Creating Sound for Video: Connections that lead to opportunities

Emotional moments in video are often accompanied by sound, perhaps a musical score that strikes a chord, heightening the emotions in video. Or hear a piece of music in the context of a striking visual or scene. Video also brings context to sound. Starting today, we’ll explore the complementary relationship between sound and video. We’ll meet SoundCloud community members who have had opportunities to experiment with creating for video and film.

Spread across four different countries, five SoundCloud community members collaborated to create the soundtrack for web tv series After Hell, a story of post-apocalyptic zombie life.

SoundClouders Cyra Morgan (based in Rochester, New York) contributed vocals, Deane Ogden (Jakarta, Indonesia and Los Angeles, CA) played drums, Dave McKeown (Devon, UK) contributed clarinet and flute, Oliver Sadie played the piano, and his wife Penny Sadie played the cello from London, UK.

The opportunity to not only score but also produce the show came directly from connecting with the show’s creator Alexander Hölzl at the 2011 G-tech creativity competition, said Oliver, who also produced the series. Oliver was a music finalist in the competition with the help of the SoundCloud community.

“Interestingly, the track which got me the finalist place at the G-Tech competition was a community-centred mass collaboration on SoundCloud, that the SoundCloud community team, in particular David Noël, helped support. By that time I had made many musician friends on SoundCloud and we collectively wrote the track that ended up doing well in that competition. I’m proud to say that some of those SoundCloud friends are now collaborators in the soundtrack to After Hell.”

Building connections with the SoundCloud community has impacted Oliver’s professional career as a composer in film and television. “I have learned so much from people of all musical backgrounds and it has been immensely rewarding.” He emphasizes that if you’re planning a similar venture, don’t do it alone.

“Do it together, collaborate, because the result is always far greater than the sum of its parts. You’re not losing out by not having full credit for the music, you’re gaining reach, learning skills, multiplying your talents and opening opportunities that simply would not exist otherwise. SoundCloud has been and always will be a game changer for the talented home musician to truly shine on a world stage. Embrace it and you will write your own musical future.”

We’re continuing to profile more creators involved in creating for video. Stay tuned on the blog, Tumblr and Twitter next week.