Nominees for 2021 Screen Music Awards announced

Via APRA AMCOS

Lights. Camera. Music!

APRA AMCOS and the AGSC (Australian Guild of Screen Composers) today are proud to announce the nominees for the 2021 Screen Music Awards, highlighting the composers who have created the music for screen gems such as Bluey, Ahn’s Brush with Fame, Love on the Spectrum, Hungry Ghosts, Ms Fisher's Modern Murder Mysteries, Bump, Wakefield and many more.

Here are the musical masterminds who scored the on-screen moments that helped us get through the previous year.

Leading the nominations for the 2021 Screen Music Awards with three a-piece are accomplished composers Antony Partos, Cezary Skubiszewski and Michael Yezerski. Antony is acknowledged for Best Music for a Television Series or Serial (Jack Irish), Best Music for a Mini-Series or Telemovie (The End) and Feature Film Score of the Year for Rams. Cezary’s three nominations are for Best Music for a Mini-Series or Telemovie and Best Television Theme for Halifax Retribution co-composed with dual nominee Jan Skubiszewski and Best Music for a Documentary (Chef Antonio’s Recipes for Revolution). Michael appears in the Feature Film Score of the Year category for The Tax Collector, Best Soundtrack Album for The Vigil and Most Performed Screen Composer – Overseas.

Adam Gock and Dinesh Wicks have also scored three nods apiece; together they are nominated as Most Performed Screen Composer – Australia, Most Performed Screen Composer – Overseas and for Best Music for a Mini-Series or Telemovie for Exposed: The Ghost Train Fire.

Dual nominees for the 2021 Screen Music Awards are David McCormack who appears twice in Best Music for a Television Series or Serial - for his work on Bump and Jack Irish.

Composer and vocalist Brontë Horder has also received two nods this year for Best Music for a Mini-Series or Telemovie (Exposed: The Ghost Train Fire) and Best Original Song Composed for the Screen (Fragile Soul from Ellie Was Here).

Other screen composers with dual nominations are:

• Caitlin Yeo for Best Music for a Documentary for Playing with Sharks and in Best Music for a Television Series or Serial for her work on Wakefield.

• Matteo Zingales, who is acknowledged for Best Music for an Advertisement (Save Our Sons: Heartbeat) and Best Music for a Television Series or Serial (Bump).

• King of the kids Joff Bush, who is nominated for Best Soundtrack Album and Best Music for Children’s Programming for his musical magic on the ABC Television kids smash hit Bluey.

• Multi-instrumentalist Roger Mason, who appears twice for his work on Hungry Ghosts in the categories of Best Music for a Mini-Series or Telemovie and Best Television Theme.

• Composer and lyricist Maria Alfonsine who is both a first time AND dual Screen Music Awards nominee. The score for the ABC Television series Wakefield (co-composed with Caitlin Yeo) covers an expansive range of feeling, in alignment with the wide emotional range of the characters.

With Maria, there are a total of 31 first-time nominees to the roll call of 2021. This list of newcomers includes Kate Miller-Heidke, Keir Nuttall, Daniel Müller, Rob Law, Fiona Hill, Jorden Heys, Marly Lüske, Lachlan Nicolson, Steve Peach, Nathan Bird (pka Birdz), Fred Leone, Daniel Rankine (pka Trials), Luke Dubber, Beatrice Lewis, Joel Ma (pka Joelistics), Claire Nakazawa, Mieh Nakazawa, Angus Stuart, Ack Kinmonth, Joni Hogan, David Huxtable, Richard LaBrooy, Rufio Sandilands, Alex Slater, Adam Sofo, Cassie To and Brian Cachia, who is nominated in the Feature Film Score of the Year category for the Australian-British action horror film Bloody Hell. Alex Lahey, Sophie Payten (pka Gordi) and Gabriel Strum (pka Japanese Wallpaper) have also landed on the nominees list each for the first time for On My Way from The Mitchells vs The Machines.

APRA AMCOS and the AGSC would like to congratulate all nominees of the 2021 Screen Music Awards which will be announced on Tuesday 22 February.

In light of the current COVID-19 situation, the live Screen Music Awards event has been cancelled.

Jorde Heys nominated at APRA AMCOS & AGSC Screen Music Awards 2021

Jorde Heys has been nominated for Best Music in a short film for 'Elagabalus' (2019) at the 2021 Screen Music Awards.

The Screen Music Awards represent the successful marriage of two defining elements of contemporary Australian culture: music and film. Presented by APRA AMCOS in conjunction with the Australian Guild of Screen Composers (AGSC), the ceremony is our chance to acknowledge excellence and innovation in the field of screen composition.

This marks Jorde's first nomination, with the winners to be announced on 21st February 2022.

Eidolon - Streaming on Shortwave: Sydney Opera House Online

Screenshot from Eidolon (Xanthe Dobbie, 2021) — Xanthe Dobbie

EIDOLON is a fanatical ode to the image - a myth built on fragmented histories. In the year 2000 Jennifer Lopez wore a green, Jungle-print dress designed by Donatella Versace, so iconic that she broke the internet and Google had to invent Google Images just to keep up. A few thousand years before, Helen of Troy’s face launched a thousand ships, kick-starting the legendary Trojan War. However, some say Helen never even went to Troy, that a carbon copy sculpted by the Gods - an eidolon - was sent in her place. If so, the ten year war was fought for an illusion. Our time is drenched in images and images of images. Merging past, present, and potential futures, this desktop performance dredges the internet, conflating facts and fictions in an act of post-truth digital myth-making.

The 2021 new-media work by Xanthe Dobbie for Sydney Opera House, with sound and music by Jorde Heys, explores the concept of Helen of Troy's eidolon, and its legacy in the digital age. Namely that of the establishment of Google Images after Jennifer Lopez wore a green Versace dress to the 42nd Grammy Awards in the year 2000.

Stream at — https://stream.sydneyoperahouse.com/videos/shortwave-xanthe-dobbie-eidolon

Artists offer a wake-up call on global techno-politics in new exhibition

Screenshot from Cloud Copy (2020) — Xanthe Dobbie

Recent and newly commissioned artworks from Australian and international artists can be seen for the first time in a new exhibition about the Internet at The University of Queensland Art Museum. 
Don’t Be Evil explores the hidden power structures behind the networked technologies that are dominating our everyday lives.

UQ Art Museum Curator Anna Briers said it was a timely interrogation of the dramatic social, political and personal impacts of artificial intelligence and the Internet.  
“In this COVID-19 moment there has been much talk about how the Internet brings people together,” she said. 
“However, in the last decade we have seen it used as a powerful tool to undermine truth and democracy by shaping our behaviour and the way we think, vote and act. 
“There is an urgent need to critically examine the corporate agendas and techno-politics built into the everyday devices, known as the Internet of Things, that are shaping our world.”
The exhibition features screen-based works, interactive installations and virtual reality experiences. 
Don’t Be Evil takes its name from a line that appeared in but was later removed from, Google’s corporate motto. 
A series of public programs will accompany the exhibition, including a speaking event at the State Library of Queensland in December with high profile artificial intelligence ethics researcher and author Dr Kate Crawford. 
Dr Crawford’s work with Vladan Joler is also featured in the exhibition. 
Don’t Be Evil opens 30 July 2021–22 January 2022 and is the second part of UQ Art Museum’s exploration of the dramatically changed socio-political conditions produced by networked technologies, following the success of the first web-based exhibition, We Met Online. 
Exhibition highlights include Eugenia Lim’s ON DEMAND, a bicycle-powered video work exploring the politics of the gig economy, made in collaboration with workers from companies such as Uber and AirTasker, and Simon Denny’s Extractor, an interactive board game on the dynamics of the data mining industry. 
Xanthe Dobbie’s newly commissioned virtual reality work Cloud Copy, with original music by Jorde Heys, explores the omnipotence of the internet, while Kate Geck’s rlx:tech, is an augmented reality installation where audiences can stream bespoke meditations to combat social media anxiety. 
UQ Art Museum manages and curates one of Queensland’s most significant public art collections. 
The museum is in the James and Mary Emelia Mayne Centre at the St Lucia campus, and has expert staff working across areas including curatorial, collection management and art education. 

AFTRS MA GRADUATES NAOMI FRYER AND JORDE HEYS CLAIM MAJOR PRIZES AT FLICKERFEST

via AFTRS

Two Master of Arts Screen graduates, both from the class of 2019, have claimed major prizes at Flickerfest after their AFTRS capstone projects screened at the festival’s 2021 edition. Naomi Fryer was awarded Best Direction in an Australian Short Film award for her work on This River, while composer Jorde Heys won Best Original Music for his work on Archie Chew’s The End, The Beginning.

Naomi Fryer and Jorde Heys

Having screened in the Best of Australian Shorts program, This River – written, directed and produced by Fryer during her final year at AFTRS – earned her an Australian Directors’ Guild Award nomination for Best Direction in a Student Film. This River was made with fellow AFTRS classmates, cinematographer Ehran Edwards (Master of Arts Screen, 2019), editor James A.Thomas (Master of Arts Screen, 2019), composer Jenna Pratt (Graduate Certificate Screen: Music, 2018), sound designer Lana Kristensen (Graduate Diploma in Sound, 2014), first assistant cameraperson Carina Burke (Graduate Certificate Screen: Cinematography, 2017), second assistant cameraperson Annie Benzie (Specialist Extension Course Certificate Cinematography, 1994) and art director Mitchell Jones (Diploma in Screen Design, 2017).

The End, The Beginning made its Australian debut at Flickerfest, shortly following its world premiere at Uppsala Short Film Festival in Sweden.

“I am so pleased and humbled to have received this award. Writing the score for ‘The End, The Beginning’ was a labour of love spanning almost two years. One of my earliest conversations with Archie and Alicia, we were discussing music in film and how they want to create a story with music playing a central character. How pleased I was when this evolved into a Masters’ capstone film, and how lucky I was to spend time closely collaborating with them on some incredibly fun music—I’m still feeling smug that they let me write a Morriccone-inspired, yee-haw western cue with a gorgeous, gun-slingin’ electric guitar solo (played by James Mountain, MA Screen Music 2020). My experience working on this film taught me how to hone my collaborative skills, my compositional proclivities and to more-deeply understand the storytelling power of music in screen stories. My thanks must be extended to my collaborators Archie Chew (director), Alicia Easaw-Mamutil (producer), Sam Herriman (screenwriter) and Xanthe Dobbie (editor) for bringing this story to life, as well as Cameron Patrick, Greg Wise, Geir Brillian for their knowledge and support throughout the process—not to mention the incredible musicians who came in to play for our sessions. More importantly, however, this award has really allowed me to remember why it is so important to keep creating and sharing screen stories when the world needs them most.”

— Jorde Heys

The concept of the film was developed by director Archie Chew with fellow 2019 Master of Arts Screen graduates, producer Alicia Easaw-Mamutil and writer Samuel Herriman, who worked on the film alongside a team of current students and recent alumni, including cinematographer Nick Najdov (Master of Arts Screen, 2019; Diploma in Camera, 2017), editor Xanthe Dobbie (Master of Arts Screen, 2019), third assistant director Peter Skinner (Master of Arts Screen, 2019; Graduate Diploma in Directing, 2013), sound recordists Tahira Donohoe-Bales (Bachelor of Arts Screen: Production, 2018) and Jeremy Nicholas (Master of Arts Screen, 2019), first assistant cameraperson Bebi Zekirovski (Graduate Certificate Screen: Cinematography, 2017; Diploma in Camera Fundamentals, 2016), second assistant cameraperson Jamie McVicker (Master of Arts Screen, 2019), assistant editor Hannah Smith (Diploma in Editing, 2017) and colourist Michael Angelis (Graduate Certificate Screen: Cinematography, 2017).

Still from ‘The End, The Beginning’ (2020) | Dir. Archie Chew

“So happy for Jorde. Just the start of what will be much-deserved recognition for his extraordinary talent I’m sure! Jorde the world is at your feet. Hopefully exposure such as this puts your name in front of other filmmakers who can hear what an asset you would be to their creative teams”

— Cameron Patrick, AFTRS’ Head of Screen Music

“Huge Flickerfest kudos for AFTRS MAS alumni Naomi Fryer (Best Directing, ‘This River’) and Jorde Heys (Original Music, ‘The End, The Beginning’). Naomi’s This River makes the audience think- emotionally, intellectually politically. This is great recognition for both their awesome craft and powerful voices!”

— Rowan Woods, AFTRS’ Head of Directing

Both films were selected to screen at the festival alongside 45 other AFTRS student and alumni films. Flickerfest is now taking its program on the road, touring all states and territories nationwide.

The awards were announced at Flickerfest’s closing night ceremony on 31 January. See the full list of winners here.

‘The End, The Beginning’ release poster | created by Judith Chew and Marianne Findlay