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Scoring SKEET

Andrew Staniland • February 10, 2025

After being released from prison, Billy Skinner returns to his low-income neighbourhood feeling like the area has changed dramatically, and what was once a predominantly white neighbourhood is now mostly occupied by refugee families. 



Thanks to our amazing cast and crew, SKEET has made it into the first round of voting for the Canadian Screen Awards! If you're a voting member of the Academy, please consider our little Newfoundland movie in the feature film categories.

Voting closes for Academy Members on February 13th.


IMDB

Finding Billy Skinner's Sound


Finding the right tone for Billy Skinner and his black and white cinematic world was key. The music needed to evoke empathy for Billy while complementing the black and white cinematography of Nigel Markham. This was achieved through careful instrumentation and the strategic use of musical motifs. The 'band' for Skeet consists of electric and acoustic guitars, synths, strings, piano, tube amps, and old school FX.


The unifying musical motif is "Billy's Theme," uses a pivoting figure: a low note and a high note rocking back and forth on a middle fulcrum. This motif represents Billy's struggle to balance—he has an equal capacity to both fall back to violence and addiction, and to rise up in hope and love. Though I called it "Billy's Theme," I feel everyone's struggle in this motif as well: Mohamed, as a Syrian refugee making a life in Canada, and Leah and Mae as struggling addicts. This simple but effective motif holds the score together from beginning to end. You can hear this motif in all of the Livingston Variations, and in Billy's Theme.





Amps - real VS sim


For this score, I explored the vast world of modeled amplifiers. Interestingly, Logic's built-in amps and pedals were competitive with many of the high-end expensive options. In the end, Guitar Rig was best for this score—in particular, their model of the Fire Breather. Along with the amp simulations, I tracked everything with my trusty old 15-watt Traynor tube amp (early 2000's build) mic'ed with a classic SM57. In several cues, we used a blend of the real amp and the amp sim, and in a few places, both Nik (writer and director) and I actually preferred the real amp to the simulations. In all cases, we left all of the grit in the sound—map buzz, pick noise, string noise—leaving these real, gritty timbres in the sound really worked with the film.


Retro Synths, Vintage Delays,


One of my favourite orchestral colours in the SKEET score is the blending of vintage synths with orchestral strings. I found the best results with the humble Retro Synth in Logic, supplemented by the Native Instruments Modular Icons instrument. I also experimented a lot with sending these non-guitar sounds through the amps and pedals, as a way to colour the world through Billy's eyes (or, ears). Vintage FX such as the Roland Space Echo (both for delay and for colour), and Replika bring a lot of warmth to the score. You can really hear the exposed delay as a musical device in the Face Punch cue.


Drum Power


The lead actor, Sean Dalton, is a terrific drummer, and played for many years with The Trews. Sean and I had a chance to hang out in the studio, check out the score-in-progress, and jam. I recorded the session of Sean playing his heart out on my little Ludwig Questlove kit. These samples found their way into the score at the climax of the movie



Working with Nik


A discussion of the score would not be complete without discussing what it was like to work with Nik Sexton, writer, producer, and director of SKEET. People who know Nik will all agree he possesses best friend qualities - a people person if there ever was one.  Of all the scores I have done, this one took the longest. We worked in intensive periods for almost 2 years on the score, going through a lot of iterations in the edit, and subsequently, the score. It was a luxury to be able to spend so much time on a project, and in the end, our efforts show—we really nailed the tone perfectly. Once, I did a full film score in 2 weeks. It is a lot nicer to have time. Both Nik and I had a great time collaborating and are very proud of the score.


Pic: Nik and I heading down to TIFF to see Christian Sparkes The King Tide, fall 2024


 Check out the score here, for a limited time:

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