Greater Philadelphia Film Office hosted its annual Production Party on Saturday, October 6, 2018 at Nu Millennium Studios, presented by Firstrust Bank. This event celebrates the region's best and brightest production professionals and the local film and media industry. This year's party featured delicious food and drinks from Philly's top restaurants, breweries, distilleries and wineries and live music from Billy Penn Music's artists Johnny Popcorn, Zeek Burse, Rob Paine of Worship Recordings, Patrick de Caumette, Jeff King & Ali Remi.
We were so happy to show off BPM's talented musicians to the Philadelphia film community and decided to add a special "Composer Spotlight" feature to the evening. We worked with GPFO and asked local Philadelphia filmmakers to submit short 30 second film clips. We picked our 3 most diverse clips and asked our BPM composers to demonstrate their skills and compose a piece for one of the clips (or two in some cases). Each composer was asked to interpret the clip differently than the others, allowing us all to see the fundamental relationship between film and music. We shared the clips throughout the evening, between the live performances.
We welcome you to check out the “Composer Spotlight” on GPFO’s Youtube channel in a special playlist.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7Mm8NrFRgFaeMWKIOFZPLxBK7RahLs4w
CLIP 1: The Sundae Grind, directed by Kris Theorin
This clip shows little cartoon workers doing construction work on a sundae.
Composer Joe Renzetti: Joe chose to use a prominent tuba in an entertaining march, matching the movements of the little characters.
Composer Rodney Whittenberg: Instead of going for a lighthearted march, Rodney’s sound is much darker and frightening, dystopian even.
Composer Patrick de Caumette: Patrick interpreted the piece in yet another way, with whimsical sounds, bringing out the child-like characteristics of the clip.
CLIP 2: Limestone Bones, directed by Erica Dillman
This clip portrays flashes of a young women traveling through a city, juxtaposed with images of bodies.
Composer Justin Geller: Justin decided to use predominantly piano chords, with added synthesizers giving an overall mellow feeling, with the chords changing on a steady beat, matching the change in images.
Composer Brendan McGeehan: Brendan’s composition elicits a different type of emotion, almost eerie, with haunting notes that ring out.
Composer Rodney Whittenberg: Rodney’s piece used pensive piano to orchestrate a choral-sounding composition with angelic aspects throughout.
CLIP 3: Shattered Memories, directed by Nick Merola
This clip shows a young boy creeping into a barn, filled with a disturbing cake and masked faces. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Composer Matt Vucic: Matt perfectly matched the visuals with spooky sounds giving this clip a classic horror and suspense orchestration. The overall feeling is very haunting.
Composer Keath Lowry & Zoe Lowry (Production & Arrangement by Keath Lowry): This composing duo took a much different approach and created a modern soundscape. Their sounds are ethereal and dark with a hip-hop beat. The result is really cool!