How do you generate great creative ideas when you're faced with the abject terror of the blank page?! Here are my tried-and-tested strategies for composing music and beyond. These are the methods of idea generation I've actually done. They all work. The order doesn't matter. Not a composer? They'll work great in any line of …
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What's your brief? Do you have the money, the time, the energy, the resources, the information, the people? What do you need to do what you want to do? What exactly is it that you want to do?
I’m scoring a feature at the moment and there’s so much music to keep on top of that I had to up my organisational/project management game. So these are the apps and systems I’m currently using. Please note, it’s always work in progress and I'll modify this list depending on what the work demands, now and in future.
Disclaimer - just my humble opinions and life experience here... I subscribe to the mantra, ‘a change is as good as a rest’. Mostly. Rest for me isn’t just about sleep, relaxation, meditation and quiet stillness. It’s about balancing out my work activities and daily obligations with their ‘opposites’ to support me in doing these …
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Inspiration - it’s a fickle beast. We all know that. Sometimes I’m inspired, sometimes I’m not. Still have a deadline though, still need to get paid. One of my big priorities and motivators though is also to enjoy the experience as much as clients will (hopefully) enjoy the music I’ll compose for their film or …
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I think my theme for 2017 might have been 'getting out of my comfort zone'. I said YES to bunch of opportunities I perhaps wouldn't normally have gone for. Sometimes it worked really well for me, sometimes it... didn't quite turn out as I'd hoped. I learned a LOT about how, why and when to 'get out' of said 'comfort zone' for maximum value...
Time is short and I've still got work to do. Rather than curl up in denial under the duvet with Netflix and a bottle of Belvedere, this is how I try to approach a challenging amount of creative work, such as the epic beast that is Flood. - Accept it. Don't fight it. It's going to …
Continue reading "A Recipe For Undeniable Creative Success"
It Happened Here is a Slung Low audio/installation adventure set in Holbeck, Leeds, which opened in August 2016. It Happened Here was a surprisingly freeing project to work on; usually my work is underscoring dialogue or action, either as live theatre or onscreen, and synchronisation with these events is a high priority - synchronisation of tone, emotion, pace, volume and …
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The evening concert for the National Commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of the Somme on 1st of July went to plan and was well-received. Phew! So right now, for me, is all about taking the time to rest and recharge the batteries. To be honest, I took a couple of days off directly …
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Time is flying by, and we're already nearing March of a year that feels like it only began a week ago. I've been working on Red Star's latest animation this month, in a very different music style to my normal orchestral/sound-designy schtick! 'Tis alway nice to have a challenge. Next month brings with it more …
Continue reading "Meandering Thoughts on the Ego"