B100: COMPOSED BY STEPHEN RADFORD

For the music of B100 we wanted to create a simple thread that allowed the viewer to flow through the 99 blue 5 second clips and arrive at the end without knowing that the music was there. I think they would have noticed if there was no music. There lies the irony, but to have something easy going, relaxing but not overpowering was the basic brief.

For the process, I sat with a list of all 99 items shot in blue and in determining how I felt about each thing, I developed an improvised piece - playing out for no longer than a minute. It wasn't my intention to have 100 different themes, but this allowed me to think about a common emotion that all the clips had. When you one theme after another, you see a pattern. Each clip's theme devivsed from a previous theme, and some overlapped into each other. Eventually, I have three or four pieces out of the 99 that could be built upon. Track one "Blue Thoughts" was a collective thread of those four melodies. "Blue with Bells on" was a separate session that built on the overall picture. Some of it reminds me of a Hallmark Christmas movie, but when I was about to drop the bounce and happiness of it, I reallised that the stark contrast with the yellow clip was perfect for what we wanted. The entire score was played first on the piano and then recorded using the Yamaha Synth.

TOTALITAS LIGNEA: COMPOSED BY STEPHEN RADFORD

We wanted to have a very organic style of music for this abstract piece of film that had some very bizarre turns. A lot happens in this short film and considering its length, it was the most dense soundtract recordings that I have done to date. Most of it was sound design behind the music... foley, underscore, mood pieces that moved in and out of sequences. The main theme can be heard as the last track used over the final scene and the credits. This theme was originally intended to be used for another short, but that didn't move forward beyond principle photography. If we go back to that project, it will have to find a new theme, which is perfect. It worked so much better with this project. The recording of "Heart of Oak" is omitted from this soundtrack playlist as it was not from original source material. Also, I don't consider my singing like a drunken sailor to be a part of my 'canon' of music arrangement and style. The themes that weave in and out of Totalitas Lignea are memorable for being strong in atrmosphere and their origins within the darkness where things left hidden continue to breathe... and listen...

The entire score was played first on the piano and then recorded using the Yamaha Synth.

TOTALITAS LIGNEA (soundtrack to the abstract short film)

We wanted to have a very organic style of music for this abstract piece of film that had some very bizarre turns. A lot happens in this short film and considering its length, it was the most dense soundtract recordings that I have done to date.

B-100 (soundtrack to the experimental abstract short film)

For the music of B100 we wanted to create a simple thread that allowed the viewer to flow through the 99 blue 5 second clips and arrive at the end without knowing that the music was there.

VISIT AUSTRALIA

Here is a radio commercial written, narrated and edited by Stephen Radford.

It is designed to make you buy tickets.

So what are you waiting for?

 

Montana Children (a short story by CHARLES HINTON, Read by STEPHEN RADFORD)

A project that came to me and I am proud to have been given the chance to provide narration for. Charles has written four of these short stories as a part of his "Ten 'Til Dead" series. PERFORMANCES: Narrator

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