Short Film Scores
In 2020, a month after the world had largely gone into lockdown, I heard from Rich McAfee - A friend from my hometown of Ross on Wye. He was deep in the production of an experimental horror short film No Hard Shells Crack? and wanted to know if I'd be interested in producing a score for it. I couldn't express how excited I was to get involved, and I dropped everything to get to work.
The brief
The film is an allegory concerning the inability of the British public to follow guidelines during the COVID-19 lockdown and the subsequent strain put on the National Health Service. We discussed at length the themes of the film, visual and musical influences and potential approaches. Rich used Future Markets by Jonny Greenwood, taken from the film There Will Be Blood, as a temp track. This gave me a great idea of his thinking and what to aim for.
Building the score
The first thing I did was establish a palette of sounds. I listed everything that could be associated with the pandemic in the UK and picked out what would be most effective.
Handclaps were essential — representative of Clap for the NHS, useful for keeping the film moving and maintaining tension. I used the sound of a ventilator as the percussive anchor, the hiss and release hitting on or near the downbeat. I left the timing deliberately loose to add to the unease.
A vicious cello became the principal instrument, nodding to the temp track. A muted acoustic guitar added percussive rhythm. Where I differed from the temp was in using more stop-and-start, hitting the dramatic beats harder. At the film's peak — the big reveal — I brought in a trombone with a phasing tremolo effect to disconcert and build terror.
Before building the main score, I set myself a warm-up: a short piece capturing the mood I was aiming for. I focused on the Clap for the NHS and built a little nightmare scenario, claps rising to a crescendo. It got me into the right headspace.
The result
I was thrilled with the result. It has flaws, but I feel the music effectively delivers what Rich asked. I'm pleased with my process, navigation of a new challenge, and the resulting clarity and speed with which I worked. My most satisfying creative endeavour of 2020, for sure.
In the Meantime
In mid-2023 Rich got in touch again. This time he had a new longer short film which focused on two individuals trying to get by in post-pandemic UK. This movie had more of a narrative and a number of clearly defined scenes.
We again started with inspiration, swapping playlists and trying to understand what Rich's overall feeling and intention with the film were. Explaining to me some of the sounds he'd been using temporarily, it was clear it was time to move from a typical orchestral arrangement. The biggest influence for me when it came to composing this score was Tim Hecker, particularly the track "Piano Drop". We knew it had something which really felt like what we were trying to achieve.
Mika Levy's score for Under the Skin was also a big influence for the tunnel scene in the film.
I got into creating a few demo tracks to help me explore some sounds.
Then I focused most of my time on mapping out the scenes, working out where the key dramatic beats were, and then ploughing into large electronic instrumentation, using synths to build noise and atmosphere. There were three distinct movements through the intro, the scene in the shop through to the scene in the tunnel. I'm happy with what we landed on, even after small tweaks and re-timings and edits.
Similarly to No Hard Shells Crack?, Rich released this to multiple short film festivals around the world and had a great reception. Some were even very complimentary about my score.
The film is difficult to track down currently but I've included the two main scenes on this page.
Influences and listening
After finishing this film I created a composer profile on Spotify. Below you'll find the shared playlists that Rich and I used to swap influences, and a playlist of my favourite film music.
No Hard Shells Crack? — Inspo
In the Meantime — Inspo
Ian's Favourite Film Music