XpoNorth Digital to host series of Industry Masterclasses for UHI's CPD Sync Module
How To Prepare Your Music For Sync
Wednesday 14th February, 3pm-4pm
This interactive session will offer an overview on music synchronisation in TV, advertising, games and film. Join leading music consultant, Steve Farris, as he breaks down the sync and composition landscape and overviews the role of a supervisor in today’s evolving music industry. There will also be a focus on what supervisors need in order to licence music, how to build a network in this distinctive space and insights on how to research and approach music supervisors.
Steve Farris
Steve Farris is a music consultant with a background in music publishing A&R and Sync. His consultancy offers expert music publishing advice, sync representation/licensing, catalogue optimisation and mentoring. Steve has over thirty years experience, having held A&R positions at EMI, Sony, Peoplesound, A7 Music, On The Fiddle, Polar Patrol, Spirit/B-Unique and 13 Artists. He has signed and worked with artists and writers including the Levellers, Snow Patrol, Belle and Sebastian, Rae & Christian, Midfield General, Cut La Roc, Kidda, Here We Go Magic, Johnny McDaid (Ed Sheeran), Luke Temple, Nadine Shah, Kathryn Joseph,Declan O’Rourke, Thomas McLaughlin (Soak),Bo Bruce/ Equador, Malpas, Node,Tired Pony, Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, Queen Zee, Bilk, Vryll Society and Shadowlark. His services have also been employed by companies including - JUMP European Market Accelerator, BIMM, Faction Music, Sound Czech, Leeds Conservatoire, Scruff Of The Neck, HEMI Music Hub, AKQA, PRS Foundation, MVKA, Access Creative and Scratch My Progress.
Music and media 101: Three conversations about the three ways in which music is used in film and television
Music finds its way onto film, trailers, television advertising and gaming in one of three ways. It can be commissioned - specially composed music, it can be supervised (secondary use of a pre-existing song by an artist) or it can be by licensing production or library music. In three sessions, Mark Gordon from Score Draw Music will bring a key stakeholder from one of these areas and facilitate an end-to-end discussion with them about their pathway into the industry and how to approach starting the journey to working in the music for media landscape.
Session One: Production / Library Music
Wednesday 28th February, 3pm-4pm
In this session Mark will be joined by production music composer Mat Andasun - one of the most experienced composers of library music in the UK.
Mark Gordon
Mark Gordon started Score Draw Music in 2004 after a career as a musician that included recording 4 Peel Sessions, playing live shows in the USA and Japan, and having tracks he had co-written placed on shows such as Malcolm in the Middle and Sesame Street.
His composition work in Score Draw Music has included co-writing music for Dolly Parton to sing in a children’s animation series, a co-write in the 2018 Oscar-winning film The Shape of Water, and ongoing work across film, television and animation- as well as running the company on a day to day basis.
Outside of the company Mark is a member of the Ivors Academy Media Committee Board, dealing with ongoing issues
for media composers around copyright, skills and opportunities. He also sits on the Future Screens NI Board, delivering expert technical skills, opportunity and growth across film and broadcast, animation, games and immersive technologies and industries in
Northern Ireland. Mark also programmes Output Belfast - Ireland’s largest music conference.
Mat Andasun
Composer and multi-instrumentalist Mat Andasun exists in musical worlds encompassing TV, film, vocal, orchestral, percussive, jazz and diverse electronic forms.
His long career spans the 1980s prog rock revival as part of Pendragon (EMI) followed by the 90s underground samba scene and a multiplicity of commissions for dance companies, theatre companies and short films, with further countless placements in television programmes including Louis Theroux, Horizon, Panorama, Top Gear and The Bridge. His witty and distinctive style provides the theme for BBC2's arts programme, Between The Covers.
In 2022 Mat began working alongside RTS and Emmy Award winning composer, Nainita Desai and has scored music for A&E Network's true crime series, First Blood. He also worked on Blast Films' documentary, Murder In The Alps, Wonderhood Studios series, My Grandparents War and the Optomen documentary, Partition In Colour all of which were aired on Channel Four. He finished the year with a new Sky/Netflix natural history series, Predators. This year, as well as albums for Sonoton, Inspired and Reliable Source production music libraries, he is working on the BBC Studios/Nat Geo natural history series, Ocean Xplorers which is executive produced by director James Cameron.
Session Two: The Role of a Music Supervisor
Wednesday 13th March, 3pm-4pm
In this session Mark will be joined by leading music supervisor, Sophie Urquhart.
Sophie Urquhart
Sophie founded Tin Drum Music in October 2011 following a previous 8 years experience in music supervision. Starting out as Creative Director of Huge Music, an in house music consultancy for WCRS/ Engine, one of London’s top 10 advertising agencies, Sophie supervised countless high profile advertising campaigns including Sky, BMW and 3 Mobile, feature films such as cult music festival documentary ‘All Tomorrow’s Parties’ (Jonathan Caouette) and television series such as Sugar Rush (2005)
Sophie then joined Chrysalis Music as Creative Director of synchronisation working alongside artists such as Blondie, Bowie, Damon Albarn and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and subsequently joined Spirit Music Group as Senior Director of Creative Services.
Tin Drum Music is an independent, full-service music consultancy specialising in creative search, negotiation and licensing across all media. They have sourced and licensed commercial music and bespoke composition for a number of award winning advertising campaigns. Some reel highlights are;
E.ON + Gorillaz; A Solar Collaboration (winner of Best Branded Entertainment category at Music Week Sync Awards 2017 and Best Band + Brand Partnership for the Music + Sound awards 2018)
The coveted 2020 Amazon Christmas campaign creating a beautiful arrangement of the Queen classic ‘The Show Must Go On’ directed by Melina Matsoukas
A reimagining of the classic Diet Coke jingle ‘Just For The Taste Of It’ with Grammy award winning artist Thundercat directed by Autumn de Wilde
Several beautifully choreographed spots for Agent Provocateur including Into The Pink ,
‘Pump It Up’ and ‘We Play To Win’
Other recent brand campaigns include Google, Apple, Diesel, M&S, HSBC, National Rail, Old Jamaica, Quality Street, Eurostar, Net A Porter to name a few
Feature films include Stone Roses: Made Of Stone (Shane Meadows), Backstreet Boys ‘Show ‘Em What You’re Made Of’ (Stephen Kijak) and Get Duked! (Ninian Doff).
Their latest feature ‘Last Swim’ (Sasha Nathwani) had it’s world premiere at Berlinale Film Festival in February of this year and it won the coveted Crystal Bear Award for Best Film.
Tin Drum have recently completed two TV series Lost Boys & Fairies for BBC1 and Dance School for Channel 4 (Duck Soup Films) which will air this year.
Session Three: The Role of a Film / TV Composer
Wednesday 27th March, 3pm-4pm
In this session Mark will be joined by award winning composer, Rob Lord.
Rob Lord
Rob Lord is an award winning film and television composer working primarily between the UK and the USA. His scores and songs can be heard in films such as Amazon Studio’s dramedy Troop Zero starring Oscar winners Viola Davis and Allison Janney, Universal Pictures I Am Duran with Robert De Niro, comedy features Apartment 12 starring Mark Ruffalo and Coffee Wars with Derry Girl’s Saoirse-Monica Jackson, Sci-Fi heist movie Slipstream starring Sean Astin and Vinnie Jones and horror films Writer’s Retreat, Pumpkinhead Ashes To Ashes and Pumpkinhead Blood Feud with Lance Henrickson among others. Most recently he has scored comedy features How To Date Billy Walsh for Amazon Studios starring Sebastian Croft (Heartstopper), Charithra Chandran (Bridgerton), Tanner Buchanan (Cobra Kai) and Nick Frost (Shaun Of The Dead) and Buddy Games Spring Awakening for Paramount+ starring Josh Duhamel (Transformers, Shotgun Wedding) Dan Bakkedahl (Veep) and Kevin Dillon (Entourage),
Other notable credits include the BAFTA and RTS award nominated television feature documentary The Girl Who Talked To Dolphins for the BBC, and the multi award winning US Sci-Fi drama series RCVR as well as multiple credits in animation, factual and documentary television. He recently provided music and sound design for the artist Ai Weiwei's landmark exhibition at London’s Royal Academy of Arts. Rob has also scored video game titles for a host of publishers and developers including Eidos, Sony, Disney, Sega, Codemasters, Perfect Entertainment and Microsoft.
In a previous life having graduated from Art College Rob toured and recorded for a number of high profile groups playing keyboards and guitar for Dodgy, The Primitives, Voice Of The Beehive, The Connells and Paul Oakenfold’s Grace for whom Rob wrote the UK hit You’re Not Mine. Rob also had his own bands Vagabond Joy and Starpower signed to EMI and Rough Trade respectively and released his own Krautrock influenced music under the name Ausgang as well as appearing on two Mute Records collections of Electronica.
