Current/Recent projects

TV/Film

June 2010: I've started in on a very stylish short film. Looking forward to the creative sound design needed for the scene where the character withdraws into her subconscious...

A 2009 short film - "Homefront" (Picture The Difference) - features piano composition of mine. It has plenty of opportunities for the underscore to gently set the scene and move things along as the dialog is very sparse.

In late 2008 another of Southern Screen Productions' documentaries I've composed for was broadcast. It followed the progress of the trial of a new drug for Parkinson's disease.

"Bumble" is being broadcast every day on the new digital TV channel TVNZ6 in NZ. It is a series aimed at pre-schoolers I wrote music for some time ago (1999 - 2001).

My music for a short film was given the Best Score award in the regional finals of the 2007 48 Hours Film Competition. The film; "Carboys and the Indian", won the regional competition and went on to win the Runner-Up award nationally. Some samples of the music are on this page and this page. The film itself is here (7 minutes).

In early 2007 I did the score to "Looking Up" - a bittersweet short film entry into that year's Tropfest short film festival.

I finished a trilogy of TV documentaries during 2006 for Southern Screen Productions.

During 2005 I wrote music for the TV series "The Pretender"; a comedy pilot, "Oswald Gold"; and some preliminary work on music arrangements for another comedy pilot "Liberation Force" - all productions of Environmentally Hazardous Films (who were behind the feature film "Offensive Behaviour" I worked on in 2004).

In December 2005 I finished work on a 10-episode reality-based TV series, "Making Italy Home", for Raconteur Productions. It follows the ups and downs of a New Zealand family (from Hastings) who are transplanted to a village in northern Italy for six months to live and work. It was broadcast in early 2006.

I was the composer for "Body Shocks", produced and broadcast in 2005 by iMotion - an interesting and action-packed TV documentary featuring survivors of unusual accidents.

For two very brief and hectic days I was composer on "Bruised Gold" - a regional winner of the 2005 48 Hours Short Film competition.

In 2005 I arranged and sequenced backing tracks for another season of the "Wannabes" TV series.

Theatre

Currently working on two interesting music-for-theatre projects.

March/April 2010: sound design for the Court Theatre's play "The Female Of The Species". Not much call for music, but recorded a nice version of "Mad World" (a jazz-tinged version of the Gary Jules version of the classic Tears For Fears original...) with Jennine Bailey on vocals.

I created a music/sound design for a production of the Dylan Thomas play "Under Milk Wood" at Christchurch's Court Theatre in February/March 2008.

Also in February/March 2008 I completed original music for a live show in Christchurch Cathedral - "Appassionata" - featuring amazing custom-built costumes (by Jenny Gillies) based around a floral concept.

Carl Nixon's new play "The Raft" was performed as part of the 2007 Christchurch Arts Festival. My music for it is written for cello and clarinet, and includes a liberal dose of processed cello harmonics for the more surreal moments. There's a review here.

In April and May 2006 the Court Theatre performed a simultaneous double season of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" and Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead". My music and sound design for them involved recording sounds like recorders, lute, drum, violin, curtains, coins and water; processing the sounds; composing pieces of music; then encoding surround mixes (I worked with three banks of independent 4.1 surround setups in the theatre) for spatialisation through 17 speakers.

In 2005 I was musical director for a musical play, "Dracula"; musically a very dark and stylish take on the familiar story. This show required original incidental music and sometimes twisted and darkened versions of 80's pop songs which I sequenced.

Composition for live performance

The February 2008 "Appassionata" Gala Concert (details here) featured original music of mine being performed by treble choir, arch-lute, recorders (and various processed and synthetic textures from Logic). Also appearing were Dame Malvina Major, Fiona Pears, Ballantyne Haines, Brain Law and the Cathedral Choir.

I created an orchestral version of Guns And Roses' "Sweet Child Of Mine" for the "L'Oreal Colour Trophy Awards 2006" in late July (see Samples page).

A commission for saxophone and piano; "Bluster", was performed in early July 2006 at the World Saxophone Congress in Slovenia.