Anatomy of a Cue #7: Rens Machielse - Balcony Cacaphony
In this video media composer Rens Machielse provides insight into the creation of both animation and soundtrack of the short film Balcony Cacophony. The special thing about this project is that there was a collaboration between animator/director Quentin Haberham and composer Rens Machielse from the start. Rens, as well as producer Chris Stenger of Family Affair Films, was involved in the development of the script. The actual animation and editing of some crucial scenes was done via a click track related to the music. The music was adapted in a number of scenes to the final animation. But there were also other adjustments by editing a scene slightly differently, which made the music stand out better. In addition, there was the necessary sound design by colleague Willem Schneider, so that music and sound design regularly flowed seamlessly into each other. All in all, a labor-intensive but very special and successful project. The animated film Balkon Cacophony has been selected and shown by various national and international animation festivals. The music was selected for the Peer Raben Music Award.
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Rens Machielse - Media composer
Rens Machielse composes and produces sound and music for moving images such as fiction, documentary and especially animation in close collaboration with Willem Schneider (Studio Masch). Both have long standing and award winning careers as composer and sound designer. His music has been awarded with a.o. the Stemra Music Award and a Gold Medal Best Original Score New York Festivals. Examples of his music can be found on SoundCloud. In 2020 Rens and Willem completed the sound track for the short animation film See Me which won the The Gouden Kalf Award for the Best Short Film 2020 at the Dutch Film Festival and the Best Dutch Short Award at the Kaboom Festival 2021. See Me was selected for a variety of international film festivals such as the Annecy International Animation Film Festival. In the following years they worked on a variety of animation films such as Balcony Cacophony, FLY, Love on the Edge and Crumble with animators such as Mackenzie Fincham, Anselm Oetel and Lemon Bandit. FLY was selected at the Dutch Film Festival 2022 for the Best Short Film Award. The soundtrack of Balcony Cacophony was nominated for the Peer Raben Music Award 2023.
Composing media music is about making things. In the Anatomy of a Cue series, composers show how they do it. Focusing on just one piece (the cue) these in-depth videos dissect the music in detail: what's in there? Where did it come from? What was the creative process like - and what's that weird sound in the background?
Balcony Cacaphony (short film)
director: Quentin Haberham
music composition: Rens Machielse & Willem Schneider
Anatomy of a Cue
Created by: Rens Machielse
Editing: Sebastiaan Donders
Producer: Ivo Witteveen
