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47 Below

Feature Documentary

Contempory

One Aussie, a pink ‘boobsled’ and 3,400 kilometres of the coldest, most brutal landscape on earth. Join Dr. Geoff Wilson on his world record-breaking story Antarctic odyssey. 

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Evil Mexican Child

Short Film

Horror

In the middle of the Mexican desert, an unsuspecting couple encounter a strange, abandoned child with terrifying powers... Directed by Michael Noonan. Produced by Ricky Mansilla, Raul Raygoza and Michael Noonan 

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Cough

Short Film

Soundscape

Cough is a critically aclaimed short film by filmmaker Jason Kempnich set in a post infectious diseased ridden society. Jason wanted the score of the film to blend into the sound design, using unconventional sounds, drones and percussions to create a sparse and oppressive feeling for the audience. The score employs more traditional instrumentation as it develops throughout the film. Weaving some thematic elements under the main characters in earlier scenes to add to the emotion in the climax of the film. 

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Photobooth

Short Film

Soundscape

Photobooth is a short film by filmaker Michael Noonan. The film's score comprises cool analogue synths swamped in delays and filters and mixes them with orchestral instruments to create an earie sonic landscape to match the dark, almost other worldly nature of the film. Photobooth came third in Tropfest 2012.

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Orchids

Feature Documentary

Contemporary

Orchids is a delicate, handmade film with a whimsical touch and the music needed to share these qualities. One of the most important aspects in composing the Orchids soundtrack, was finding a balance between moments when the music played an active part in the narrative, and those when it provided a background to the unfolding scenes.  

Phoebe's vision for the soundtrack was that it should reflect the film's personal stories, underscore the many moments of humour, and not sound overly-produced. To achieve this the score drew on a simple, organic palette of vintage keyboards, mallet instruments and guitars to complement the lighter moods, and explored unusual time signatures and production techniques in creating darker effects where necessary. Pitching instruments outside their natural range was a particularly successful technique in producing more unusual timbres.

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Sharks in the City

Feature Documentary

Contemporary

Sharks in the City is a feature length HD 5.1 surround documentary for Nat Geo Wild, broadcast in late 2011 and shot on location in The Gold Coast Australia and Corpus Christi Texas. It follows the rising Bull shark population in man made canal estates and the consequenses of having this aggressive species living in residential estates.

In addition to producing over a dozen mood tracks for use in the earlier stages of production, many elements were scored to the final cut of the film to add dramatic tension. This was needed in many of the science heavy components of the documentary to keep a dramatic pace.

Recreation scenes required special care to work in closely with the sound design elements so as to complement each other rather than compete.

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Medicine Woman

13 part documentary series

World Music/Contemporary

This epic 13 part series shot in HD with 5.1 surround and follows the medicine woman, a young native American trained in western medicine, on a quest across six continents to collate the traditional healing methods of various indigenous cultures across the world in order to create a more holistic knowledge of healing.

The series posed a unique challenge insofar as the soundtrack needed to have a world music flavour but also reflect the modern western styles embodied in the medicine woman herself. The theme for the series is therefore a tapestry of indigenous and western sounds. Each episode introduces the viewer to a new culture and the music needed to reflect this. So research was vital understanding how these traditional instruments were used and to create the musical palette and playing style for each. In addition to the original theme for the series, credit and next week music, original opening themes were written for each episode. Any repeated themes were underscored so that specific instruments from the region could be mixed in to give each episode its own sound.

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Ascension

Short Flim

Choral/South American

This film’s soundtrack married south American bossa novas, Gregorian chants, provincial jazz standards and classical opera. As the film was a black comedy, the challenge was to control when and where the music was supporting the action, or having a place in the humour of the scene.

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Unlikely Travellers

3 part documentary series

Contemporary/ Traditional

This controversial series involved the production of an original contemporary song to act as the opening theme for each episode and to feature at other key points in the story. As the last two episodes were shot in Egypt, traditional instruments were used to create middle eastern sounding cues.

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Wings to Fly

Feature documentary

Contemporary/ Ambient

This sometimes dark story explored the relationship of a teenage girl and her family over three years. It needed a suitable soundtrack that would help the viewer move into the world of the subject and underscore the dysfunctional relationship between the girl and her father.
The music for this film sometimes drifted into a soundscape of strange noises and evolving moods, free from tempo, and punctuated at precise points in the narrative with piano.
To achieve this particular sound, one of the tracks for the documentary was sampled, dropped two octaves and reversed to create the swirling background that echoed the conflicting voices in the story.

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The Chant of the Scrub Turkey

Documentary

Blue Grass/ Acoustic

This light-hearted story about a community’s struggle to co-exist with the native scrub turkeys needed a soundtrack that reflected the alternative lifestyle of the local inhabitants.

The score featured traditional Blue Grass instrumentation such as Dobro acoustic guitars, mandolins, fiddles, banjos, and upright bass to create most of the cues. The opening theme includes a sitar and some traditional Chinese instruments to introduce some Asian elements to represent the Buddhist principles some of the locals live by.

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The Turner Affair

Feature Film

Contempory score

The score for this film featured piano and warm synth strings to evoke the dark and urban nature of the setting and plot. Traditional thematic devices were employed for characters and narrative cues.

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Rapid Fear

Feature Film

Contempory score/ Electronic

Various loop-based, filtered grooves were created and mixed with guitars, orchestral and electronic instruments and world drums to create a fast modern score to support the many action scenes in this film whilst not straying too far from the conventions of its genre. A number of contemporary songs were written for various montage scenes as well as more traditional scoring techniques in more dramatic moments.

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Endurance Island

Feature Film

Contempory score/ Orchestral

This feature film score employed orchestral elements to support the film’s action and suspense scenes. Stabbing French horns punch through dramatic moments in the action and percussion instruments sequence together to make fast-paced music beds. Synthesizers were used to make evolving soundscapes in tension scenes.

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Heads up

Short Film

Contemporary

The music featured the chime made from a mortar shell being struck by a bayonet in one of the scenes in the film. The sample was filtered and tuned to combine with evolving soundscapes and tribal percussion to create a tense warlike underscore.

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The Blue Bike

Feature Documentary

French Provincial

The soundtrack in this film was inspired by the continental sounds of Pink Martini and French Pop artist Barbara. Combining nylon guitars with old upright pianos recorded with ribbon mics and mixing them with bass, brush kits, vibraphones and accordions provided the backbone for this score. It needed ultimately to feel like a celebration of a rich life well-lived in southern France.