Pixel Soldier Update

Great news, Chris Landy's film Pixel Soldier that I co-scored with Alex Ball last year has been accepted into the 2016 London Short Film Festival, making it eligible for Bafta submission. Congrats to everyone involved in the film and especially Chris who has created a masterpiece. Can't wait to see it there on the big screen in January. Alex and I are hoping to make the soundtrack available on iTunes - watch this space.

BFX Competition

I recently teamed up again with 'Lost Sands' director Aaron Babla, to create an original score for his team's project 'The Boy and the Moon' for the BFX 2014 competition. About BFX:

'BFX is  a five day festival that takes place in Bournemouth, on the south coast of England, from the 24th-28th September (4 days of talks and 1 day children’s workshop in the Bournemouth International Centre) consists of a unique programme of public screenings, presentations, workshops, a career hub showing you how to get involved with the industry, and family friendly events.

BFX hold a competition as part of the festival, which gives over 100 talented individuals from 10 UK HEI’s a chance to pitch and gain a coveted spot in this 7-week battle to be hosted by the National Centre for Computer Animation (NCCA) at Bournemouth University (BU) and the Arts University Bournemouth (AUB).

Really enjoyed working on the film, hopefully have it up to show you all soon. In the meantime you can check out the teams' pitch here:

3 and a Half Beards Pitch Video from 3 and a Half Beards on Vimeo.

Secret Film Project

Over the last 3 or so months I've been collaborating with my partner in crime Mr A Ball on the score for an independently made film, that is, in a word... stunning. Original, fresh, nostalgic (for some) and all incredibly well executed… the superlatives could go on. I'm sworn to secrecy until this hits the waves, but I can only say it has been an absolute pleasure to work on. 

The score ranges from bit to epic, from tense to the traumatic, from electronic to orchestral and back. From the opening credits, the anticipation grows and boy does it pay off. Perhaps more importantly, at the heart of it all lies a poignancy that will resonate beyond measure.

My undying gratitude will forever go out to Alex, who scored the majority of the film, but who brought me in to score a few scenes, and of course to Director Chris Landy, who is unquestionably destined for big things.

Unfortunately, it is likely that the film will not hit the internet for quite some time, due to the restrictions placed on film festival submissions, but when it does - the word 'viral' comes to mind, and I don't mean the type that crawls down your throat and makes you cough. In the meantime, talk of private screenings are stirring (more on this to come) - plus Alex and I will be making the soundtrack available for purchase, with bonus tracks and other remix goodies included. watch this space…
Current Mood: Excited 

"The Haunting of Harry Payne"

I was recently asked to co-score a trailer for a feature length British horror film by fellow composer, Alex Ball. I've always wanted to write music for something as deliciously dark as this is, so it's certainly a massive ambition of mine fulfilled and for that i owe many thanks to Al for bringing me onboard. Click here to watch!

http://www.harrypaynefilm.com

A Fistful of Morricone

Hi all, really should have blogged about this sooner, but better late than never as they say!

So, last November it was brought to my attention that a well known musician to the Bristol scene was looking for musicians to be part of a themed event called 'The Greatness of the Magnificence', run since 2000 by the brilliant Jesse D Vernon. Jesse was organising a repeat performance of his 2010 project, where TGOTM played a night of the great film composer Ennio Morricone's music, best known for his scores for Spaghetti Westerns such as the Good the Bad and the Ugly and a Fistful of Dollars.

A few months and practices on, the performance happened just 2 days ago on the 23rd of Feb at St George's Hall, Bristol to a packed crowd, and was just one of the best live shows I've ever had the pleasure to be a part of. Along the way I got to meet some truly wonderful people and my personal and infinite thanks must go to Jesse for giving me the chance to be a part of such a great project, he is a real credit to the Bristol music scene. We will be performing the set again on the 29th of April at the Cube Cinema in Bristol, so do come along if you can!

A very kind live review of the event was published in the Bristol Evening Posts Saturday Paper, which I have attached to the bottom of this post. Read away!

S.J.Hazell

The Cube Orchestra

Hey reader/listeners and a good old giggedy to ya (sorry, been watching way too much Family Guy recently). So, The Cube Orchestra, who or what are they might you ask? My journey to finding them was an interesting one, allow me to divulge..

May 30th, the last night of the Brighton Festival, at Brighton Dome .. a friend and I attended a STUNNING live music and film project, developed in Bristol by musicians Adrian Utley (Portishead) and Will Gregory (Goldfrapp), in which a large eclectic musical ensemble provided a re-written score to a classic silent movie 'The Passion of Joan of Arc'. Having never seen or heard of such a project before, I was left completely breath taken at the scale and complexity that must have gone into it, twas amazing. Check out this review.

Feeling infinitely inspired I thought to myself, what if I could do something like this, but perhaps on a smaller scale... 3 months later, back in Bristol having returned from Uni, I decided to seek out other musicians to potentially help form such a project. Eventually, I met up with a chap through facebook, Ed McGregor, a unique live-remixing electronic guru, who told me to check out the Cube Orchestra (thanks Ed!).

A week later I met up with the Cube Orchestra (CO); an ever changing line up of various musicians, who get together every Wed evening at the Cube Cinema and go improv crazy.. and, who, every so once in a while perform live improvised (mostly) film scores(!!!). Within a week and a half I was performing with the CO in front of around 30 people to an old silent German film called The Holy Mountain, and I have to say it was one of the most amazing live performance experiences I've had to date. A day later, through links with the CO, I was providing horroresque background music for a local storyteller and discussing writing some music for an animator who I met through another musician. For any musicians reading this, this really does prove that networking is a vital key towards finding work and opportunities. If any more performances are coming up, I will be sure to let you know.

S.J.Hazell

Killing Bill Gates...

Hmm, perhaps I should firstly begin by explaining the title of this post... fear not my good men and women, I do not intend to kill Bill; last time I checked my name was not Uma Thurman, and I was certainly not as hot.

So, Killing Bill Gates is in fact the title of a play that will be performing throughout Edinburgh Fringe Festival this August. Earlier this month, I was lucky enough to be asked by director Josh Vince, of Mechanical Tiger Productions to create 3 instrumental tracks for the play.

With my recent move back to Bristol, I enlisted the help and compositional skills of my good friend Daniel Weismayr, who teamed up with me to write the music. Both Dan and I would like to thank Josh for taking us on board for the project and we wish him and his team the best of luck for the festival.

Other news aside, I have posted a few new tracks on my soundcloud profile, check them out!

S.J.Hazell

Scoring endeavours...

Hey readers (or should that be listeners?), hope this message finds you well.

Busier than a hybrid beaver bee has been the best way to describe my recent endeavors, as I have approached the final week of my Ba(hons) degree for music composition at Northbrook (where has the time gone!?). The best part of this has seen me writing music for two amazing short animated films, created by students at Bournemouth University and the Arts University College, also in Bournemouth. The first project was a 3D animated short, 'Own Little World', which has now appeared online; a link to this can be found under the visuals section of this website. The second project was a hand drawn 2D animated short 'Delighterful', which won't be online for a little while due to the University terms, but both films are heading out for festival entry around the world, which is a prospect I am extremely excited about.

It was a privilege to have been part of two fantastic projects and it was a great experience scoring to picture. I would like to wish both teams who worked on the animations well, with regards to the festival entry. Additionally, I would like to thank Benjamin Riehl (Co-Producer) and Thomas Kelly (Director of Own Little World), and James Oriel (Producer for Delighterful) for having given me the chance to work with them.

I would also like to thank Mike Pailthorpe and Andy Calin for their advice and guidance during the creative process of my scores.

S.J.Hazell

Updates...

Hello readers, thought it was time for an update..

So, the last few months has seen my work dragging me around the place like demonic possession. Sighs of relief met the final sentence of my dissertation last week, which allowed me to embrace the task of scoring for two exciting student animation films: more details on this in the coming weeks. Also recently, my track Latin Sweep was used in a promotional DVD by Northbrook College, promoting apprenticeship courses, which you can view under the visuals section of this website.

Two months remain of my final year at Northbrook College, and I'm looking forward to stepping out into the big world to pursue a career in composition for film and media. Already have a few projects lined up, including the continuation of my choose your own adventure project: Aenigma.

On a personal note, I recently saw a great horror film called Insidious, definitely worth checking out for all you horror buffs, and it has a truly chilling score to boot written by one of my (now) favourite horror composers, Joseph Bishara.

S.J.Hazell

Chooseco...

Hi all, cool bit of news to report here,

I was recently contacted by Kathleen, a marketing associate from the company Chooseco, who were the publishers for the original choose your own adventure novels. Kathleen had stumbled across my idea for a choose your own adventure musical whilst searching online and confirmed that it was the first she'd encountered of its kind. This was really kind of Kathleen and very encouraging to hear, big thanks to her for contacting me.

My current adventure, Aenigma, is on hold for the meantime as I'm currently working on various other projects and assignments at Unversity. The idea is that I will continue to write and produce music for this in the near and long term future, with the intention to create new adventures beyond Aenigma, for all my listeners.

S.J.Hazell

Big News...

I am very proud to announce that earlier this week I landed my first professional commission for a Daily Mail promo ad!!!!! As a budding media composer, this is simply the best news I could wish to share with you all and it has made me even more determined to kick on from here and forge a career in music composition.

I would like to say a big thank you to Alex Ball, music supervisor at M&C Saatchi, for putting my music forward, to all the staff at Northbrook College for their guidance and advice over the last 2 and a half years and of course to my family and friends for their continued support.

Head on over to the visuals section of this website to check it out folks!

S.J.Hazell

Aenigma: A Choose Your Own Adventure Musical

Hey Everyone,

So, I have an exciting idea to share with you all...

For the last few months I have been busy planning and writing a choose your own adventure musical titled 'ANEIGMA', taking the programmatic approach of writing music to a text or story (a technique used by composers such as Berlioz and Strauss) to new extremes!

The concept of the choose your own adventure novel was first pioneered by American Novelist, Edward Packard, who wrote a series of these books from 1979-1998. Throughout each book, the reader is presented with a number of multiple choice events, which in turn alters the storyline one way or another.

Since that time, video games such as Vampire the Masquerade (PC) and Heavy Rain (PS3) have adopted this idea into interactive forms. Additionally, many youtube users have also used this concept for their videos on the net.

For my project I have written a storyboard, which I have used as the inspiration for my music (and vice versa) - think of it as a movie soundtrack without the movie!!!! I will be posting the first chapter: The Foreign Room in the subsequent post to this, along with the scene description - once you have decided which way you want to turn, ahead across to the next track as pointed out. Please note: this is still a work in progress and so the next few chapters will be posted as soon as they are completed.

The absolutely amazing artwork for this project has been created by my good friend Damian Schofield, big big thank you to him. I would also like to thank Nigel Rippon for creative guidance, Alex Ball on violin, Dan Weismayr on Bass and Ben Simmonds for advice on production.

Hold tight and enjoy!

S.J.Hazell

Coming soon: Aenigma

Which way will you choose?

Artwork by Damian Schofield.

New Year. New Compositions. New Projects...

Happy New Year Everyone! Hope you all had a great Xmas and New Year, mine was a very chilled and pleasant time.

Seems like a day and an age since I last posted any news so here goes... So I've been pretty damn busy these past few months; composing, recording, writing essays, scoring cartoons and the general tom foolery!

• Since the beginning of October, I have been busy planning and writing for a personal composition project, as part of one of my modules at University. I have managed to craft a relatively unexplored concept, which I won't give away just yet, but all will be revealed early February, where I will be posting all the tracks for you to listen to.... EXTREMELY EXCITED ABOUT THIS! Additionally, graphic novelist Damian Schofield, will also be providing his talent with the pencil in creating some artwork for the project, top man.

• Secondly, I am delighted to announce that I'll be scoring two animations around April/ May time for students at the Arts University College in Bournemouth. I must say I am extremely impressed with the people I've been working with and what's been produced so far in the early stages, so I can't wait to get started on the scores. Details about this will become clearer later in the year.

• Last but not least I assure you my short score for Kurtis Scott's Goodperson and Shitboy will be coming soon.. work has been a monumental juggle, so hectic, but I'm nearly there!

It's great to finally share this news with you and I'm very much looking forward to uploading the new material.

Thanks for listening everyone and as always keep checking back for updates, cheers.

S.J.H

Time Flies...

Hey all, it's been a while since I last posted anything but now seems like a good time to give you some updates!

Firstly, I hope you all had a great summer, mine flew by way too quickly for liking! Aside from the odd acoustic gig, things on the music front were reasonably quiet for me, but the biggest news was being asked to compose for another cartoon 'Good Person and Shitboy' by Kurtis Scott, who I previously teamed up with on the Holiday Bot cartoon. I'll be posting this up soon so keep checking for updates * reminder; must find a way to keep YOU updated!!!

Next week I start my 3rd and final year at Northbrook college, where I'm studying for a Ba(hons) degree in music composition for professional film/media. The course syllabus looks incredibly busy but amazing at the same time and I cannot wait to begin. Throughout the year I'll be adding my compositions to the site to share with all you good good people, so I promise more activity on here than in recent months!!

Until next chime,

S.J.Hazell

Consistency pays off...

Hey everyone, some good news to report. Last week I received the most consistent student prize at Northbrook College, at the end of year awards. This is something I'm very proud of and I hope to continue this work into my final year.

S.J.Hazell

What's in store for the summer..

Hey everyone, hope your summer has started off well..

So, Uni has finished for the summer and what a year it's been, I'm certainly all essay'd out that's for sure! However, much like Usain Bolt, I like to keep on my toes and I am planning for a busy summer ahead. With the dissertation looming in my final BA hons year starting this Sept, I've already begun considering my subject area and I'm also looking to start work on a library music album. Very excited about the latter, not so much the former!

Hoping to get some more music up in the coming month so keep thy eyes and ears posted!

S.J.Hazell

Filling up...

Hey everyone, hope this message finds you all well. Sooo.. this has been a busy month to say the least!! As you've probably noticed the blog has started filling up nicely now and I must admit it's a great feeling to be able to share with you all the work I've been doing over the last 2 years at Northbrook - can't believe how fast it's gone!

Aside from the work I've posted on the site this last week, I've been working hard on an Avant Garde - Musique Concréte piece I've named 'La Maison de Torture' (house of torture to us English Folk!).

Keep checking back for updates as I'll be adding more music to the site very soon.

S.J.Hazell

Cartoons, Commercials and Cakey...

Hello fellow music lovers, hope this message finds you all well. Apologies for my lack of posts this past month, work has certainly been the order of the day(s)! I have been busy these last few weeks composing for a couple of projects, including:

• A Currys commercial, which I pitched for thanks to my good friend Alex Ball (music supervisor at M&C Saatchi).
• 'The Holiday Bot' - a cartoon designed, animated and directed by Kurtis Scott.
• The theme for a show some of the students over at Northbrook College, West Durrington Campus are putting together, called 'Nakey Cakey'.

Unfortunately my music for the Currys commercial was not picked but it was nevertheless an amazing experience for my first time composing to to a visual brief. Once I get the go ahead, I shall post the commercial, together with my music, right here on this blog.

The music I am composing for 'The Holiday Bot' cartoon and the 'Nakey Cakey' theme are still works in progress but, like the Currys commercial, I'm up against some strong competition to get my music picked for the chosen scores. Once I know more I will post the details here along with the videos.

S.J.Hazell