On Friday Jan 17th, 2025, I’ll present a masterclass session on “music for silent films”, at TIFF 2025, the Tromsø International Film Festival. This is a co-production between Insomnia Festival, TIFF and Musikkontoret.
During my career I’ve so far done music for five silent films and some shorts. Apparently that makes me a “master” and now I get to hold a “class” on this. Which is going to be interesting. Here’s the programme text:
How to Create and Perform New Music for Classic Silent Films
Gisle Martens Meyer (Ugress) has composed new music for numerous silent films, all of which have toured cinemas and festivals across Norway and Europe. His soundtracks are electronically based, but performed live, always with a conceptual angle tied to the film.
He frequently collaborates with a wide range of musicians and artists for live performances. In this masterclass, he will outline how he develops and executes a holistic concept for each film, from initial idea to the live cinema premiere. This presentation covers:
- Idea and Conceptualisation
- Budgeting, Finances, and Funding
- Communication with Cinemas and Cinematheques
- Collaboration with Musicians and Artists
- Composition and Arranging for Moving Images (“Score”)
- Sound Design and Production (“Sound”)
- Technical and Practical Execution (“Live Audio-Visual Event”)
The presentation is rich with audio and visual examples from various film projects, demonstrating concretely how ideas are transformed from theory into practice. This masterclass is suitable both for artists interested in working with film music and for general film and music enthusiasts who want a behind-the-scenes look at how everything comes together.
Ugress is a Norwegian electronic media art project that creates music and visuals for both stage and screen. The music is widely used in film, TV, and video games, and the artist has also composed scores for films and TV series, including for NRK. Ugress’ silent film projects include music for La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc, Aelita: Queen of Mars, Häxan, the iconic A Trip to the Moon, and the Norwegian classic Brudeferden i Hardanger.
