For this week, let’s try something a little different.
Normally, I compose music for videos I create myself—which requires hours of foraging for footage, then editing. But not today.
Instead, I’m scoring someone else’s work. I had to use what was on screen. No edits, no re-cutting. Just music supporting the story.
The footage comes from Spitfire Audio, where I get a lot of my virtual instruments. They launched their Colossus Re-Scoring Competition. And the prize winner gets $30,000 worth of orchestral libraries. Which would change everything. So, naturally, I entered.
The video opens with a man falling off the roof of a skyscraper, freezing in time the moment before he hits the ground. What follows is a mish-mash of action pandemonium—a heist, a post-apocalyptic city, a hazmat-clad shooter, a battalion of soldiers battling alien invaders. A sprinkling, if you will, of insanity. What they have in common is that everyone’s losing.
So I wanted the music to feel like we’re on the side of the people fighting impossible odds.
I call my piece "Helios."
Helios is the god of the sun in whose honor one of the wonders of the world was built—a colossus on the island of Rhodes. Maybe when I saw this crazy footage, I was looking for a smidgen of hope. For me, Helios represents resilience. He’s known for riding his chariot across the sky to bring the sun and a new day. No matter what happens, he rises again.
We’ll see. Maybe Helios lands the big prize, maybe not. But if the Associated Press or Getty Images ever want to run a contest for free news footage, you can bet I’ll be entering that, too.
Would love to hear your thoughts—how’d I do? Is "Helios" the winning trailer score?
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