Here is Lindsay’s bio.
Lindsay is an award-winning British composer combining traditional practices with experimental techniques. She utilises her skills as a performer and her experience with music technology to create visceral, emotional and enigmatic scores for all genres of visual media. She recently scored the feature documentary Adventures of Joan Collins; the independent drama Things Unsaid; and the HBO/BBC documentary The Mystery of D.B. Cooper with Tim Atack. Her music for Mudlarks starring Mirren Mack (Sex Education) was recently nominated for Best Score at the British Short Film Awards. Her advertising work includes the British Airways ‘Take Off to the People and Places You Love’ campaign, Rightmove’s ‘The Renter’ and Hewlett Packard’s ‘Orchestra’, winning Bronze at the 2021 LIA Awards. She is currently working on a television drama series set to be broadcast next year; an upcoming documentary for the BBC; and her next EP of original material.
Mudlarks
I watched the tease for Mudlarks as I couldn’t find a link for it anywhere to watch the whole thing. The music used in this short trailer I assume is Lindsay’s work. It’s very haunting and I find it suits the theme of the film very well which is dark. drones enter towards the end as the clip gets darker themed. A song which began peaceful ends in a chaotic noise enhanced piece. I enjoy this work.
British Airways Advertising Campaign
I felt it was interesting to see a visiting practitioner that is in the commercial field of sound design and scoring. I felt I wanted to listen to her production work and analyse or see what she does differently to her more artistic film work. Short but sweet this piece was a remix of the song British Airways uses usually in their adverts and other video clips. I found she did a great job on this and it’s nice to see other artists doing side hustles.
Post Lecture Reflection
Lindsay grew up playing the viola in an orchestra, singing in bands. Playing bass as a kid and a teenager. She studied music technology as her undergraduate. She then went on to do an MA for film and tv. Graduated in 2017 and started working as an assistant for other composers. The misery of DB Cooper, mudlarks and lines are things she’s recently composed.
From assisting she’s gone on to music editing. She’s always been working as a composer or trying to get into that. Doing short films, documentaries etc.
She worked on a feature documentary, Mystery of D.B. Cooper. A feature-length documentary she worked on. Directed by John Dower. The documentary was about the obsessions on the crime, not who D.B. Cooper was but around the culture of this obsession of the crime, rather than being a detective and figuring out what happened. The story was told with archival clips and reenactments of characters of first-person testimonials. A few people were interviewed, the flight crew, the people who thought they knew who actually did it. It has an overarching 1970s vibe, The director wanted quirky Fargo to the score. Some 1970s music, some modern. Most of the scores were written in the box. With sample libraries, alongside Logic Pro X.
She started the score with stereotypical of 70s stuff, wah wah guitar. Heist movie-style music with flute and more, as well as modern score. When creating a score she starts with mapping out points in the footage she wanted to mark. Example shot of the plane. The rest of the queue she just follows the points she wants to hit, which will enhance the story on.
She also decided to put a key change, which is a well-known technique. You repeat the same material but a minor third higher than the previous key to create a sense of urgency to show that something different is happening without creating something new in the compostion.
One of the characters in this documentary Jerry Thomas was specifically interesting to her compositionally as he didn’t have any interest in the real identity of DB Cooper. He believed that he had died and never survived the crash from falling out of a plane. And the music was directly different to the other characters because of this. She originally created a slower tune with more going on. She then shows us version two, which is more plucked and playful. The director didn’t want you to feel sorry for Jerry but to understand the isolation he has and the director wanted it to feel more isolating instead of quirky.
She says she uses video sync instead of importing sounds into her logic project. She doesn’t use templates to create her scores, she prefers starting from blank and building up as she goes along. She really enjoys the one or two day process of finding all the sounds she wants to use. And think of interesting or creative sounds that fit characters. So she creates things and ideas as she goes along.
She used the flute to highlight points in the doc when D.B. Cooper came in. Harking to that 70s vibe in a different way. Sounds you can reuse, and sounds to use as themes as well, so if she uses a certain synth for one character she wouldn’t use it for another.
When the re-recording mixer, mixes the project. She delivers their mix of the song, and then submits groups of stems for the mixing engineer. She also likes to ask for an AIF file from the editor as she can see what they’ve done on the audio.
Mudlarks is the next project. Two girls who are homeless and living on the side of the Thames, and have a tent underneath a bridge. They work in shifts to protect the tent and go out and work to find money to survive. One girl is mute and the other is called damsel. One doesn’t come home one night and she’s is torn between going to find her friend or protecting their home. The director and Lindsay spoke a lot on how the score should amplify their friendship and also have a sense of worry and fear, where has she gone? The girl who stayed isn’t the strong one, and you’re not shown what happens to damsel so the music is there to fill in the gaps.
The violin and guitar were the main melodic instruments. She originally wrote something folkier and a lot faster but she wanted to strip it back a bit and wanted to add more mystery, who is this girl what does she do? So the main melodic instrument alongside the piano textures and the vocal textures. Gestured ideas aswell that come in at a specific moment. She created this piano texture that felt shimmery. She also used the original demo the director had created as the imagination for what he wanted her to produce. They wanted a bedroom style vibe of the music
She then showed us her project for the song, she got a friend of hers to play the guitar parts and they used the really long introduction until the lead up where the girls are dancing to change the warmth around a new day, the friendliness that they have together. The first part is dark and mysterious and the introduction to the other girl is warmer and lighter with the music. They rely on each other to survive. She added some viola and violin and she used the original drum programming from garage band and enhanced it a little bit more. And also electric guitar to make it edgier in the chorus.
Working in film and tv in the last five years, and then the covid pandemic and she had no other jobs so she started making music, she thought she would try and see what would happen. She created a few songs and decided to make three instrumental tracks and one vocal. She found herself really enjoying it, and is palling a series of EPs in this format. Each track had a theme during the lockdown, She had her own studio, her own space whereas when she was in London she was working in her bedroom and never leaving that space. She was thinking about how an exile could be a good thing. She not in these four walls for every act.
I found Lindsays lecture really useful at showcasing the possibilities of how to acquire a job in your selected field when you graduate university. The Q&A was insightful into the process of locating an entry level job and how to navigate the process.