My desire to write music for film predates me even putting pencil to manuscript paper for the first time. Even though I had been listening to film soundtracks and scores for years, it\u2019s hard to describe the impact of what James Horner\u2019s score for \u201cBraveheart\u201d<\/i> did to me. For the first time, I went from appreciating the impact of a great soundtrack to thinking, \u201cWhat if I was responsible for that impact?\u201d It would still be several years before I composed music myself, but the itch was implanted.<\/p>\n
My first film scores were for short films my friends and myself made. They gave me a chance to experiment and follow my own impulses in how best to serve the story. You can find those films online- to varying degrees, they illustrate some of my own musical ideas, and concepts of what film music can do, in action.<\/p>\n
In 2014, I rekindled that dream to write film music academically. The three online courses I took for my Certificate in Film and TV Music gave me a stronger foundation in the theory behind creating film music, but when it came to networking with other filmmakers, nothing really came of it.<\/p>\n
In February of this year, I received an email I didn\u2019t expect from someone I have become friends with over the years. My first interactions with writer-director Brian Ackley came after I first saw, and responded positively to, his feature film, \u201cUptown\u201d<\/i><\/a>. Over the years, we\u2019ve talked about films like \u201cPayback\u201d<\/i><\/a> and \u201cBringing Out the Dead\u201d<\/i><\/a>, as well as another feature he directed, \u201cAlienated\u201d<\/i><\/a>, and \u201c2050\u201d<\/i><\/a>, which he wrote, and I recorded an audio commentary for. (I’ve also reviewed his 2019 film, “Til Death Do Us Part”<\/i><\/a>.) This wasn\u2019t an email to review his next film, though; it was to write the music for his next film.<\/p>\n \u201cPlayer, PhD\u201d<\/i> is a romantic comedy about a janitor (Gabard, played by Maxson Gibbs) who pretends to be something different to impress women. When he meets Maffi (Joselie Saint-Hilaire), he continues the ruse. Maffi feels like the right one, though, and this time around, his playing might get him into trouble.<\/p>\n Light is not necessarily my strong suit as a composer, and when it comes to scoring a comedy, light is important. That meant this was going to be a challenge. But it was one I decided to embrace, as the opportunity to push myself, and fulfill a lifelong dream, was one I wanted to take on.<\/p>\n An independent production, “Player, PhD”<\/i> has an Indiegogo campaign<\/a> going to raise money for post-production and marketing, if you’d like to read more, and contribute to the process of bringing the film to audiences.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll have more when the film gets ready to release. Until then, thanks for listening.<\/p>\n Brian Skutle My desire to write music for film predates me even putting pencil to manuscript paper for the first time. Even though I had been listening to film soundtracks and scores for years, it\u2019s hard to describe the impact of what James Horner\u2019s score for \u201cBraveheart\u201d did to me. For the first time, I went from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-news-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/MV5BNGQwOGVjZjUtN2Y3MC00ZTQ5LWFjZmUtZDAzNmIyOGM0YzI1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjM5MTU3ODQ@._V1_UY264_CR90180264_AL_.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14183"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14350,"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14183\/revisions\/14350"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonic-cinema.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nwww.sonic-cinema.com<\/a>
\nbrianskutle.bandcamp.com<\/a>
\n“Creative Beginnings” at CDBaby<\/a>
\n“Dark Experiments” at CDBaby<\/a>
\n“Sonic Visions of a New Old West” at CDBaby<\/a>
\n“Beyond the Infinite: A Musical Odyssey” at CDBaby<\/a>
\n“Storytelling” at CDBaby<\/a>
\n“Arpeggiations & Atmospheres” on BandCamp<\/a>
\n“Classical Cinema” on BandCamp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"