My name is Michael and welcome to my portfolio website and blog. Here I document my adventures in cinematic music creation and more.
Hope you have a nice stay!
All in Composing
I’m honoured to announce that I have been asked to provide additional orchestration for SkyQuaker’s track “Distance” will will feature on their upcoming second fell length album release.
I’m pleased to announce that I have recently started an ongoing writing collaboration with Adrian Croom who hails from Austin, Texas. We are currently a few tracks into our first project which is focused around hybrid orchestral music cues aimed at trailer and television…
I’m really excited to announce the release of “Film Noir”, a dystopian sound design collection by myself that has just been released to the Film & TV industry for licensing. The album contains 59 sound design bursts aimed at true crime, sci-fi, and otherwise film noir TV productions who are in need of a sound design edge to complete their story.
This also marks our first collaboration with Izzy Swan; who designed the amazing cover artwork for me.
I was absolutely honoured to be asked by my friend and colleague Andrea Ratti if I could score his short film. Fragments… It was awesome to get back in the chair to compose the score and we adapted great working to get this completed during the COVID-19 lockdown! I hosted daily 3-5 hours private live streams in which Andrea could be with me in the session for guidance and spotting, it was just like having him in the same room in some ways!
So today was my “day off”, after doing some general tidying up, chilling out, catching up on the whole COVID-19 issues, calling family and friends and watching some TV, I was missing making music.
I didn’t want to do anything too heavy so figured I’d mess around and do a cover track... Here's one for you video game enthusiasts! In the form of a rock/orchestral cover of the After Burner 2 Soundtrack! If you want me to do more, let me know!
I recently collaborated with Richard Yaxley on a short audiovisual project for AEPL client See Me Easy. They required a short introductory video to showcase and promote their newly patented product.
We started by quickly getting to work on the script, adapting it to flow a little easier and fit comfortably within the length of the video. Once the amended script had been approved, sourced stock footage was used alongside the provided video clips and Richard quickly put a guide video together…
Firstly Mike was asked to send in a short cue intended to demo some SFX which could be used as toolkit for the initial campaign. Mike purchased a cheap kids chalkboard, some kids chalk and got to work recording some scrawling, he also managed to record some gas canisters and merge them into some atmospheric sound design to demo the potential use… This cue is called “SFX Toolkit Pitch V1.2” (see below).
This was followed by what was intended for use in the back end of one of the main trailers in which we reinvented Wendy Carlos & Rachel Elkind’s Main Titles theme by transcribing the progression and adding bigger horns, strings, hybrid percussive elements and of course stop downs.
Netflix came knocking again, this time asking me to “trailerize” a couple of tracks to see if they would function against footage for their trailer for the upcoming season three of 13 Reasons Why.
I was given the full stems two tracks, Timber Timbre - Run From Me and These New Puritan - Into The Fire. From here, we essentially analysed the songs, set up the sessions accordingly and remixed them adding hybrid orchestral elements to both.
While the studio decided to ultimately use a different song entirely, the exercise was interesting and we think we came up with some cool ideas.
Mike recently completed the score for the short film "Crazy Woman Got A Gun" on behalf of AVA - All Visions Align. The short is currently circulating around the festivals ( notably #FilmCon18 and Cinefest in Los Angeles) before putting the project forward for funding in order to facilitate the production of the feature film...
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My friend and colleague Steve Hope-Wynne over at Tangitise Ltd approached me with a brief to compose a short music score complimenting the branding for his company branding and voice over introduction.
I decided to take a modern-meets-elegant approach and employed the use of synthesisers, flutes, strings, horns, pianos and light percussion to complete the piece.
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I have just finished scoring "One Day", a short documentary film which has been created in the hope of raising mental health awareness worldwide. Both the film and the score have been released and can viewed/heard below. Having suffered from mental health issues myself in the past, it's a subject which is quite close to my heart... I very much hope you will find the time to watch the film and share it accordingly.
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Some months after announcing the completion of the trailer score, I am pleased to announce that I have now finished composing the score for the Silver Lining Pictures produced short film "Blanket".
The movie was filmed in just three days using a DSLR and has been described by producer Louis W. Frost as "A beautifully brutal romantic, story with a dramatic twist that will send your heart racing...".
I have kindly been given permission to release the soundtrack ahead of the film release and as such, the full length score is available to buy and stream via Aurora Eclipse Productions Ltd and all major digital stores.
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Clouded Sight Pictures & De Luca Films recently got in touch and asked me to compose a short cue for the first teaser trailer for their upcoming fantasy feature “Dream Finder”, and this was the result. Dream Finder is an exciting new film project based on the bestseller fantasy book of the same name by Roger Taylor and I’m really excited to be apart of! The project is currently in the pre-production stage but director David Christopher-Turner is doing an amazing job keeping us all up-to-date, you can follow the latest test shots, concept art and all news relating to Dream Finder both on the Official Website and Facebook Page (click for links).
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Silver Lining Pictures and Mediahound Films have joined forces to create "Silver Hound Films", a film production company with one aim... To create high quality adverts, idents and show reels for companies and brands. Motion graphics artist David Turner created an immersive and visually rich ident for the company and I was tasked with the job of designing the sound.
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Another project has landed my way from collaborators over at Silver Lining Pictures. The upcoming feature, 'Blanket" was filmed in just three days using a DSLR and has been described by producer Louis W. Frost as "A beautifully brutal romantic, story with a dramatic twist that will send your heart racing...".
With this in mind, I had the task of writing a score for the trailer which was both romantic, but also had a sense of dread, entrapment and horror, you can check out the results below! I'm currently spotting the film before composing the music for the short, Blanket is currently set to hit the festivals during 2016 with a release date early next year.
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Silver Lining Pictures recently got in touch and asked me to compose the soundtrack for the trailer of their upcoming proposed TV Series, Spirit Hunters".
I'm told the idea is still much in development with the Silver Lining team prepping and pitching the show for TV as we speak and as with any start-up programs, a pilot episode must be produced but from what I hear, the show will promise humour, fun and of course, ghost hunting but it it's own very unique way featuring views and opinions from both believers, and non-believers.
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I recently worked alongside my friend and colleague Emily Jackson to produce the score for Silver Lining Pictures upcoming feature film, Cutting Room, check out results below! I've always loved the idea of collaboration which I guess is a plus point given the crazy deadlines we are gives as composers, It's always interesting to see where something goes when two minds work together.
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After the recent success of the Frankie Fraser online documentary which hit 35,000 views in just one month, I recently collaborated with my friends Louis Frost and Bob Taylor of Silver Lining Pictures to produced yet another original score for another short animated documentary, this time focused on the notorious London gangsters Ronnie and Reggie Kray.
Silver Lining provided me with just a few drawings of which I was to base a 13 minute composition on, this was a real challenge for me as I'm so used to composing directly to picture. I was told the music would need to be atmospheric, but still musical and repeat but still change in timbre and mood, below are the results.
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Silver Lining Pictures have just released their first online documentary film focused on the life of Frankie Fraser, a notorious gangster from London in the 1960s. The film begins with a brief introduction to Fraiser himself, detailing some of his crimes and experiences before moving onto the last documented interview with Frankie himself just before his death at the end of 2014.
Silver Lining Pictures were looking for an ambient, but ominous soundscape to use in the background of their film and subsequently licensed Mike's track "Lurking In The Delta Waves" from the AEP Library. Impressively, they managed to use the entire 13 minute track!
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I was recently completed the score, sound design and final mix for the short film "Jogger".
Jogger is the second short film produced by Silver Lining Pictures during the summer of 2014 and the second time I have worked with director/actor Matthew Clark (Francis). The film was shot with no dialogue or location sound and as such, I was responsible for producing an original score, sourcing and manipulating foley and adding sound design to the film.
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