IMRO Music In Film and TV Seminar Featuring Oscar and Grammy Award Winning songwriter/composer Paul Williams

Panel:

 

Paul Williams       –  songwriter/composer
Todd Brabec       –  Industry Specialist (Panel Moderator)
Gregory Magee   –  Composer
Oisin Lunny        –   Composer/Producer

This seminar will cover the broad topic of music for film and TV, a notoriously difficult area for emerging Irish composers to break into. The event will be moderated by Todd Brabec and an expert international panel will be on hand to give their collective insights and experiences on this aspect of the business.

 

Please note that the number of places available are limited. This seminar is provided free of charge.
 

Should you wish reserve a place please email your name to keith.johnson@nullimro.ie without delay.

This seminar will also feature a special screening of the award winning the short film TUFTY Written and Directed by Jason Butler & Brendan Butler which won Best Original Music for composer Louise Heaney at the prestigious Fastnet Short Film Festival in 2010. Tufty is one of the four short films to feature in the 2009 IMRO/RTE/FAS Screen Training Ireland/Filmbase/CMC Film Scoring Programme.

Panel Biographies

Paul Williams
 
Paul Williams is an Oscar, Grammy and Golden Globe winning Hall of Fame songwriter. He is a recipient of The National Music Publishers President’s Award and is President and Chairman of the Board of ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers). ASCAP is the first and leading U.S. performing rights organization, representing the world's largest repertory totaling over 8.5 million copyrighted musical works and is the only U.S. performing rights organization owned and governed by its 360,000 plus writer and publisher members.
 
Recognized as one of America’s most prolific and gifted lyricists and composers, Paul's standards have been recorded by such diverse musical icons as Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, Barbra Streisand, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, David Bowie, Tony Bennett, Sarah Vaughn, Johnny Mathis, The Carpenters, Luther Vandross, REM, Mel Torme, Anne Murray, Diana Krall, Gladys Knight and Diana Ross. His songs have also found favor with Country legends including Chet Atkins, Kris Kristofferson, Charlie Pride, Crystal Gayle, Lynn Anderson, The Oak Ridge Boys, Diamond Rio and Neil McCoy.
 
When asked which song is his favorite, Paul is quick to respond, "That’s easy! It’s "The Rainbow Connection". It’s a thrill to hear my words interpreted by such inimitable talents as Willie Nelson, the Dixie Chicks, Sarah McLachlan, Judy Collins, Jason Mraz and Kermit the Frog!” “The Rainbow Connection”, from the children’s classic The "Muppet Movie", is one of two Paul Williams’ songs that grace the American Film Institute’s list of the top movie songs of all time; the second, "Evergreen" is from the award winning Streisand/Kristofferson remake of A Star Is Born. Additional song scores include the cult favorites Phantom of the Paradise and Ishtar, as well as "The Muppet Christmas Carol", "Bugsy Malone.", and Emmet Otter’s Jugband Christmas, the latter of which has now been adapted for the stage. His recent work has remained wonderfully diverse, from creating and writing the songs and story for Disney's A Muppets Christmas: Letters To Santa, to writing with the Scissor Sisters, to penning the music and lyrics for Garry Marshall’s theatrical sensation Happy Days.

Although most people came to know the witty Mr. Williams as one of Johnny Carson’s recurring favorites on The Tonight Show, or as an actor in dozens of films, television comedies and dramas, it is his musical legacy that continues to inspire. "We've Only Just Begun", "Rainy Days And Mondays", "You and Me Against The World", "Just An Old Fashioned Love Song","Let Me Be The One" all remain pop classics and are performed by Paul in venues from New York to the Philippines.
 
Publicly lauded for his work as a songwriter, performer, actor and humanitarian, Paul predicts he’ll be remembered for playing Little Enos in the Smokey and the Bandit trilogy and for his lyrics to “The Love Boat” theme, although it is the lyrics from Bugsy Malone, recast for a recent Coke commercial, that aptly sum up his philosophy: “You give a little love and it all comes back to you; You’re gonna’ be remembered for the things that you say and do”. As a devoted husband to writer Mariana Williams and proud father, Paul considers his son Cole, and daughter Sarah, to be his best work.
 

Oisin Lunny

Composer, producer and DJ Oisin Lunny has been working in the world of music and media for over 20 years through acts like Marxman and Firstborn, and also through composing music for film and TV as Lifeblood Productions since 1996.

Marxman were pioneers of the "Trip Hop" genre blending Irish instrumentation with leftfield beats and soulful samples. They had a top UK 30 hit with "All About Eve", toured with U2 and Depeche Mode, and recorded with Sinead O'Connor and Gangstarr. Oisin also released the album "When It Hits You Feel No Pain" under the name of Firstborn and had a number one club hit with "The Mood Ciub", named after a legendary Northern Soul venue in Dublin. 

Oisin's works have been licensed for motion pictures such as Human Traffic, Derailed, Mean Machine, Peaches, A Room For Romeo Brass and Alpha Male. He has also composed and produced original music for films I Want Candy and The Waiting Room. 

His work for TV has included the audio rebrand of Irish National TV station RTE ONE in a collaboration with his father Donal Lunny, scoring the MTV Europe Music Awards, and also the station idents and programming strands for TnaG. Other TV commissions include RTE Christmas idents, work for Channel 5 UK, MTV Real World, and TV adverts for Sky Broadband, Northern Bank, and Bank Of Ireland. 

Production, programming and remixing projects have included Bono and Adam Clayton, David Grey, Beth Orton, Shara Nelson (formerly of Massive Attack), Sharon Shannon, The Starseeds, Baz, Ted Barnes, The Shortwave Set, Melaton, Playful and Headzinc.

Oisin is currently working on the score for a documentary about London's Arlington House, made by Irish film makers Enda Hughes and Brendan Byrne, with the support of the Irish Film Board and BBC Northern Ireland. He will also be DJing at the Electric Picnic festival.

Oisin is represented by Seeca Music Limited. 

www.seeca.co.uk
www.oisinlunny.com
www.lifebloodproductions.co.uk 

Gregory Magee

 

Gregory Magee won Best Score in the 2005 Irish Film & TV Awards for his music for the feature Winters End, directed by Patrick Kenny and produced by Damien Donnelly. He composed and produced all the music for The Fairytaler, a 26 part multi-award winning animation series, based on the stories of Hans Christian Anderson. Produced by Magma/A-Films/Super – RTL, the series is broadcast in more than 90 countries. More recently, the short animated film Granny O’Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty received much attention in the form of an Oscar nomination in 2010.

 

Other tv credits include the 26 part series Zombie Hotel (BBC/Telegael/France 3); Under The Hawthorn Tree (RTE/Channel 4); the title music for RTE’s Rose of Tralee and the reality based tv series Cabin Fever (Coco TV/RTE). He has scored a multitude of shorts including An Evil Cradling, based on the book by Brian Keenan (Kavaleer Productions); The Cat & The Moon, an adaptation of the Yeats play produced by Patrick Bergin for Crimson Films; The Milliner (Kavaleer); The Angelic Organ and The Nest, both for Rocket Animation; Limbo (Zanzibar); Ocras (TG4); The Longest Ditch (Espresso Films/TG4); A Lonely Sky (Zanita) and more. His documentaries include Blaire Maine for Rapid Films.

 

Earlier in his career Gregory worked as a music supervisor on the feature Countess Cathleen for Crimson Films and a scoring supervisor on the features The Last Word (TG4/TV5); A Love Divided (Parallel Films); Filleann An Feall (TG4) and the IMAX film Rheged – The Lost Kingdom.

 

He received his formal music training at The Royal Academy of Music in Dublin and afterwards gained his music degree at Trinity College. He went on to study with the legendary American TV composers Don Ray and Bob Drasnin. He was later awarded a bursary by Screen Training Ireland to undertake further film music studies at UCLA in Los Angeles and apprenticeships with the American composers Mark Watters (Disney) and John Graham (Pensacola – Wings of Gold)
 

He also writes concert and theatre music and his works have been performed widely across the US on a recent tour by the Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra. His works are also to be included in their upcoming concert tour of China. In the past he has also contributed to a variety of publications from instrument tutors to songbooks, many of them published by Walton’s Music Publishing in Dublin. He works from his own digital recording studio in Dublin as well as in London.

 

 

Todd Brabec
 
Todd Brabec is licensing consultant and former Executive Vice President and Director of Membership for the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). A former recording artist and entertainment lawyer as well as being a graduate of the New York University School of Law, he is an adjunct professor at the USC Thornton School of Music/Music Industry Department where he teaches the business of publishing, motion pictures, television and recording. He along with his twin brother Jeff are winners of the Deems Taylor Award for excellence in music journalism and they are authors of the book, MUSIC, MONEY AND SUCCESS: THE INSIDER'S GUIDE TO MAKING MONEY IN THE MUSIC BUSINESS (Schirmer Trade Books/MusicSales/435 pages). For further information see www.musicandmoney.com