As the British Council Ukraine’s Envision Sound programme for composers who want to explore scoring for moving image enters its fourth year, we’ve had to adjust our working to reflect the current situation the pandemic has presented us with.
To continue to create stronger links between Ukraine and the UK during the challenges posed by the pandemic, we are offering the opportunity for Ukrainian documentary and animation directors to work with the UK composers on the creation of a new original score to their films.
We are keen to hear from Ukrainian documentary and animation directors who meet the following criteria:
- You have a short documentary or animation project in production stage
- You would like to partner with a UK composer to develop a score
- Your animation or documentary is between 10 and 20 minutes in duration
- You are interested in international collaborations and developing your network.
If so, please fill in the form by 8 pm Kyiv time 21 November. After 21 November the representatives of the British Council Music Team, Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, Linoleum Contemporary Animation and Media Art Festival in tight consultation with our Envision Sound UK tutor alumni, Enrica Sciandrone, Nainita Desai and Neil Brand, will pair directors and composers.
We will support two projects, one from each of the categories described above. It is our aim that each film complete with new soundtrack will be screened at the respective festival’s editions in 2021.
In addition to a new original score for your film, you will receive a moderate fee, two online sessions with one of our UK tutors which will be focused on how to develop and manage a successful working partnership with a composer. We also expect that you’ll be able to allocate at least 3 hours for online meetings initiated within the project, including conversations with the composer who is writing new music for your work.
Please see the profiles of the UK mentors below
Enrica Sciandrone https://youtu.be/Hfrr2Y75dnc
Enrica studied piano and traditional and contemporary composition in Italy, gradually bringing her mastery and experience to screen composition since 2006. Since 2009 she has been living in London, where she got in contact with the high-profile world of the international film music industry. Music department credits include Wrath of the Titans (2012), Zhongkui (2014), Raoul Taburin (2018) - as assistant for Emmy award winner Javier Navarrete - Life (2017) and Mowgli (2018) - as assistant to renown orchestrator Nicholas Dodd. She has composed soundtracks worldwide for several films, documentaries, animations, TV commercials and libraries (EMI). Her music and arrangements have been broadcasted on BBC Radio 3 (UK), Radio Rai 3 (Italy), Amazon Prime Video, Channel 5,
Nainita Desai https://youtu.be/UTmhjkbaORo
Working at the forefront of a new wave of emerging artists, RTS and BIFA nominated composer Nainita is a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit, Ivor Novello 2020 nominee and is the International Film Music Critics Association Breakthrough Composer of 2020. She has scored countless BAFTA, Oscar, Emmy acclaimed productions. The PRS placed Desai at No 2 in their Top 10 female writers whose work was most used in Film & TV through 2018. Nainita’s most recent feature releases include OSCAR 2020 nominated and BAFTA, Cannes, BIFA, SXSW winning feature doc For Sama which was also nominated for Best Music at the BIFAs 2019. Other recent projects include Untamed Romania, the most successful Romanian non-fiction film of 2018, WW2 period drama Enemy Within, psychological horror Darkness Visible [BFI], and Interactive game / video game Telling Lies one of the top critically acclaimed releases of 2019 by Annapurna Interactive including Scala Radio’s Top 5 Video Game Scores of the Year and Music+Sound Award winning Title track.
Neil Brand https://youtu.be/TXTcaYvf0A0
Neil Brand has been a silent film accompanist for over 30 years, regularly in London at the Barbican and BFI National Film Theatres, throughout the UK and at film festivals and special events around the world.
Training originally as an actor, he has made his name as a writer/performer/composer, scoring BFI video releases of such films as South (Shackleton's Journey to the South Pole), The Ring by Alfred Hitchcock, Piccadilly (premiered at the Lincoln Centre) the great lost film The Life and Times of David Lloyd George and Early Cinema.
Neil is becoming well-known as a TV presenter on BBC4 with his hugely successful series Sound of Cinema, The Music that Made the Movies and Sound of Song, is a regular presenter on Radio 4's Film Programme, a Fellow of Aberystwyth University and a Visiting Professor of the Royal College of Music and is considered one of the finest improvising piano accompanists in the world.
Key dates
21 October – 21 November 2020 – open call for composers and filmmakers
14 December – 18 December 2020 – announcement of the results on the website and social media of the British Council and respective partners
21 December – 12 March 2021 – music composing, mentoring sessions
26 March – 4 April 2021 – presentation of the winning documentary project at the Docudays UA International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival
1-5 September 2021 – presentation of the winning animation project at the Linoleum Contemporary Animation and Media Art Festival
Background
Envision Sound is an international educational programme for composers from Turkey, Ukraine, Israel and other countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia who want to further develop their skills working with film and moving image. This unique programme of practical skills development, mentoring and networking for professionals of the film and music industries was designed by the British Council in partnership with the Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre in Ukraine. During three cycles of the programme in 2017-2020, 33 film composers became Envision Sound graduates. Almost half of them were commissioned to create new scores to contemporary and archive Ukrainian films. You can find more about the programme here: https://www.britishcouncil.org.ua/en/programmes/arts/music/envision-sound
