Update on Matt Bloom's short film 'Endless'

Some quick news!

Really pleased to report that 'Endless' won the BEST HORROR award at the London Independent Film Festival 2011, from a jury headed by Robert Carlisle.

And so far it is official selection in the following international festivals:

*OFFICIAL SELECTION: London Independent Film Festival*

*OFFICIAL SELECTION: Cyprus Int Film Festival, Greece*

*OFFICIAL SELECTION: Bradford Int Film Festival, Fantastic Films*

*OFFICIAL SELECTION: Renderyard Film Festival, Spain*

*OFFICIAL SELECTION: Dead By Dawn Festival, Scotland*

*OFFICIAL SELECTION: Itzon Film Festival, Devon*

*OFFICIAL SELECTION: Loch Ness Film Festival, Scotland*

*OFFICIAL SELECTION: Limelight Film & Arts Awards, London*

*OFFICIAL SELECTION: Exploding Cinema, London*

More as it happens!

Endless - The Finished Film

A couple of months back, I wrote a little bit about the process of composing music for a short film called 'Endless' for award winning writer and director, Matt Bloom.

Endless is a completely fresh and contemporary take on the vampire theme. Starring Chris Geere (Band Of Brothers) - the 8 minute duration of the film plays in super slow motion, and is the story of a siege that takes place over 30 seconds.

Below is the full film, and be sure to check out Matt's other fantastic work at www.mattbloom.co.uk

Inbred Teaser Trailer

Presenting a quick sneak peek at the long anticipated new British horror film from director Alex Chandon, Inbred. A demented horror film with nowt taken out, and featuring Jo Hartley (Dead Mans Shoes, This Is England) and Seamus O'Neill (This Is England '86, and Steven Spielberg's forthcoming WarHorse)

A disparate group of young urban offenders and their care workers embark on a community service weekend in the strange, remote Yorkshire village of Mortlake, which prides on keeping itself to itself, until a minor incident with some local inbred youths rapidly escalates into a blood-soaked, deliriously warped nightmare for all involved.

Inbred is coming in 2011!

Endless - A Completely Different Kind Of Film

The last few months have been super-busy, with the London FILM4 FrightFest soundtrack in August, and 4 different short films since then.

The first of which is a beautifully stylish contemporary vampire piece, called “Endless” - and is produced and directed by award winning TV director Matt Bloom.

Endless is a completely different kind of short film.

It was shot from start to finish on a Phantom Slow Motion camera, and the results are quite simply stunning.

Often shooting at speeds of 400, 500 or 800 frames per second, - the film plays like an involving and intricate Alfred Hitchcock set piece, with stunning levels of suspense and dramatic energy in just 8 short minutes which absolutely draws you into the film from the outset.

Matt originally described the idea to me as ‘a whole horror film in car-crash slow motion, with endless moments of terror’ – so I was really eager to see how he had managed to accomplish such an alternative idea.

I have always been a huge Brian De Palma fan, and I don’t think anybody has really come close to the levels of drama and energy in some of his beautiful signature slow motion set pieces from films like Dressed To Kill, Blow Out and Obsession, - so I was really excited when I saw the rough cut of the film, because it reminded me of some of those very special sequences from some of my favorite films.

There is no dialogue at all, so from a musical perspective, it was a completely unique challenge, and a fantastic learning experience too.

Visually, the film is very strong, – so it became evident early on that it would be so easy to overcook the score, and we didn’t want to resort to obvious cheap (modern) gags like having a huge, ear-splitting “bang” on every single cut.

One of the most difficult things from my perspective was to blend subtle emotional sections with high drama, tension and dread - in such a short space of time, and without any dialogue to misdirect the proceedings.

Before work had started on the score, we swapped a stack of eclectic music back and forth online, and Matt had some strong ideas and musical references up front, which really helped in establishing a tone.

However, it was really interesting to see Endless take on a musical personality all of it’s own throughout the process, and I think the final score was quite different than either of us expected.

Endless, directed by Matt Bloom, and staring Chris Geere (Band Of Brothers, Casualty, The Bill) is coming in Autumn 2010

FILM4 FrightFest 2010 Track Samples

Greetings folks!
It's almost that time again!

The clock is ticking, and on Thursday August 26th - FILM4 FrightFest 2010 will be here!
The UK's biggest and best horror festival is upon us once again - and for the fifth time, it's an honor and a pleasure to put together the music for the event.

So click on the MP3 player to hear some snippets and sample tracks from the CD for this year. The full album track list is also below!

Best wishes, and see you on Thursday!

Escape From New York: Cover Version

Some love it, some don't - but Escape From New York is one of my favorite films of all time - and probably the first time I was utterly spellbound by a film soundtrack.

As a ten or eleven year old kid, I was blown away, and completely hooked from the very first second - as the main theme began to swell ominously over a black screen, right up to the last repeated sequence as the credits play out.
An eerie, brooding minimalist theme to introduce John Carpenter's bleak dystopian vision of Manhattan Island as a futuristic prison, and foreboding sections of music to perfectly compliment the apocalyptic narrative.

I'd wanted to put together a cover of this for years, but didn't get around to it for some reason. After all - what's the point?

But recently, I thought 'what the hell' - and I'm glad I did, because it was fun figuring out the parts, although I admit that picking out some of the subtler layers was way more complicated than I originally thought it was going to be.

All the same - it's quite a minimalist piece of music, and it would be easy to clutter it with unnecessary bits and pieces.

I have tried very hard to remain as faithful and true as possible to the vibe, sounds and layers used in the John Carpenter/Alan Howarth original version - while also trying to get a bit more clout into the rhythm parts, some extra guitars - and there's an additional little solo run in there too towards the end.
Incidentally, the version used on the film credits has some additional reverb, which was presumably added during the mix. The version on the original soundtrack album is completely dry, and doesn't sound anywhere near as powerful. I've gone the reverb route on this cover version for reasons of authenticity.

Out Of Sight - Out Of Mind

Blimey – have you ever tried to capture a clean recording of something outdoors in Britain?

If you had, - you would probably notice a loud background rumbling after a while – which our ears seem to filter out, so we don’t realize it’s actually there.
I was recording a thunderstorm in the communal gardens, which we share with our neighbors, and I realized that there was a weird rumbling hiss, which was even louder than either the rain – or the infrequent thunderclaps I was trying to capture.

The microphones I were using were extremely good Rode stereo mics, so that wasn’t the problem – and I was recording in 24bit on an Olympus LS 10 – so there shouldn’t have been any quality issue at all.

There wasn’t any wind on the mic heads, so that wasn’t causing the issue – and then it occurred to me that the sound was actually car engines, and the sound of tyres on the surface of a road – I’d just never noticed it previously! It’s just there in the background – compartmentalized by our brains into a folder somewhere, named ‘Pay No Attention’ I had never noticed how loud or intrusive it actually was, - or how consistent.

So – I took my recording equipment, and set it up in the countryside to record some running water (or something like that) miles away from any major roads or motorways, - and of course – somewhere in the distance - a plane engine went by – then another, and then another. Deep, massive, rumbling engines that fill the air with sound for minutes - one after another, throughout the duration of the day.

Now I’ve realized that because I know it’s there, - I can hear it all the time – and it goes on consistently for about 20 hours a day.

A couple of months ago, when the Icelandic ash cloud caused flights to be cancelled for weeks across Britain – I realized that the noise pollution levels had dropped away a little bit, because there were no in or outbound passenger flights.

The skies were spookily silent. It was amazing!

On another occasion – I was standing at the very

end of Bournemouth pier, to capture some water sounds. The perfect place! I couldn’t have been any more out to sea unless I was in a boat. All was going well, until somebody on the beach cranked up a generator, and then another one started up a rickety van to move beach huts around! Unbelievable!

Motors, engines, fans and man made sound is everywhere, and we seem to have evolved in order to accommodate noise pollution, and literally refuse to realize that it’s even there – to the point where you can’t even record nature anymore.
The implications are ridiculous. It’s making me paranoid even writing about it!

Out of sight – out of mind!