Composers Book Club 01 – Submissions open (UPDATE)

UPDATE: we’ve extended the submission deadline and changed the recording date.

We also just published a separate story to introduce the show’s host: Robert Drane (sneak peek below).

Let’s write some music

A few weeks ago, we announced the start of the Film Scoring Tips Composers Book Club. To recap, the concept is to read a book, score an excerpt, then meet up in a video call to discuss our thoughts and music. 

For our first meet (to be held online on Friday June 5 @6PM BST), we chose the book Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer. Hopefully you’ve had time to get yourself a copy and start reading (I’s not long – I finished it in a weekend!). 

Here are all the details on what scene to score with your music. 

The Excerpt

Your mission, should you choose to accept it…

Please submit a piece of original music no longer than 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Your composition should be suitable to use as underscore for the start of Chapter Six up to the line “He had no time for his mother’s fantasy world”. 

When you’re ready, please submit your using the form below. 

Here’s a suggested structure – you don’t have to follow it exactly if you don’t want to:

• 30 seconds of the transition from Artemis gloating about the end of the previous chapter, then transitioning to his thoughts about capturing the fairy 
• 30 seconds of anticipation that Artemis’ dad might be back
• 1-1:30 minutes of the mother scene 
• End with Artemis making the decision to go back to his criminal ways 

Why did we choose this scene? This moment stood out to me from the whole book. It really demonstrates Artemis’ desire to be a child, which is often at odds to his desperation to live up to his family’s criminal ways. 

Personally, I really like how much Artemis’ emotions transform through this section. At first, he’s feeling smug, then a bit of guilt about the fairy, then suddenly there’s hope that his dad has returned, then we witness the tragedy of his mother’s condition, and finally Artemis makes a decisive choice to have “no time for his mother’s fantasy world”.

Deadline

Please submit your track by Wednesday June 3 at 11:59PM (BST).

A few recommendations

We kindly ask you to submit music you specifically create for the selected excerpt. Anything that we deem to be out of context will not be considered.

Submit your music only if you can attend our first book club on Friday June 5 @6PM BST.

The submission form also serves as a legally binding license assignment document. Therefore we kindly ask to only submit music you own in its entirety. However we only ask for a non-exclusive license, meaning you will still be able to use the music on other projects.

The file format must be MP3 and the file-size must be under 5MB. In case you come up with a larger file-size please re-compress it using a lower bitrate.

Submit your music here

Please use the form below to submit your music:

If the form should not work with your device/browser please use this page instead.

Good luck

We’re really looking forward to sharing your music and meeting your on our group video call! 

See you soon.