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!
We have been busy over several months working with Leatherhead local George Jarvis to bring his first commercial project “Panama Rose” to life!
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!
British rockers SkyQuaker have been busy! With their debut single "Queen Kong" only being released 5 months ago, they delivered me their impressive follow-up single "Thank God for Rock and Roll" in record time…
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…
Mike and Aurora have been busy working closely with these two fine gentlemen to produce and release their debut single “Queen Kong”. To the left we have Ben ‘Ferdy’ Ford and on the right, we have Steve Hope-Wynne.
Mike was aware of SkyQuaker for some time, Mike has worked with Steve and Ben both directly and indirectly for years, but being engaged solidly on other projects, Mike struggled to find the time to dedicate to the song… Until October anyway when Steve Hope-Wynne finally caught his attention with a demo mix and asked if he would engineer the song. A drum and additional guitar recording session with George McFarlane was already setup at Echo 7 Recording Studios in Ewell, Surrey for the following week and Mike attended. After a successful session Co-Producing and generally having a good laugh with everyone at the studio, it was down to work on the mix, master and release…
Clare Estelle strikes again with her awesome new sensual gothic love song “Sacred Night”. The track is another successful collaboration between Clare Estelle and Steve Hope-Wynne. As before with Clare’s track “Somehow”, Mike was asked to assist in dealing with final Pro Tools session to take the track through the final mix and master.
The track sounds stunning and in awe when viewing the cover artwork! The track is available to buy and stream worldwide via this link. Until next time, do keep your eyes peeled for Clare’s latest news and releases on her website.
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...
Click ‘View Post” above to continue reading…
During the final months of 2017, Mike was contacted by his friend and colleague Steve Hope-Wynne to see if he would consider getting involved in the production of Clare Estelle's collaborative track "Somehow", and if he would contribute some musical elements of his own.
The pair had been working together and experimenting and bouncing ideas off each other for a while; Clare had composed the music and written lyrics alongside performing piano, acoustic guitar and some percussion. Through various collaborations, Clare then sourced Irish whistle (Sam Piper), drums (Stuart Hemphill) and bass guitar (Phil Smith) with Steve adding electric guitars and a variety of his own vocal section recordings.
Click ‘View Post” above to continue reading…
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.
Click ‘View Post” above to continue reading…
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.
Click ‘View Post” above to continue reading…
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.
Click ‘View Post” above to continue reading…
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).
Click ‘View Post” above to continue reading…
I recently finishing the sound design for the ident to support the promotion of the upcoming feature film, "Dream Finder". The film is currently in pre-production while the team look to source funding for the project.
Click ‘View Post” above to continue reading…
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.
Click ‘View Post” above to continue reading…
