film music

Soundtrack for first European short film on CANON C300.

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Soundtrack by Dom Hutton

This is how it happened….

When French film director and also good friend SEBASTIEN DEVAUD, contacted me to “help him out with some music” for a film he’d just shot to promote the release of the new CANON C300, I knew straight away it would be a fantastic challenge.

A Bit of background

I’ve known Sebastien for many years now. We actually met at the turn of the century working on a TV shoot in Paris. I was the sound mixer for the french music show “+Vite Que La Musique” on M6, and Sebastien was Director. Even back then he was filming “hands-on” in a way that not many other directors dared to, or could be bothered to! We’d work through the night waiting for the different monuments to be graciously lit up by the Mairie de Paris, and then use them as a backdrop.

Sebastien was using long focal length techniques and “bullet time” effects in main stream TV filming long before anyone else I worked with (-sometimes to the limit of my radio-mics range).  He also recognized the importance of surrounding himself with an excellent and motivated team. I remember many a night, with my hands too cold to turn the mixer knobs, huddled around the monitor combo as dawn approached, silently praying that this would be the last take. It was indeed a magical way to see Paris, but I’m not sure I’d do it for any other director. I know many of the others on the team felt the same way.

Later, in 2008, when I released my first solo album “Sleeping at the Wheel”, Seb was an obvious choice to direct (and shoot) the video to the song “Not My World”. A shoestring budget and as little time, but he pulled it off. (Take a look here!)

But all this is besides the point…..

We were wrapping up a one day shoot for a french TV show in late last December when Seb pulled me aside and showed me the film. “Out Of Tunes” was already shot and edited by the time I started work on the soundtrack. It looked beautiful even on an iphone. He played me the music he sort of felt would be appropriate for the 4 different scenes and basically told me I had 48 hours to come up with my own stuff that fitted the different scenes and moods. Of course I said yes.

After almost 48 hrs straight, I finished. Just! I’d just managed to send off the soundtrack file to Seb, as our baby daughter woke screaming (with a sort of  “I don’t care what you’ve been doing daddy I want breakfast now!”).  Sienna got her milk and Sebastien liked the soundtrack. With a few tweaks here and there and it was ready to present to Canon France (Who apparently liked it too).

It was great to be a part of the project and hopefully there will be many such projects to come. As for the film .. judge for yourself.

dom,

5 jan 2012