!

We worked on some massive jobs, the biggest being the unbelievable "HAPPY FEET" for composer John Powell, which recorded over two weeks at Trackdown Scoring Stage in Sydney. We recorded massive choirs (80 men was a hoot, and the 500-strong choir recorded in a sound stage at Fox Studios), a huge brass ensemble (9 french horns!) and lots of strings, two harps, taiko drums, you name it - it was in there!

I also managed to complete the score to my first feature film "On the Edge of Eden" which is in post sound at present. It has around 70 minutes of music which was mixed by Simon Leadley at Trackdown on December 6th, 2 weeks before my daughter Emma was born!

http://www.edgeofedenmovie.com/

Here's to a very busy and exciting 2007!

February 17, 2006

Happy 2006! Year of the Dog. I hope it bodes well for all, and it certainly looks like a very busy year for me and "the team".

From October through February I've been working for composer Christopher Gordon on his original music for the upcoming Commonwealth Games opening ceremony. Not only have I been copying his meticulous handwritten scores, but creating mockups with orchestral samples for the choreographers to use. MIDI editing is painstakingly tedious at times, but I have found it quite stimulating working on another aspect of scoring, especially getting more experience mixing an orchestra (albeit a "fake" one!).

David Page and Elena Kats-Chernin have composed an orchestral work called "Amalgamate" which is being performed by Australian Ballet and Bangarra, and choreographed by Steven Page. I was called upon to create orchestral mockups of this score and David and I added in the traditional Aboriginal material into the orchestral audio to great effect. I cant wait to see the work - i think it will be an exciting performance!

Composer John Gray last week completed scoring and recording an orchestral score for "Kokoda" an Australian feature film which will be released on Anzac Day 2006. It is described as "A bitter battle is fought between Australian and Japanese soldiers along the Kokoda trail in New Guinea during World War II." The score was dark and brooding and quite disturbing at times, though had moments of grace shining through. We had fun preparing the scores for this film and cant wait to see the finished result.

The Queensland Orchestra has requested a score of Guy Gross' "Priscilla - Queen of the Desert" for a live performance next month. I will be working with Guy on orchestrating his synth and choir music from the film into an orchestral extravaganza (with large choir). How exciting that film music can be revisited and rejuvenated in such a way.

I recently attended the Sydney Symphony concert of Tan Dun's Paper Concerto and "The Map" - a fantastic audio-visual work where the orchestra weaved itself around video footage of traditional Chinese performers from a remote village in Hunan. It was a stunning work, even from row X in the concert hall (the place was sold out!) it really inspired me.

"The Saviour" - a short film I wrote the music for - has won Slamdance film festival in the US recently. It has also screened in France at Clermont-Ferrand.

"Butterfly Man" - the short documentary by Samantha Rebillet, also carrying one of my scores, was winner of an award at IDFA in Amsterdam, one of the most prestigious documentary festivals in the world!

Exciting things coming up in the next few months, a very busy year of the dog indeed. Bow wow!

J.W.