The SOCAN Foundation was pleased and proud to present a Screen Music Laboratory for emerging composers, from Oct. 18-21, hosted on Aire Ouverte, a 2D videogame-like platform, where a virtual SOCAN Foundation office was built. The SOCAN Foundation Screen Music Lab was officially sponsored by Bell Media and The Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television.
The Lab invited 10 emerging composers from across Canada to join one screen composing mentor, Janal Bechthold, and one film director mentor, Pascal Plante, over the four days – during which they composed music for film excerpts supplied by the director. Beyond this hands-on exercise, the program aimed to de-mystify, and build, the relationship between composers and directors, and helped the young composers evolve in a context very similar to the reality of their craft. To this end, the director organized a spotting session during which the participants had to deal with tight deadlines, while working alongside Plante, with guidance from Bechthold.
The 10 participants were:
- Rebecca Everett
- Nick Nausbaum
- Greg Andersen
- Jeff Alan Greenway
- Ciara Proznik
- Abigail Neale
- Nicholas Walker Grimshaw
- Mandy Woo
- Erica Wong Ping Lun
- Merlin Bertrand-Hamel
At the two-hour closing event, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. on Oct. 21, the 10 participants spent the first hour introducing themselves to the invited industry guests, and presenting the music they’d composed to one of four different excerpts from the movie Nadia, Butterfly.
Addressing the attendees before the film excerpts were shown, SOCAN Foundation Executive Director Charlie Andrews said, “We know that music plays such an important role in film and television, and other media.” That was increasingly apparent when listening to the young participants’ unique and emotionally accurate scores as each of the film clips were shown; they indisputably brought the scenes to life.
The second hour of the event was an online, within-the-videogame networking session with people from the music and screen industries, including representatives from the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television (ACCT), the Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA), the Screen Composers Guild of Canada (SCGC), SPCAQ, and APEM, as well as Charlie Andrews, SOCAN Foundation program Co-Ordinator Julien Boumard Coallier (who largely organized the program and the event), and new SOCAN A&R Representative Guggan Singh.